Editor's Review from :

"Above the call of duty

It seemed a simple enough task: crew a supply ship to an isolated research station orbiting Jupiter. However, a meteor strike makes this trip anything but routine. Instead a disillusioned and barely competent team turn accident into disaster and uncover a perplexing mystery as a result.
At the beginning of this fast paced sci fi novel, you’re reminded of the movie Dark Star where a bizarre crew float aimlessly through space. But there is much more to David Murdoch’s story and his characters. We’re drawn further into the petty feuding of the crew and the blurring of reality and virtual reality that happens during the voyage. For a long time, even the reader isn’t quite sure which is which.
And it’s this unusual and imaginative plot twist that helps this story to stand out. The characters are well drawn. The action and the dialogue believable. Imagine being stuck in a tin can in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do for five months and you’d probably end up doing what these characters do. And, then there’s the final sting in the tail.
All in all, a most enjoyable read for every fan of the genre.

IP"

Excerpts from a review by :

"David Murdoch's Iridium is an ambitious, encompassing, sweep of imagination.

Murdoch uses an approach that embraces, among other elements, a sort of highly individual technological fantasy, and as a result has produced a fine, multilayered, multitextured example of a hugely popular genre.  This novel is perhaps not so much fantasy as metaphor, imagination, with a glimpse into a possible parallel reality, in many ways not much different to ours...

...the figures that inhabit this landscape are recognisably ourselves, they are not the creatures of science fiction or fantasy literature.  What they certainly are, and what Murdoch's environment decidedly is, is original, and in this genre, originality is perhaps the first essential towards a creative success.
Iridium is written with a hand that is both sure and light.  I particularly liked the writing style; right from the outset, the reader is immediately engaged, and made a part of the world of the writer.  At around 200 plus book pages, this is a book that gives itself the space to develop fully its theme, but although the narrative is relatively complex, it is surely drafted, and nowhere loses its way.  It sustains itself, and flags nowhere.

...Murdoch's writing is immensely alive, and works perfectly in this arena. Unlike some fantasy writers, the narrative is arguably based in a relevant reality; and from this, the extrapolation becomes more credible.
One gets the feeling that the author had as much excitement writing this imaginative, metaphorical allegory as the reader will in the reading, and the writing style is clear, logical and elegant."