Book Review: The Engine in the Sky (Dyson Bridge, #3) by V.G. Harrison

Engine in the Sky: The Dyson Bridge series Book 3 by V.G. Harrison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It’s a race to save New Earth as the Bridgeway Space Station’s orbital decay accelerates.

The Engine in the Sky is the third episode of author V.G. Harrison’s exciting Dyson Bridge series and the continuing adventures of Dr. Meridia Vail and the crew of the ill-fated Bridgeway Space Station that was blasted from its own dimension into that of a similar but less advanced version of their Earth. Five years have passed, and the station’s orbit around New Earth has begun to decay at an accelerated rate, threatening the planet’s very existence. With the countries of New Earth all vying for the advanced knowledge and technology the crew and equipment represent, Meridia and her colleagues race to regain control and prevent their misuse. However, their long sojourn in seclusion on the planet has had unexpected ramifications for their health, and many of the accidental interdimensional space travelers are dying. Their only cure may be to return to the Bridgeway as soon as possible.

This latest installment of the Dyson Bridge series follows the crew’s desperate efforts to return to the space station and keep the New Earthers from taking their technology for nefarious purposes. Meridia gets to meet and spend time with her interdimensional self, who in this iteration is a married mother of two with a degree in mechanical engineering and a genius for designing and building futuristic automobiles from scratch. Bridgeway Meridia feels the emotional pangs of her pending divorce and the miscarriage she suffered in her own dimension and timeline, as she gets to know the children of her New Earth counterpart.

This story is a wonderful mix of action, adventure, political machinations, personal development, and personal crises, with characters who feel like friends. As it is a continuation of the Bridgeway’s ongoing trials, it is best read after completing the previous two novels in the series. I recommend THE DYSON BRIDGE series to science fiction readers with a preference for space opera action/adventure style storylines.

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Book Review: Rock Hopper by Kenneth Ocklund

Rock Hopper: Mine asteroids, or die trying by Kenneth Ocklund
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An exciting space thriller featuring space pirates and a daring operation to transport an asteroid to Earth’s orbit.

Rock Hopper is a new and exciting space thriller from author Kenneth Ocklund featuring pirates and a daring and desperate operation to capture a resource-rich asteroid and transport it to a U.S. Navy spaceport orbiting Earth to mine it for its valuable metals. When access to a super-advanced spacecraft practically falls in his lap, the aimless son of a war hero killed in action after the "Satellite Wars" between the U.S. and Russia hatches a plan to provide such an asteroid to the Navy for a multi-trillion-dollar payday. However, his recent friendship with Becka, the captain of a space privateering operation, puts a target on his back by her traitorous former second-in-command, Blitz.

Toru is the son of a renowned war hero (and secret developer of an advanced triple-threat space fighter - atmosphere, near, and deep space – for the Russians), Tomas Tanner. Access to the "Manta Ray’s" capabilities was limited to its creator and pilot by a DNA match, so the fighter has been hangared and basically forgotten in a remote Earthside spaceport in Sweden’s far Lapland region: an unusable doorstop. However, with one touch from Toru, the ship responds. Toru, raised by his uncle, had made his quiet, lackluster way through life as a cheap guide into Lapland for budget-minded foreign tourists, drifting and aimless since his father’s death when he was still a teenager. The connection to the "Manta Ray" also extends to the father he still grieves, and the opportunity to make something of this life using the spaceship to accomplish something no one else has been able to do galvanizes him. I enjoyed that despite this teenage trauma, for most of the book, Toru is upbeat, rarely succumbing to despair even when things look hopeless and the situation gets dire.

Heading up intersecting storylines are Becka, the captain of the "Ching Shih" and her pirate crew, and Vanja, Turo’s childhood friend, now the commander of the American-leased naval spaceport in Sweden. When Blitz, Becka’s second-in-command, leaves her for dead during an incursion, she and her remaining loyal crew members shift sides to become privateers with letters of marque, looking for revenge against the traitorous Blitz. Vanja enables her old friend and former sweetheart in his venture by granting him access to the "Manta Ray" and setting him up with the commander of the orbiting spaceport where he first encounters Becka. Toru is an engaging innocent in many ways, and while Becka is wily and experienced, she’s still someone you hope will come out on top. There is an immediate attraction between the two that is fun; however, Vanja is still carrying a torch for her former sweetheart.

The story progresses swiftly, with the multiple storylines impacting each other in surprising and dangerous ways. Toru’s asteroid mission is fraught with peril, and he endures many tense situations. His partnership with the ship’s AI “Ray” to creatively solve problems was compelling reading, and the assistance of the mining robot, Baxter, another figure from Toru’s childhood, proves fortuitous yet bittersweet. Although the story comes to a close, there are still some loose ends left hanging, such as the romantic triangle and the whereabouts of Captain Becka’s nemesis, Blitz. While there’s no mention of a sequel, I certainly hope for more adventures featuring these characters.

I recommend ROCK HOPPER to readers of science fiction and space adventures.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from Reedsy Discovery.


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Review Tour & Giveway: Stellar Heir (Stellar Heir, #1) by Scott Killian

 

STELLAR HEIR

Stellar Heir, Book One

by

Scott Killian

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by

Goddess Fish Promotions.

Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Science Fiction
Publication Date: October 8, 2024
Page count: 392 pages

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SYNOPSIS:

Jael Ked’Korhva hadn’t anticipated becoming the galaxy’s most wanted.

 

He hadn’t planned on picking up a strange alien artifact, either, but once it was clasped around his wrist, Jael was granted extraordinary abilities. His senses were heightened, his reflexes faster, and he could now regenerate from damage that would spell the end for others, which was a boon, considering he was just a derelict scavenger.

 

That was until forces from every corner of the stars wanted Jael’s artifact for themselves, and they’ll stop at nothing to take it back. What initially appears as a boon swiftly transforms into a weighty charge. Yet, it's a charge Jael accepts without hesitation, understanding the catastrophic potential should the relic fall into the wrong hands.

 

Prodded onward by visions of an ancient ally and a mysterious enemy, Jael becomes a pivotal piece in a vast interstellar play of power and dominion.

 

An action-packed space opera, perfect for science fiction fans of Sun Eater by Christopher Ruocchio or The Mercy of Gods by James S. A. Corey.

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ENJOY AN EXCERPT:

Jael’s world shifted, reality melting away as the woman’s touch transported his consciousness across the vastness of space. The galaxy unfurled before him, countless stars and vibrant worlds. 

A creeping darkness emerged from the fringes, seeping into the cosmic fabric like spilled ink. Jael watched in horror as the void engulfed entire star systems, extinguishing their light with terrifying efficiency. 

Planets that once teemed with life withered under the encroaching shadow. Lush forests crumbled to ash, oceans boiled away, and sprawling cities crumbled into dust. The screams of billions echoed across the vacuum, abruptly silenced as the darkness consumed them. 

Stars flickered and died, snuffed out like candles in a gale. Nebulae collapsed, their swirling colors fading to a dull, lifeless gray. The galaxy’s spiral arms now resembled dark skeletal fingers reaching into nothingness. 

As the last remnants of light faded, Jael found himself suspended in an endless, inky void. The darkness was not still, but writhed and pulsated. Shapeless entities, darker than the blackness surrounding them, twisted and coiled through the emptiness. 

The woman’s voice echoed in his mind, “This is the future that awaits if you fail. The enemy comes, and with it, the end of all things.” She moved in close and placed a hand on his cheek. “Find me on Dusrist before it is too late.” 

As the woman began to fade, behind her, another figure began to materialize. A shadow Jael hadn’t thought about in years. 

Jael’s breath caught in his throat, his heart pounding against his chest. The figure’s face slowly came into focus—a sharp jawline, weathered by time and countless wars, gray, ashen skin, a tell-tale sign of genetic alteration and eyes that Jael would never forget. Those predatory, multi-pupiled eyes that had haunted Jael’s nightmares since he was a child.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Scott Killian grew up in California, where he consumed every bit of sci-fi and horror media he could find. Delving deep into the works of Thomas Harris, Stephen King, and H. P. Lovecraft, to name a few, those dark portals in his mind were opened, and his obsession with the macabre began. Storytelling, in any form, is his greatest passion. Scott can be reached via email at saltnsulfurpublishing@gmail.com. 

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REVIEW:

5 stars!

Outstanding beginning for this fresh, action-packed space opera. 

Steller Heir is the first novel in author Scott Killian’s new science fiction adventure series of the same name, and it was absolutely a thrill-a-minute, hit-the-ground-running debut! Great characters, witty dialogue, amazing alien beings, a compelling mission to save ALL, and vivid imagery that made me feel I was there all combined to deliver an exciting epic of a space opera. 

Jael Ked’Korhva is the main character and the young captain of the scavenger ship, Zigzagunda. Along with his humanoid simian sidekick, Goni Tinge, they scour space for items of value. However, a mysterious bracelet, an artifact from the ancient past, once clasped around Jael’s wrist, changes everything. Not only is every pirate, mercenary, and alien death squad on their trail to get the power of the artifact for themselves, but it has shown Jael the future fate of the galaxy should he fail to stop what’s coming. 

I enjoyed Jael’s narrative so much. He’s witty, smart, and relatable, and Goni is entertaining with his banter, enthusiasm, and single-mindedness on a couple of issues, such as food. I loved their interaction, camaraderie, and relationship with the Zigzagunda, especially the banter and rivalry with Goni. The action sequences are tense and easy to follow because they are so well choreographed. Descriptions are fluid and easy to visualize. The author’s alien beings are diverse, imaginative, and often horrifying in their extreme physical strangeness and interactions. 

The plot goes from 0 to 60 from the very first chapter, and there’s little downtime; the tension just keeps building. Told from multiple points of view, readers follow the action from the different angles of the story. The good guys, on occasion, stray left and right of what’s moral but who you can’t help rooting for from the start. Then, there are the bad guys, the VERY bad guys. And yet, there are those you won’t be able to categorize yet – are they going to fall on the side of good or evil? Thankfully, the second book in the series is shown to be scheduled for publication in March of 2025 because there’s so much more story left to unfold. 

I recommend STELLAR HEIR for science fiction readers who enjoy space opera action and adventure.

TOUR PARTICIPANTS:

November 19: The Reading Addict
November 19: Country Mamas With Kids
November 26: The Faerie Review
November 26: The Avid Reader
December 3: Of Books and Bookish Things
December 3: Our Town Book Reviews
December 10: fundinmental
December 10:Guatemala Paula Loves to Read

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Virtual Book Tour & Giveaway: The Chronicles of Deneb Series by Zanne Raby

 

The Chronicles of Deneb series

by

Zanne Raby

Science Fiction / Space Opera

Book One: The Flight of the Mayflower (March 3, 2021)

Book Two: Descent into Darkness (November 23, 2021)

Book Three: Fires of Fury (November 3, 2022)

Publisher: Library and Archives Canada

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SYNOPSIS:

The Chronicles of Deneb is a science-fiction/ space opera series set in the near future. The year is 2080 CE. The world is dying. Get ready to travel into the future to a time when nothing is certain.   Where the science behind climate change was ignored, leading to drought and famine plaguing an already overpopulated globe. Massive waves of refugees stream across the planet, seeking sanctuary. Where terrorist groups have joined forces with biohackers to develop a deadly bio-engineered disease that marches across the continents like a conquering army, leaving millions dead in its murderous swathe.

 

Meanwhile, some of the best and brightest minds on the planet are feverishly at work - constructing gigantic Space Arks to shuttle hundreds of thousands of people to a colony on Mars.  And it seems like there’s more good news: world leaders announce that a vaccine is ready. It’s all good; it’s all returning to normal.

 

But the truth is very different.

In THE FLIGHT OF THE MAYFLOWER, the first novel in The Chronicles of Deneb, Dr. Daniel Radu – project manager for NASA’s Space Ark Mayflower – uncovers a global conspiracy of immense proportions. But Daniel cooks up a scheme of his own.  Joined by a team of global experts, he and his colleagues brace themselves for a journey of a lifetime as they trek across the galaxy in a quest for survival.

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Mayhem follows the Mayflower in the second book of The Chronicles of Deneb series, DESCENT INTO DARKNESS. Journey along with the crew of the Space Ark Mayflower as they adapt to their new home on the planet Deneb. But along with their struggle to integrate into an alien culture, a new battle sweeps across the planet with the arrival of the human-transmitted Chimera bactovirus, bringing war and fanning the flames of racial intolerance. With a bloody conflict now raging across the planet, the crew of the Mayflower is split between the two factions and embroiled in the chaos and destruction.

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FIRES OF FURY is the third installment in The Chronicles of Deneb. Will the survivors of the Space Ark Mayflower find their way when cultures clash and the fires of fury threaten to consume their lives? Now masquerading as citizens of the Collective, the Mayflower crew has a new reason to fear. With the end of the Second Denebian War, Wesselan’s General Pallav Kóbor and his astrophysicist wife, Dr. Tara Kóbor, have high hopes that life will return to normal on Deneb7. Yet nothing can be further from the truth. In a diabolical plot to erase the scars left by the Second Denebian War, warlord turned Wessel Head of State Gomalan unleashes a fiendish scheme to heal his nation’s wounds, while his top soldier, General Ravenna, falls under the spell of a seductive Fyjer agent intent on crushing their ambitions. Dragged into a brutal reality of terror and intrigue, can the Kóbors and warbird ace Fynn Vogel remain unscathed, or will the flames consume them and all that is evil on Deneb-7?

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READ AN EXCERPT:

A willowy brunette with shining brown eyes burst from the shadows, almost scaring Daniel out of his skin. “Tara,” he gasped, trying to quiet his heart. “What the hell? The president’s due here any second.” Dr. Tara Kóbor, the Nobel-prize winning astrophysicist who had discovered the find of the century – an Earth-like planet cuddled up in the Goldilocks zone of its star – was wearing a grin as wide as the Grand Canyon.

 

“You heard the news, right? I mean, the broadcasts are on fire. They’ve developed a vaccine! And whoever’s on the first shuttle flight is top priority. That means…”

 

He could hear heavy footsteps pounding on the hangar floor: time to play show and tell. Taking her by the shoulder, Daniel shepherded his friend to the bulkhead door. “It means you gotta get outta here. We’ll celebrate later,” he promised.

 

Just then, a bevy of bodyguards swooped in, all earpieces and dark glasses, and Daniel stood back as they robotically carried out their duties. No need really, NASA’s Chief of Security had seen to that. Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel spotted Tara’s husband, Lt-Col Pallav Kóbor, dwarfing the president’s team as he walked them through the hangar. He could hear the click click click of the cameras as the president approached with his staff trailing behind like good little shadows.

 

Show time, he mumbled to himself, wiping the sweat from his palms on his cobalt-blue NASA tunic.

MY REVIEW: 

THE FLIGHT OF THE MAYFLOWER

BOOK ONE

5 stars!

The fantastic debut of a brilliant new space opera series!

As a part of this virtual book tour, I was given the opportunity to read the first book in The Chronicles of Deneb, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next one in the series; the story is absolutely riveting! The Flight of the Mayflower takes its crew and passengers from life on Earth to what they see as the planet of their salvation: Deneb. 

That these characters are able to make the journey at all is a wonder of coordination. It was an amazing feat of secrecy that Daniel and his counterparts were able to pull it off without anyone at all getting wind of it. They told no one, and I loved that. 

The story is rife with moral dilemmas of all kinds. Earth society has disintegrated to the point where the leaders of the remaining nations are about to double-cross their constituents to save themselves. The project managers creating the space arks decide to take the vessels for themselves, saving only their families and coworkers who have been quarantined with them while the work has progressed. They must decide to keep what they know a secret from their loved ones, leave extended family and friends outside the quarantine zone behind, and literally kidnap their coworkers and families to save their lives. It was a terrifying twist that not everyone in the quarantine zone had 100% obeyed the quarantine, creating a ticking time bomb on the ship of if or when the virus would make itself known. 

In the isolation of the long journey, there are the inevitable stresses of having a small group of people thrown together in a confined space. Emotions are artificially heightened, competition between partners is ratcheted up, and relationships are affected. The characters quickly came to feel like real people to me, and under such extraordinary circumstances, real people succumb to temptations they might not normally even consider. I felt so sorry for Daniel and Poppy and their family, yet his choices regarding Tara during the journey were made out of weakness and ill-considered. 

But a fascinating element of the plot is the reaction of the indigenous population of Deneb to the newcomers. Three tribes or countries are bound together by treaty, and they all react differently to the appearance of the humans. I liked that the Denebians were a technologically-advanced society. They had experience with receiving space explorers and first contact. But some exciting political intrigue is set in motion, startling prejudices, and high-level negotiations ensue.

 

Categorized as science fiction, it is not hardcore and tech-forward; it is a space opera, where technology takes a backseat to the story. However, there is still plenty of techie talk to keep things interesting. I recommend THE FLIGHT OF THE MAYFLOWER to sci-fi readers who enjoy their stories with a more character-driven plot.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Since the days of the Napoleonic War, there has always been a member of Zanne Raby’s family in uniform. Choosing to follow in the footsteps of her ancestors, Zanne joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1980, and was selected to attend the Royal Military College of Canada – the first year that women were accepted into that prestigious academy of learning. After graduation, she studied to become a Transportation and Movements Officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

During a career spanning 38 years, some of the most memorable experiences involved command of 8 Mission Support Squadron as part of Joint Task Force Afghanistan, leading a study on support to the Canadian Arctic involving several trips to Northern Canada, including Canadian Forces Station Alert (the most northern settlement in the world), a three-year tour with NATO at Joint Force Command Brunssum, a deployment as the NATO Liaison Officer to United States Central Command, and finally a nomination as the Deputy Commander for the Canadian Forces Recruiting Group.

After hanging up the uniform and putting away the combat boots, Zanne bought a small acreage in Central Ontario and designed her own house. With a cozy office overlooking the shores of Georgian Bay, she decided to pursue her life-long ambition: to become an author. Enough of the reports and returns that littered her desk over her career, now she could turn her attention to unleashing the creativity that had taken a back seat. The time had come to shake the dust off begin a new career. The winds of change had called.

Zanne is currently crafting The Chronicles of Deneb, a sci-fi space opera series that will take the reader from a dystopian earth on a voyage across the universe in search of a safe haven. But trouble is in store for them when the planet they land on is anything but the sanctuary they sought.

When not behind the keyboard, Zanne enjoys travel, photography, hiking, and gardening. And always, a good story to pass the time.

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Zanne Raby will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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