EndLand

TLDR

A claustrophobic space-horror that pits a stubborn female captain against reanimated, soil-eating corpses on a dark planet. While the core alien concept is brilliant and the ending delivers some genuine, bittersweet humanity, the execution is heavily bogged down by repetitive phrasing, illogical character tantrums, and hand-wavey “science” as a plot device.

---

The Author Connection: “C’est moi!”

Before we even get into the mud of Nicron, I have to talk about the author. I had the privilege of exchanging a few messages with F.P. Adriani on Goodreads. She’s been writing for over three decades, has penned 37+ novels, and has a background in professional science editing.

When I asked her if the protagonist, Nina, was based on her, she quoted Flaubert: “C’est moi!”

(Look, I don’t understand German, but I’m pretty sure that translates to “that’s me.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but let’s run with it.)

She explained that she writes “inside-out”—putting her own thoughts, fears, and dreams directly onto the page. In fact, she revealed that EndLand actually came to her during a vivid, lucid nightmare. Knowing that completely changed how I viewed the book. The chaotic, logic-defying, sudden shifts in the story don’t feel like typical hard sci-fi; they feel like the unsettling, frantic logic of a nightmare.

She also shared a heartbreaking indie-author tragedy: when EndLand was first published, it was actually selling every single day. Then, a reviewer posted the ending of the book in the title of their Amazon review. Sales completely flatlined the next day and never recovered. It’s a brutal reminder of how fragile the indie writing path is, and it made me respect her determination to keep putting her “pure self” out there even more.

---

The Critique: The Paradox of the “Science” Word

Here is where my writer’s brain started to friction-burn. Adriani has a real-world background in science, which makes the actual text of EndLand a bizarre paradox.

Throughout the book, the word “science” is thrown around constantly as a vague, hand-wavey magic wand to justify whatever is happening.

“Well,” I said, “at some point in science, you have to take a leap when there’s an emergency and give the situation your best guess.”

As a reader, this drove me crazy. What kind of science? Astrophysics? Organic chemistry? Quantum mechanics? Just yelling “because science!” doesn’t explain how these reanimated bodies are functioning.

For a writer who edits heavily and has scientific training, the prose itself is surprisingly unpolished. The dialogue is plagued by a repetitive “asked fast” / “shouted fast” rhythm that drains the tension from high-stakes scenes. During a literal alien-zombie siege on the shuttle, we get lines like:

“Where the hell are they now?” I asked fast.
“What the fuck do we do?” Yuri asked fast.

The characters—supposedly grown, professional adults in deep space—react to crises like stressed teenagers. They burst into tears, throw screaming tantrums, and yell curse words at each other with zero repercussions. Michael, the station director, commands zero authority and throws verbal fits (“Stop jerking me the fuck around”), yet Nina is instantly infatuated with his “sensual hard jawline” and sapphire-blue eyes. In the middle of a quarantine lockdown, she ends up in a bathrobe and the story abruptly pivots into cozy romance. The pacing whiplash is real.

---

The Saving Grace: The “Good Parts”

But beneath the clunky dialogue, there are a few beautiful diamonds in the dirt. When Adriani stops trying to force the sci-fi plot and lets her characters just be human, the writing shines.

My favorite line in the book occurs when Nina is staring at her grime-covered, sallow face in a hospital bathroom mirror, feeling the weight of the disaster:

“I felt a thick pain behind my eyes—unshed tears, over the whole trip, over what could have been, over what ultimately wound up being. Sometimes, life just fucking stinks.”

That is brilliant. It’s gritty, honest, and completely relatable.

The concept of the “Trappen” alien species is also wonderfully creative. The revelation that these organisms are trying to reach “etherspace” to merge and evolve into living planets—a journey delayed by an “orgasmic miscalculation” that trapped them in space-rock—is delightfully weird.

And the ending actually works. Michael and Nina realize they are too different to make it work. Their final kiss has genuine gravity, leading to a bittersweet, realistic parting:

“Sometimes things just don’t work out,” I said, my voice lower this time.

---

The Philosophical Riddle: The Objective Observer

During my conversation with her, Adriani dropped a brilliant philosophical truth bomb that perfectly frames the theme of EndLand:

“This is largely a physics issue—with respect to the probable inexistence of a truly objective observer residing within a universal and/or nonbiased reference frame. At least among humanity, there probably aren’t any objective observers.”

This is the ultimate “Good Part” of the book. In EndLand, everyone is trapped in their own biased reference frames. Nina is viewing the crisis through the lens of her ship’s safety and her own survival. Michael is viewing it through the lens of station bureaucracy and political preservation. Cherkoff is viewing it through the lens of scientific ego and his pursuit of immortality.

None of them can see the situation objectively. And because they can’t step outside of their own reference frames, they end up clashing, screaming, and making terrible decisions until the alien Trappen literally forces them to look at a wider, universal scale of existence.

It makes you think: how much of our own daily drama is just us running around in our own closed, biased reference frames, entirely unable to see the “etherspace” around us?

Final Verdict

EndLand is not a book for prose purists. The writing is rough, the dialogue is juvenile in spots, and the generic use of “science” will make analytical readers twitch.

But if you can look past the mechanical flaws and read it for what it is—a vivid, lucid nightmare put onto paper by an author who refuses to write to trends—there is a warm, high-concept heart beating underneath the yellow-green zombie skin. It’s an honest indie effort, and sometimes, that’s exactly what you need.