Rocket!

An Ell Donsaii Story, Book 4

By: Laurence Dahners

Narrated by: Laura Bannister

Rocket! is the fourth in a series of near-future sci-fi/thrillers whose young heroine Ell Donsaii has a nerve mutation. This mutation’s rendered her a genius and an athletic phenomenon. In Rocket! she works out the enormous potential of the wormholes she discovered in Lieutenant. Though they only provide small openings through the fifth dimension, these wormholes will prove a tremendous boon to humankind. Feeding fuel to little rockets will let them fly all the way up into space.

Excerpt:

Excitedly Ell started picking up the components and laying them on the surface of the big table. The happy babble around her quieted as one by one the team members turned to watch her lay out a number of metal tubes. She heard them speculating, “What is it?” “All those tubes. Some kind of plumbing project?” Ell laid a pointed cap at the left end and a conical device at the other. “A rocket?” someone asked. Ell grinned up at them, “Yep, a rocket.” Ben said, “Why a rocket? I thought we were going to replace rockets with instantaneous transfer of materials through ports to the satellites and to the space station?” Ell smiled even more broadly. “Well, first we have to get our ports up to orbit where we want to transfer those materials, right? And before you say we can just send them up on the rockets that already go up there, think about why those rockets are so huge?” She looked around the group. “Right? Because they have to carry so much fuel! For the first part of the mission they’re mostly just launching fuel for the next part of the mission. It’s horribly inefficient!” The group stared at her as they pondered her words. Fred scratched his head. “Are you thinking this little rocket”, he waved at the parts on the table, “because we can port it fuel, could make it all the way to orbit?” Ell waggled her eyebrows, “All the way to the space station!” Eyes widened around the group. Someone said, “Then we could ‘port’ them supplies!” Ell said, “Yeah! So, full speed ahead!"

©2012 Laurence E Dahners (P)2019 Laurence E Dahners

Another great story

I love the series and own all the ebooks. Simply put this is fun read complete with evil corporate entities, and their minions and yes the Chinese connection is still in play.
Perhaps best of all this is that there is no gratuitous sex or violence. So no problem getting for my teenage grandchildren to listen to or read perhaps even both.
I am now waiting for audible book number five.

Another win for Laurence Danners!

I've read this several times and listened to it, and the story just keeps getting better.

i love the series, i couldn't put it down

i'm really enjoying the series. i could wait for the audio books so i read the entire set to date.
now please get the audio books out the soon.

Awesome series

This has been an awesome series. I’m recommending it to friends. Now I have to find another series to read, but how will I top this one?

Ell Donsaii, Rocket

This was a fun story with a lot of good science. I can't wait for the rest of the series to come to Audible. I hope they use the same narrator Laura Bannister was really great.

Perspective on Men

I have written more general reviews in other series episodes. I want to say something about Mr. Dahners portrayal of male gendered characters in the series.

There are two kinds of men in Ell Donsaii's world: "friendly boys" and complete assholes. The friendly boys are in love with Donsaii, either romantically or platonically. On in some cases romantically and then plaronically. But, they all love her and are devoted to he; they would make the supreme sacrifice for her. They will never have to worry about that though because Ell Donsaii kicks ass and she's only one who does.

Early in her life a pattern develops in the way things go with the other gender in Ell's life. Ell meets a boy, wows the boy (in good ways and bad), but, ultimately, leaves the boy after an extended if not prolonged dating period during which Ell makes it clear the she needs no man, and each relationship fails to launch. For some reason that pattern changes with the person who becomes the actual boyfriend - as opposed to friendly boy - but not by much. That is she meets him, wows him, makes it clear she doesn't need hi, but falls for him. even though, from the readers perspective, this guy is no different than the other three. What it looks like is that Ell decides in the last cast that she's not going to let another friendly boy drift away and so closes with him.

Other, more peripheral, men are either devoted to Ell Donsaii, or they think she's "just a girl" and behave in a stereotypically boorish manner right up until she puts them in their place.

These men are a variety of the complete asshole males, though a kinder softer version. The antagonists of these stories however are neither kind, nor gentle. Indeed, they are kidnappers, murderers, rapists and radical terrorists. There are causes for concern in the composition of Donsaii's deadly enemies. All of them are men, all of them people of color (or non-white if that term is not applicable) and all of them near or far eastern in origin: Chinese at first, then middle eastern. The series is currently at 16 episodes and only the first 8 are available on Audible, so it's possible that some of the future enemies are Eastern European or even Western, but the ones we've seen so far fulfill all of the worst stereotypes of these cultures and peoples.

Aside from these exaggerated bad guys, men are basically plot devices for Dahners: the ways and means to take Ell and her fellow female actors through the developments of their lives. Ell needs romance, voilà! there's a boy and she's married.

I don't think any of this is meanly meant. However, there is no doubt that, in Ell's world, men are generally not very nice people.

serious gaps with missing audio

gaps of missing audio, mixed up and out of order. chapters do not line up with written chapter numbers this needs fixed asap.