The universe is endless and even in the future there is a lot we don’t understand about it. In the future, Earth has had a war with machines, started a new race of people on Mars and we have the ability to grow new body parts and become half cyborg. So much has changed, but a few things have stayed the same.

Farther Than We Dreamed: The Secrets Of The Universe by Noah K. Mullette-Gillman is an ambitious book. Noah creates his own futuristic mythology and there are some original ideas in here that I haven’t heard of in other Science Fiction books. The characters are interesting, the story is good but what kept me reading was Noah’s vision of the future.

When I first heard of this book I thought it sounded like Star Trek but the only way this book is like Star Trek is that we have a group of people out exploring the Universe. This concept in itself is interesting but there is a mystery here also because the crew doesn’t know their exact mission or who sent them out into space. They also don’t remember a lot of their past. If you want to know more you will have to read the book, but there are so many great ideas in this book you could spend a month pondering its deeper meanings.

The crew of the USS Shamballa is pretty diverse, they come from different periods of time from the year 2030 all the way to 2792. We have musicians, artists, politicians, cyborgs, scientists and even a pop star.What’s really interesting about all these characters is that despite all the advancements made throughout time, they still have the same problems we have today. A couple of characters have ego problems that seem to get them into trouble, another is having a hard time getting over events from their past and another is so different from the others that she doesn’t know where she fits in.

The most amazing part of this book is the ship itself, it actually has cities, forests and creatures that have been bred specifically to support the ship’s ecosystem. You could do a whole novel on how the ship works and how it was designed. I thought it was fascinating and I found myself thinking that if I was on this ship I wouldn’t want to explore other planets. There is so much to talk about in this book its hard to pick one thing.

If I was to use any word to describe this book it would be epic. I felt like this was more of a future history book then a novel. In reality the book is a series of five novellas that all have the same characters. It made me think of a Science Fiction pulp fiction series but with much more depth. This book doesn’t read like a regular book because it’s not a regular book. What it lacks in a cohesive story and suspense, it made up for with great characters, originality and cool ideas. Despite some problems I had with it, I couldn’t put the book down and I’m happy to say that it’s part of an ongoing series. There are a lot of places that the crew of The Shamballa can go and it will be exciting to see what’s next. ( )