Supergiant by Scott Rhine

Find an exploit; hack the universe.

Chief Engineer Roz Mendez pilots a ship with a revolutionary star drive that could travel ten times as fast as current technology. The job has given her a chance to find riches, romance, and earn a reputation that will counter the discrimination she’s felt her entire life. All the ship needs to make history is a few repairs and a renowned physicist who can adjust the jump equations. The trick is finding the professor without tipping off the Bankers, the species with a monopoly on faster-than-light communications. Just making a profit at each port without getting arrested is hard enough.

This is the second book in the Gigaparsec series and thus this review may contain spoilers for those who haven't read the first book.

In Void Contract, we were introduced to Max, a war weary ex-special forces operative looking to make a life for himself in the civilian world, errr, galaxy. While on a job, he encountered Echo, a Magi (the mysterious race that gave humans the initial push that eventually led to their interstellar leap) who helps him with his PTSD, and discovered a stowaway alien unrecognized for its primitive sentience. Along the way he recruited a wide variety of misfit specialists from various alien races whose goals in life were compatible with his. They all have good hearts, but they're willing to bend the rules and break a few laws to achieve their goals. A bit like Firefly in that regard, but with aliens and without the signature dialogue.

The book is mostly a series of "jobs" that the group must undertake to achieve their overarching goal of finding said physicist. While there is no single villain to play the antagonist—unless you count the Bankers, who remain in the background the whole time—there are several minor villains along the way, but they're merely minor hurdles to surmount. The complexity in the story isn't so much in the plot as it is in operating a commercial starship, which is very much a business. The group spends a good deal of time figuring out what goods they need to purchase from one world to sell on another to acquire the starship parts or writs to undertake certain actions they need to get to that physicist.

While the first book was told from Max's perspective, this one is told from Roz's perspective. That's her on the cover. She was one of the last people recruited to join the crew in Void Contract, and there's a bit of chemistry between her and Max. Roz is a pilot and engineer, her technical background means that her role is mostly a non-combative one. Unfortunately, too much happens off camera that Roz (and the reader) is often told about things after they've happened. She's privy to things that matter in the overall plot—the ship's game changing improved FTL drive, secrets of the Magi—which others aren't. But for the most part, these metaplot revelations aren't as captivating as the off-screen action.

Characterization remains solid. All of them have depth and distinct personalities, drives, and ambitions. Their interactions with one another strike me as realistic. In particular, I found Roz's narration to be genuine. Her mindset and technical background brings a fresh perspective on the group dynamic. She's an everyday woman, the sort that you know from work or you've been friends with for years, with everyday concerns that you would expect, just set in a distant future.

As for the technicals, editing is solid. I only found 13 typos, which is on par with a traditionally published book.

Supergiant is a solid sequel to Void Contract. Rhine showcases his talent as an author by switching narrative POV without losing the essence of the overall series storyline. In fact, he broadens its depth by providing a fresh perspective on the interactions of the characters and makes them relatable. While the story is mostly about performing a series of minor jobs to advance the metaplot, it still makes for an entertaining read. It would not be difficult to turn this series into a TV show. Considering the current sci-fi friendly climate, Rhine should consider pitching a screenplay to the networks.

For more information about the book, please visit the author's website.

UPDATE 3/19/16: The list of typos was sent to the author, and he has informed us that he has made the corrections to the manuscript.

Tethered Worlds: Blue Star Setting by Gregory Faccone

Jordahk Wilkrest no longer has the luxury of believing he isn't special. His family line can work mystic technology, something fewer and fewer can do. Not only that, but his grandfather was a user of tremendous ability called a “Sojourner.” Jordahk has used mystic himself to get out of jams, something happening all too frequently of late. But he's still fearful of the dangerous technology, and for good reason.

Then, without warning, Jordahk's grandfather shows up again. The trail of their previous adventure is being followed. Their old friend and the mysterious girl under his care are in the cross-hairs of the power-hungry Archivers. But two men and a crazy robot aren't exactly a crack rescue force. And as the clues come together, they realize a much greater threat is gathering. One that calls for a legendary ship and the power of a Sojourner.

Too bad the ship's buried behind enemy lines in a system oppressed for two centuries. Can Jordahk revive the spirits of those subjugated in a war lost generations before? And what of the girl who's increasingly showing near-impossible abilities? Somehow Jordahk has to lead her, get the ship, and warn the free worlds of impending doom. For who's more vulnerable than those who wrongly believe their armor is impenetrable?

This is very much a middle book in a trilogy or a series. That's not a slight, just a fact. While there are enough references to the first book Tethered Worlds: Unwelcome Star, it's obvious to the reader that there's another story out there (definitely worth reading, I must say). And the way this book ends, although the events in this book come to their own conclusion, the overall story arc has (at least) another book in it.

I didn't feel as overwhelmed by this book as I did the first. I'll chalk it up to being somewhat familiar with the characters from the first book—Jordahk and his family being the easiest to recognize. I had a better understanding of the pantheon of villains in this one too. Faccone does a better job of differentiating them. And they didn't all wear black hats. One was definitely gray, probably brought about by the events that transpired in Unwelcome Star. Some of the minor characters from the first book are gone, replaced by new ones. Faccone did a good job of fleshing them out.

Blue Star Setting clocks in at a whopping 548 pages, even longer than the first book. The length of the novel gave Faccone the space he needed to render those minor characters, but he's still providing us with scenes that go on for far too long. "Brevity" is not in this author's toolbox. I think he could've gotten away with a 15% shorter book by trimming or cutting action scenes.

There are also scenes in both books that don't factor into the main story at all. They seem to be included only because they take place in parallel to the events on the main stage. I'd be inclined to suggest cutting them, but it turns out that Faccone does this to set the stage for events that will happen much later down the road. For instance, one of the new characters is Khai. She was in stasis during Unwelcome Star, so I didn't get why Faccone bothered to include the events pertaining to her rescue. Turns out, she emerges in this book and plays a major role in how this story plays out. Another example is Rewe, a villain. I didn't really gather his purpose in the first book, but in this book, Faccone offers two key scenes showing the development of his character into a major antagonist for a future book. Faccone is definitely a man with a plan.

As I mentioned in my review for the first book, this is a meticulously detailed universe. Faccone's world-building is top notch. The setting is rich in history with amazing technology that lives up to its "mystic" moniker. And I get the sense that he has even more in store in the next book(s) in this series.

Ignore my curmudgeon talk. While I bemoan its length, particularly the battle scenes, the pacing of the story doesn't drag. Faccone certainly gives the reader her money's worth. Blue Star Setting is a welcome addition to Faccone's Tethered Worlds series. It's more big and bold space opera with a hero you can root for as he grows to fill some very big, yet well worn, shoes. Highly recommended for space opera fans.

For more information on Blue Star Setting and other books in the Tethered Worlds universe, please visit the author's website.

Void Contract by Scott Rhine

A veteran of the Gigaparsec War, Dr. Max Culp catches alien war criminals with his skills as a !Kung tribal hunter. Suddenly, his only surviving teammate is kidnapped. To free his friend, Max is forced to take a mob contract on a Saurian fugitive hiding at the borders of Human space. But Max is tired of wet work and alien conspiracies. Can he find a path back to civilian life without losing what’s left of his soul or those closest to him?

This is the first book in a new series, but it takes place in the same universe as Jezebel's Ladder, just 400 years later. While several books followed Jezebel's Ladder, they are not required reading for this book. However, if you enjoy this book and want to know how Earth got to this point, then you should consider picking them up.

The book starts off with a fair amount of action. Rhine does a good job introducing us to Max and the universe he lives in without drowning us in background. Once Max is forced to accept the job from the alien mobster, the action is replaced by intrigue as Max rides a starship to find the fugitive. While there's FTL travel, it's slow enough (weeks instead of years) that Max has time to work on a way to manipulate the situation to accomplish his goals. The action returns in time for an early climax. The last 20% of the story, while still interesting, serves more to set up the next book in the series.

The blurb made it sound to me like Max was an old world bushman living in the Star Wars universe, but that's definitely not the case. Max may have grown up among the !Kung, but he has a modern education and has been culturally assimilated. He was given a new name to fit in. "Max Culp" is actually derived from mea maxima culpa—through my most grievous fault. The story is told from Max's POV, and Rhine is adept at revealing his character and why that name suits him. His past haunts him and affects how he conducts himself. When it comes to planning operations or assessing a rapidly changing situation, Max is sharp as a tack. But when it comes to relationships with women, not being around humans for several years has left him weak. He grovels at the feet of the first one and is hopelessly naive with the second. He's a bit too much the perfect gentleman with the third, but there's still hope he'll get it right.

Rhine makes good use of dialogue to advance the story, and the pacing is solid. His characters have depth, even the aliens. While Rhine tries to keep the story accessible to most adult readers, he's smart about how he does it (i.e. alien foul language gets mistranslated by translator tech). And while there's plenty of the usual sci-fi stuff like spaceships and cool tech, it never steals the show. With Rhine, the plot and the characters keep us engaged.

Rhine has kept busy since Jezebel's Ladder, writing over a dozen books since then. While he's been prolific, I can see that his writing has matured as well. It's nice to see an indie writer work to improve his craft instead of just churning out product.

For more information, please visit the author's website.

Tethered Worlds: Unwelcome Star by Gregory Faccone

Jordahk Wilkrest doesn't think he's special. The backwater world of his birth has only known peace in his lifetime, and the war is bygone history. Far from its centuries-old stalemate line, Jordahk's interest is collecting war era technology called “mystic.”

Suddenly, political corruption and the people's own complacency opens a dreadful door, literally. Their way of life will be no more as the enemy assembles their giant transporting machine in orbit. The Wilkrests valiantly resist, but are unable to thwart the enemy's designs on land or in orbit. Jordahk is forced to leave his wounded parents and go off-world with his stiff grandfather. They venture far into the dustbin of human space looking for war-era help.

Now Jordahk finds out his family line is a lot more special than he ever knew. Their quest leads to dangerous mystic technology—controllable only by a select few. It's a wild ride for Jordahk, who has to come to terms with abilities he never knew he had... and their consequences. Can his new shady crewmates stop fighting amongst themselves long enough to overcome the enemy? They must if Jordahk's parents and his homeworld are to stand any chance.

I felt lost for a good chunk of the beginning of the book. Faccone throws myriad names and terms at the reader that I had trouble keeping the groups straight (Archivers, Sojourners, Perigeum, Cohortium, Imprimaturs, Khromas, Arkhons) and figuring out what the terms (too numerous to mention) meant. It's totally realistic to expect new additions to the lingua franca of the future, but I had a hard time gathering their meaning from the context of the sentence. In those instances where Faccone provided explanations, he went overboard at inopportune times. There would be this intense action scene and Faccone would break away to spend paragraphs to pages explaining the history of and how that piece of technology worked. It was terribly distracting.

There's an AI battle early in the book that went on for far too long—10% of the book, maybe. It felt like I was reading a game hybrid of Pokemon and Risk. I'm not sure I understood the point of the exercise, though it did turn an adversarial relationship between Jordahk and Cranium into a friendly one. I suppose that it also served as a contrast point for when Jordahk later encounters a hostile AI that subdues his own. Still, I believe that it could've been a lot shorter.

Now that I'm done complaining, let me say that this is a really good book. In particular, by the second half of the book, Faccone does a better job of balancing pacing and scheduling interludes of back story.

Faccone has developed a highly detailed world full of sentient AIs, advanced weapons and technology, political chicanery, and a host of new words and slang that demonstrates a tremendous skill at world-building. Although not stated by name, nanotech lurks under the surface: clothes that change color on command, artificial healing systems running through the bloodstream, and ammunition which reconfigures itself upon user command. Everything is networked. Humans and AI are directly linked; a thought is all it takes to switch the safety off a pistol or present data on a holographic projector.

The major characters are personable, except for the villains, who blurred together. Except for the side trips to his parents, the bulk of the story is from Jordahk's point of view. While he's fully versed in technology and battle tactics, his ability to control his emotions and understand his feelings demonstrates that he's very much the coming of age adolescent. That's not a bad thing; it's just that as mid-40's married man with kids I didn't really connect with him. I was more interested in the AI characters and his grandfather's mysterious past.

Tethered Worlds: Unwelcome Star is a fantastic adventure with a galaxy full of technological marvels. Despite the obvious differences in language and culture, people are people—and so are AIs. You can relate to them even if you don't know an "octal" from "scientum". You can tell that Faccone spent a great deal of time and effort creating every minute detail of the universe that fills this 522-page behemoth. I feel bad for having to write anything negative about it, but I had to explain why I'd rate this a four-star novel as opposed to a five-star.

For more information on Unwelcome Star and other books in the Tethered Worlds universe, please visit the author's website.

He Who Shall Remain Shameless by David Michael Ewald

In He Who Shall Remain Shameless, the protagonist roams the world with his electronic companion on a mission to rescue ghosts from obscurity (personified by the Meritocrat). Most of these are no ordinary ghosts, but rather those who enjoyed some celebrity or notoriety in life and have become largely forgotten in death. Our protagonist, who shares the same name as the author of this book but definitely isn't him (and that's explained in the book), believes that the internet can keep the memory of people alive forever. All he needs to do is convince them to embrace it.

Sometimes he succeeds. Sometimes he doesn't.

That kind of describes Ewald's story too. Each chapter is about a ghost the protagonist encounters and some were better than others. In some chapters, Ewald successfully builds suspense; particularly with those who died a violent death. These are his better chapters. Other chapters fall short when Ewald abandons suspense in favor of a satirical approach, as when the protagonist encounters King Aegeus of Greek legend. It's as if Ewald isn't certain what type of novel he's trying to write.

Ewald deserves credit for his research. As each ghost was introduced, I couldn't help but see what I could learn of them from a couple of quick searches (I discovered Mr. Ewald's fingerprints on multiple occasions). While I knew of a couple of these figures, most of them were unknown to me. Ewald deftly collects fragments and scraps of these lost souls and builds believable characters out of them. Again, those in the suspenseful chapters proved to be the most memorable.

The strength of the protagonist varies too. His cause is noble, but his various methods waver on their propriety. At times, he seems genuinely concerned about the dead and consoles them as they wrestle with their fate. Other times, he resorts to trickery or mockery to boost his chances of success (the end justifies the means). The latter behavior casts a shadow over the former. Perhaps if there had been more transition, the shifts in the protagonist's behavior would've been easier to understand.

Despite these quibbles, I found He Who Shall Remain Shameless to be an entertaining read. Ewald is at his best when he plays the suspense card. His historical ghosts are well researched and have believable personalities. But the story's strongest element is its exploration of death and obscurity. As we ponder his assertion that the Internet can (and should) be used to remember everyone, celebrity and average person alike, he reminds us that we're mortal. And death is a lesson we should all remember as we conduct our lives.

Ether

Ether
by Kristine Williams

Daniel's uncle Frank was a man with a penchant for the fantastic. He was certainly a source of great stories that Daniel fondly recalls from his childhood. But there were also props, toys and objects that his uncle claimed were proof that his fantastical stories were true after all.

When Daniel inherits his uncle's house, he does not expect to receive a key that opens a doorway into an alternate reality and adventure. But when Daniel uses the strange key on the key ring to the house, he falls out of his reality and right into the path of oncoming traffic. The traffic altercation brings Daniel and Ian Foster to the attention of Sheriff Murphy, who interprets Daniel's disoriented behavior as proof of his otherworldly status. He's had plenty of experience, for there were others, visitors from Daniel's world, who had come passing by on their travels through Ether. Daniel has a problem, however; in order to get back home, he must use the key, but his key is left back in his reality, still stuck in the door lock. His only hope now is to find another key, hidden somewhere in Ether.

Soon, Daniel faces his new reality and a quest for the second key, traveling through Ether courtesy of Ian Foster and his balloon ship, which is not completely unfamiliar to Daniel—he had seen it before, a model of it in his uncle's house. Their journey takes them to a giant forest, where people dwell inside trees hollowed out by enormous worms. Daniel takes part in a worm hunt and earns a tooth keepsake from the beast.

Each environment they pass through offers some sort of danger. In the swamp there is the Tree of Lives, a particularly nasty things that uses the sense of the victims for its own. And in the maze there is the mold that can make you forget your name, then more, until you forget to live. Then there are the zombified, who have lost their memories due to the spores, roaming the maze aimlessly until they die.

Ether is an imaginative adventure story that's worth checking out if you love Dr. Who or watched Sliders or the Stargate series. Though smaller in scope, Ether still manages to be entertaining for those who love the idea of traveling between different worlds.