Chimera

Fractured Orbit #2

by Herman Steuernagel

When your world’s been torn apart, who can you trust to put the pieces back together?

Chimera carries on where Eclipse left off. Django and Mikka get furthered ensnared in the Syndicate's Empire, and each get more than they'd bargained for as new alliances are made and the stakes for each of them are raised even higher.

382 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 3, 2023

About the author

Herman Steuernagel is a Barnes & Noble Bestselling author best known for his cozy fantasy novels, blending immersive worlds with character-driven storytelling.

Across multiple series, his work ranges from warm, low-stakes fantasy settings to science fiction that explores life among the stars and dystopian futures. His books have been featured by Publishers Weekly and Booklist, and have appeared on the Barnes & Noble Top 100 and reached #104 in the Amazon Kindle Store.

Herman lives in British Columbia, Canada, While he’s not working on a new book he can be found cycling, running and dreaming up new worlds.

You can keep up with Herman on his website:

https://www.hermansteuernagel.com

Reviews

[Dom]

With book one in Fractured Orbit, Eclipse, I thought it was a very interesting premise. It takes place on a space station and the people there believe that Earth is uninhabitable. They can see Earth through the viewing portals, but what they don’t know is that it’s a view that is designed for them. They look down upon Earth, and what they see is basically not habitable, but that is a falsehood as the image is fake. You have various people who learn about this, or at least start to get a bit of an inkling about it, and they are quietly killed off. The main characters that you follow in book one are learning about this, trying to stay alive, trying to get off the space station, and I just thought it was really exciting and really well done.

Here, you don't really have that novelty value because once you've once you've got past that in book one, you almost have to reinvent yourself if you're going to have the same kind of suspense, so it wasn't quite as good for me. We're off the space station, we're exploring a bit more, we're learning about the resistance as people are trying to take the shackles off the other people in the space stations, and I think that maybe I wanted a bit more from this volume.

As a little bit of background, this was originally going to be a much bigger book, but it's been split into two because it got too big to be a single volume. So instead, we have Chimera and then Resurgence as book three. I think with the two of them in combination—bearing in mind I haven't read Resurgence yet—I would get a much better experience, and that's certainly what I'm hoping for when I pick up the third book. I did feel this one was just lacking that little bit, but hopefully it will be there again in the next book.

[Donna Bull]

ARC provided by the author.

Chimera comes in hot and takes off right from where Eclipse left us wanting more and succeeds in giving us another well-paced, full of action and surprises installment of the Fractured Orbit series. We learned in Eclipse that there is so much more out in the solar system and as our protagonists now face learning more and dealing with their new realities, the stakes are even higher for each of them. The story expands to different parts of the system as everyone gets separated and getting to experience the stations, ships and levels of society really makes for a gripping story that is hard to put down. New characters are introduced, there are more POV's, more revelations about the Syndicate, the underground movement and it's all deftly delivered by Herman.
I really, really enjoyed Eventide's POV and all that she has to go through and that last reveal......oh my. Django, Mikka, Abigail, Marvin, and Kiara all are thrown into some dangerous situations and all the political maneuverings that underlie everything that happens in the system make this a terrific addition to a fun and addictive series. If you haven't had a chance to read the short story Infinity, it's really worthwhile and reading it before Chimera, I think adds so much to what happens here. Can't wait to see how everything shakes out in Resurgence!!!

[Starr Davies]

Another action-packed adventure!

Django has really fallen into trouble, and his naivety of the world beyond his station comes into full light in this book. I can't wait to see him really come out of his shell in the next book and take charge.

Mikka has fallen in with the wrong crowd...but I fell into the lies right there with her! Not that I don't doubt Aries has his own agenda, but the hell if I don't believe him. If you like morally grey men, Aries is a winner!

And poor Eventide. I want wait to see what she does next!

This book doesn't pack as much of a punch as the first book, but it's still a fun, entertaining ride you won't want to stop reading. Highly recommend. I can't wait to see what Herman has in store for these characters!

[Tatyana (The Literature Llama)]

This was the perfect sequel. Perfect. I am obsessed with this series and can not recommend it enough. I love all of the characters and how unique each one is. The world building is just chefs kiss and makes me want to become a space pirate. There’s action, adventure, and heartache enough to last a lifetime. I can not wait to see what happens next!

[Joe Rixman]

The action intensifies. The threats become ever greater and the characters face greater odds of failure and death. Exciting action and political mechanizations. Looking forward to Book 3.

[Adam Cohen]

3.5 stars. The story here is interesting enough and the characters are intriguing enough that I'll read book 3, but the author still wastes too much time getting anything done.