Ahoy there mateys!  I received this sci-fi eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

I have been meaning to try Adrian Tchaikovsky's work for ages now, so when I saw this beautiful cover I took a chance.  Turns out this 140 page story deals with first contact through the dark humor of Gary the astronaut.

An alien rock was discovered out in Oort Cloud and Gary was one of the astronauts sent to explore this amazing find.  Of course disaster strikes and Gary is separated from his team and is lost inside the artifact.  The story is told from alternating sections of Gary's present and Gary's perspective on the discovery of the artifact and how he ended up in his predicament.  The problem?  Gary seems a just a bit insane.

I actually really enjoyed Gary's unreliable narration.  It did take me a minute to get absorbed into the story because Gary's modus operandi is a rather scattered approach of putting his thoughts together.  But I wanted desperately to know more about the artifact and how it works.  So I kept reading and found that I loved following Gary on his rather desperate journey.  I was both entertained and horrified by poor Gary.

Turns out there are way more questions than answers.  Also the physics of place kinda hurt me noggin.  But I very much enjoyed the expedition and the silly ending.  This was fun.  I will certainly be picking up more works by Adrian Tchaikovsky in the future.  Arrrr!

Side note: "Aldebaran" from the title is the fourteenth brightest star in our sky and is known as the "Eye of Taurus."  The name derives from the Arabic for "the follower."  Cool!