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John Dreese
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Red Hope: (Book 1) Kindle Edition

by John Dreese (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 6,694 ratings
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**(NOTE: THE 5TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION IS NOW AVAILABLE ON AMAZON)**
For two million years, Mars hid an alien secret...
...two hours ago, an unmanned rover found it.

Earth scrambles to assemble the first manned mission to the Red Planet, ignoring safety concerns. The A-list astronauts walk away. Is the secret mission doomed?

Who will they turn to?

Retired astronaut Adam Alston has made mistakes - he can't support his family. When NASA comes knocking for a mission leader, it's a match made in heaven. Does he still have the right stuff to lead a team?

As the adventure tumbles toward the secret, the team discovers there's a fine line between hero and villain. Will they reach the secret in time?

The clock is ticking.

Priced for fun, get your copy today!

***Now a COMPLETE, bestselling series, over 130,000 copies sold!***

*** NOTE: The content of this e-book has been updated to match that of the 5th Anniversary Edition, published in March 2020) ***

PRAISE FOR THE RED HOPE SERIES:
"Ground control to majorly entertaining!" - Amazon Reviewer
"It's 4am and I'm holding my breath!" - Note from a reader
"This was a rip roaring fun read." - Amazon Reviewer

QUESTIONS FOR THE AUTHOR ABOUT RED HOPE:

Q: Is the RED HOPE series hard scifi?
A: No. Not at all. It's general scifi with a plot-driven mix of adventure and current-day Mars mystery. You won't need a calculator or a slide rule to enjoy these books.

Q: Do your books have cliffhangers?
A: The first book is an entertaining story with a mild cliffhanger at the end. Fortunately, Blue Hope finishes up the series with a climactic ending that brings it all home.

Q: Is the series complete?
A: Yes! BLUE HOPE marks the end of the series and it does it with a solid (but wild) ending. There is no cliffhanger at the end of Blue Hope.

*** This is the first novel in a two-book series.
*** This first book ends with a cliffhanger.
*** The final novel in this series, BLUE HOPE, is available now.
*** This first book ends with a cliffhanger.
Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 2
    Red Hope
  2. Print length
    319 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publication date
    December 20, 2014
  6. File size
    1277 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"One of the most haunting final images of any book I've ever read." - Reviewer"Ground Control to Majorly Entertaining!" - Reviewer "It's 4am and I'm holding my breath!" - Reviewer"This was a rip roaring fun read." - Reviewer

About the Author

JOHN DREESE enjoys stories about adventure, people, and technology. RED HOPE was his first novel. BLUE HOPE, the long-awaited sequel to RED HOPE, was published in October 2017. Of all the JOHN DREESE's on the internet, he's the one that might or might not work in a yurt factory.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00RA7QOHY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ JOHN DREESE (December 20, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 20, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1277 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 319 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1511497122
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 6,694 ratings

About the author

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John Dreese

John Dreese

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RED HOPE was JOHN's first novel. BLUE HOPE, the sequel to RED HOPE, was published in October 2017. In late 2019, a short story prequel to RED HOPE called FIRST HOPE was released, available as a free bonus to readers.

In March of 2020, he released a completely re-written and re-edited version of RED HOPE to help celebrate the 5th Anniversary. He is working on a third full-length novel.

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
6,694 global ratings
Red and Blue Hope
5 Stars
Red and Blue Hope
I really enjoyed Red Hope and its sequel, Blue Hope. In fact, I enjoyed both books so much that I read each of them twice in the past 1 1/2 years.Adam is the selfish, often unlikeable, character in Red Hope. However, he begins to develop a real conscience towards the end of this novel, while facing nearly certain death, during the return trip to Earth and the reentry and landing in the Little Turtle, Of course, readers need to suspend disbelief completely about most aspects of aeronautics, but that’s the point of reading fiction!Upon his miraculous return to earth, Adam embarks on a narcissistic lecture tour, before ultimately going to the moon and finally behaving selflessly, sacrificing his life to save his fellow crew mate—this was very moving; needless to say, Blue Hope has a great denouement.
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Top reviews from the United States

Brian
4.0 out of 5 stars A Sci-Fi Mystery
Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2016
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Red Hope was written if a hard science fiction, a normal sci-fi, and a mystery book all had a baby together. There were definitely parts of hard sci-fi in this with some of the descriptions of the propulsion, the world that they find, and just the everyday life of the scientists on Mars. The regular "old school" sci-fi was the premise and the struggles that the astronauts and scientists were going through. The mystery part was the most intriguing. Sure, any science fiction can have mystery in it, but this whole book was shrouded in it.

I did enjoy it, it wasn't as tech savvy as The Martian, or as wonderfully as some thrillers or mysteries that I usually read, but it was still a really enjoyable book. Enjoyable enough that I definitely want to figure out what happens in the next book.

The narration, done by Bob Reed was good. He reminds me of a voice that I know from Hollywood but I can't place the name even though I can see his face. (I wanna say he was bigger in the 80's but that doesn't really help much here). Regardless, Reed does a really nice job with Red Hope -- helping move the story along nicely.

I have a bit of a spoiler question that I will attempt to write without spoiling anything. Dear Mr. Dreese -- unless there is a lot more explanation in the second book, why was the extra thing included on the ISS there (and that whole random plot-line there?) Seriously, it felt so completely out of place with the entire rest of the story. I was a little worried the entire book was going to take a weird turn from that point on.

Overall, Red Hope was good. I definitely enjoyed reading it and will check out the next book if it's released on audio.
2 people found this helpful
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Dr. Michael Shuck
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun Book!
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2019
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Several years ago I completely stopped reading science fiction. It wasn't because I was getting blasé about the genre. It was the stories. They were getting old, repeated, hackneyed, and, well, tired. Ok. Not just tired. Sort of tired in a really dead way kind of tired. My favorite authors' writings were so dead they were starting to stink. It was as if I were reading the same stories over and over with only the characters' names changed. They were dead as a graveyard where every grave looks much the same except the tombstones have different names. Who could blame me for moving on? Then, earlier this year, I saw some reviews of John Dreese's "Red Hope" and they were quite good reviews! My longing for good writing started again. True that I was missing the old classics such as Burroughs'. And I missed some of the avant-garde science fiction stories such as ones where sentences evidently do not often need a copular verb. Some of that writing pretty good! (...think about it... think about it... there you go!)

One quick download of "Red Hope" was done and I was on to reading! Dreese's ability to get a story moving quickly showed up ...umm... quickly. Early on I was very pleased to experience first hand a well-paced story but not one with thirty-seven adjectives to describe the colors of the budding flower of a Mars cactus. It is written with a keen sense of an economy of words. His writing has pace and rhythm and it's skillfully done. No unnecessary is verbosity allowed here..move on! Dreese has a distinct talent for characterization. The reader soon understands the character of the characters by how Dreese shows the reader their actions rather than endless drivel about how they feel. You'll get to know an astronaut who chances his life in order to gain a million dollars for his wife's experimental surgery. The reader will easily dislike the narcissistic President who sacrifices relationships to insure himself a presence in the limelight. And the reader will experience the mind of a mogul inventor who is the only human who can make rocket engines that can take the astronauts to Mars... and back... and do it faster than anyone else.

All of this is cleverly written, fast-paced, and interesting. Dreese takes the reader through the launch and arrival at Mars. He has mastered the art of producing tension and then the release of tension. This is not formula fiction. No monsters here. It's clever, entertaining, and ends far too soon.

In fact the story ends so soon that I'm now stopping my praises of Dreese's work and I'm starting to read his sequel, "Blue Hope", in three...two...one seconds...!

Mike Shuck, Wichita, KS
8 people found this helpful
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DT
3.0 out of 5 stars Unlikeable Main Characters and Unlikely Premise
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2020
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I usually love Mars related Science Fiction and I try hard to accommodate story plot lines that stretch scientific reality for an otherwise decent story. It was difficult to do that with this book. Although I finished it, I have a hard time recommending it. Before I get into the negatives, I do want to applaud the overall writing and editing as I don't recall finding any poor grammar or misspellings. This is becoming rare in the e-book world, and it is one of the reasons I decided to finish the book. A lot of the referenced science is decent (helicopter pods on Mars for example), but the main premise that Mars was habitable up to a few hundred thousand years ago is ridiculous, and could have been easily avoided. The overall plot idea was okay, but the following negatives kind of killed that for me (warning - there are some spoiler alerts in here):
1. The main character is a real looser, and I mean looser! I started off thinking that he would kind of shake off the rough edges, but the character kept getting worse as the story went on. It is highly unlikely that any former astronaut would act like this individual, especially once they were placed in charge of a mission. The sad part is, I think it would have been a better book if he had the character of even an average mission commander. There is no way NASA would let a guy like this into space, much less commanding a mission (I've met a few astronauts and interfaced with NASA a few times during my career, and based on that I just can't see a guy like this even being involved with this mission from the ground.
2. The industry guy is okay, but there are a lot of things like his drug habit that are not really explained. Again, NASA would never agree to letting someone like this on a mission. Not because he blackmails NASA into letting him on, but because they would have caught his drug problem sometime before launch, and even a mediocre commander would not have ignored it. Also, no NASA administrator is going to allow themselves to be bamboozled like the NASA administrator in the book. The only realistic character is the Russian cosmonaut, but she comes across to be as being sidelined most of the time.
3. We clearly know now from all of the science conducted on Mars for the past 50 years that the planet has been uninhabitable for a few billion years. So finding ancient artifacts from a civilization that has only been extinct for a few hundred thousand is not very believable. This is where being creative should align with science (at least to some degree). I have an easier time believing in a Martian ancient artifact that is a billion years old than something that is relatively recent. There was a great opportunity for the author to be creative here, but this premise just came across as impossible and scientifically ignorant.
4. More time (quite a bit more actually) could have been spent describing the artifacts the team found. The uncovering of artifacts just seemed to be contrived and glossed over. Supposedly it describes what happened to the ancient Martians, but it is glossed over, as well as one significant artifact that defies gravity. Interesting idea, but the author does NOTHING with this, not even a hint that something significant would be discovered in the second book.
5. I won't even get into the nuclear war thing too much. I guess it could happen, but again the author really does not do anything with this. It comes off more as an excuse to not have to deal with an interaction between Mission Control and the astronauts so the plot can be quickly brought to a conclusion. And missiles on the space station? Okay I guess we could grant some science license here, but again, this did not add anything to the story for me. The ending is just too abrupt and could have been done with more detail and a stronger story line.

Bottom line is the author should rewite this with a stronger emphasis to real science and realistic characters. Better yet, you can find better Mars science fictions novels out there.
6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

steve
4.0 out of 5 stars Good old fashioned sci-fi
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 24, 2023
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Cracked on at a good pace. Enjoyable read
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Kindle Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Red hope
Reviewed in Canada on January 8, 2020
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This story Is unique in the way it portrays the main characters. Such a new and interesting way of explaining history.
2 people found this helpful
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Shivraj singh rathore
4.0 out of 5 stars The first hand shake with.....A great journey to future ( Us )
Reviewed in India on May 29, 2019
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Outstanding work of Fiction. Great work being standalone work If you just came across this -get it. It's worth the price of admission & one heck of a ride in our may be possible future. Which after reading you won't think twice buying second part Blue Hope as I just did. The author work was commendable work.Its fiction, pure and simple; with incredible vision and scope, excellently written, with heart stopping plot twists, great character development, and especially i loved how different scene work in different time frames.
Dreese both books was a blast to read and I found myself staying up far too late to finish. Refreshingly original sci-fi which is full of physics, emotion, sarcasm, fear, bravery, love for family, .........

Thank you Mr.Dreese for the journey.
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Tarielle
4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good for a sci fi
Reviewed in Australia on April 18, 2018
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I love everything to do with space and planets but normally I would read a factual book, not a novel because we haven't been "out there" and nobody can accurately tell us exactly what a planet is going to be like. That said, I found the synopsis of this book very interesting and I am now quite glad that I read it. To be honest, the description given by the author of what Mars would be like could be a possibility. The characters in the book, mainly the astronauts, are very real and you end up developing a readers bond with them. You feel for them as they struggle to survive the unhospitable Mars environment and try to safely get back home. The ending was not what I expected but it nicely leaves the door open to a follow up book which I am pleased to say I will also read. I rather like this author because this story is believable - for the future maybe.
One person found this helpful
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elrik
1.0 out of 5 stars Author is learning to write
Reviewed in Germany on April 8, 2016
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or so it seems with this novel. The science and logistics of space flight are often flawed, the characters superficial and not acting quite erratically, and too many ideas cramped into one rather disappointing story.Topped with a few attempts at humor. Not worth the money!
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