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Chrono Virus
It was supposed to be just another cargo run, but for Ken Mallory and the three-person crew of the Raven, an anomaly in deep space changes everything. An unexplained turbulence shakes the small ship like never before, allowing a deadly virus aboard. One by one the infected crew is thrown back in time to relive a near-death experience, only this time death may be closer than they remember.
- GenresScience Fiction
47 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 12, 2012
1 person is currently reading
19 people want to read
About the author
Aaron Crocco
6 books43 followersAaron Crocco can be summed up as a writer and a podcaster, but complicating this further is the fact that he's a huge geek, Apple fanboy, and loves Back to the Future so much that he owns a Delorean. In the mid-2000′s his writing spark was reignited and he's been tearing up the keyboard ever since.
Aaron’s debut sci-fi thriller novel SPIRIT HACKERS explores the intersection of technology and the afterlife. His thriller CHRONO VIRUS rocked readers in 2012 with its original take on space travel. In 2013 he released the tie-in story CHRONO VIRUS: FALL OF THE HORIZON. Aaron's apocalyptic debut series AS DARKNESS ENDS explores the end of the world from many points of view.
Aaron hails from Long Island, NY and enjoys hockey, rock & roll, coffee, and way too much ice cream. Visit him online at www.AaronCrocco.com.
Aaron’s debut sci-fi thriller novel SPIRIT HACKERS explores the intersection of technology and the afterlife. His thriller CHRONO VIRUS rocked readers in 2012 with its original take on space travel. In 2013 he released the tie-in story CHRONO VIRUS: FALL OF THE HORIZON. Aaron's apocalyptic debut series AS DARKNESS ENDS explores the end of the world from many points of view.
Aaron hails from Long Island, NY and enjoys hockey, rock & roll, coffee, and way too much ice cream. Visit him online at www.AaronCrocco.com.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 13, 2014
This story would make a good episode of the Twilight Zone. While a short read, it captured me as the mystery unfolded and maintained suspense to the end. I felt a little guilty getting this story on a free day, but now I need more. Well played Aaron Crocco, well played.
January 13, 2013
This was a really fun read, tremendously suspenseful and clever. When an unknown virus enters a cargo ship, the three people aboard must try to survive. I thought of this novella as a really good episode of Star Trek: TOS. This story got me asking the question, "What if things had been slightly different?" about previous times in my own life when I was in danger. If you like good sci-fi, especially with time travel elements, you'll like this one.
January 19, 2013
Another super fun read. By super fun, I mean absolutely full of horror :) great concept, wonderful cadence in the writing. Good descriptions and writing. Really great for a short story. Definitely recommended.
August 10, 2015
I blazed through this, neglecting my family, my cat, and my stomach. The story 'caught me' right away. The only disappointment is that it is a short story/novella. I want more! (Yes, I'll be looking for Horizon next)
August 26, 2013
Thoroughly enjoyable sci-fi tale, with well-drawn characters and twists aplenty. It made my drive to work much more interesting! (I listened to it in audio book form).
May 28, 2016
Chrono Virus by Aaron Crocco Aboard the Raven, deep in space, something is about to go very, very wrong. A strange purple haze appears on the ship and Heidi Watts is the first crewman to fall victim to it. As each crewman meets the danger, more clues fall into place as to what they are dealing with.
A three-person crew manages the Raven: Captain Bill Hubbard, Heidi Watts, and Ken Mallory. They’re a good team. This short story made me think of the Bermuda Triangle stories, with something taking out one crewman after another, finally leaving an empty ship afloat. Honestly, I didn’t know until the end if this tale would end similarly or if part of the crew would make it out safely, vanquishing the mysterious purple haze.
Of course, purple haze makes me think of that song, but that’s what the characters called it. But it’s set far, far in the future so maybe our three heroes never heard the song. Anyway, throughout the story we get to know more about each character as they each relive a significant event from their past. That really added some depth to the characters, which I wasn’t expecting with this short story.
I liked the whole ‘mystery contained in a bottle’ feel to the tale. These three are on their own, too far out for distress beacons to do them much good. They have to figure out what is happening and a way to defeat it or perish. I was a little sad to see that we have only 1 female character (Heidi) and she is the first to fall victim. Also her relived memory is a little cliched as it deals with domestic violence. Ken does spend some time thinking about his sister Lindsey and that helps balance things out a bit. Still, I like my space heroines to be a little more involved in the plot.
The story grabbed my attention right away and held it all the way through. Ken turned out to be a favorite character. I was rooting for him. It was interesting to see to what lengths he was willing to go to defeat the purple haze.
As a side note, I won a physical copy of this audiobook. It was shipped over from the UK and at first it looks like a little cassette tape. Cleverly, there is a thumb drive inside that has the mp3 files for the book. Hooray! I really liked the way it was packaged.
I won a copy of this audiobook (via The Audio Book Reviewer) with no strings attached.
The Narration: The audio was OK. Osian Edwards starts off a little rough – I can hear mouth noises and there’s a little bit of an echo. But it gets smoother going forward. The character voices are kept distinct using different regional accents and Heidi’s voice passes for female.
A three-person crew manages the Raven: Captain Bill Hubbard, Heidi Watts, and Ken Mallory. They’re a good team. This short story made me think of the Bermuda Triangle stories, with something taking out one crewman after another, finally leaving an empty ship afloat. Honestly, I didn’t know until the end if this tale would end similarly or if part of the crew would make it out safely, vanquishing the mysterious purple haze.
Of course, purple haze makes me think of that song, but that’s what the characters called it. But it’s set far, far in the future so maybe our three heroes never heard the song. Anyway, throughout the story we get to know more about each character as they each relive a significant event from their past. That really added some depth to the characters, which I wasn’t expecting with this short story.
I liked the whole ‘mystery contained in a bottle’ feel to the tale. These three are on their own, too far out for distress beacons to do them much good. They have to figure out what is happening and a way to defeat it or perish. I was a little sad to see that we have only 1 female character (Heidi) and she is the first to fall victim. Also her relived memory is a little cliched as it deals with domestic violence. Ken does spend some time thinking about his sister Lindsey and that helps balance things out a bit. Still, I like my space heroines to be a little more involved in the plot.
The story grabbed my attention right away and held it all the way through. Ken turned out to be a favorite character. I was rooting for him. It was interesting to see to what lengths he was willing to go to defeat the purple haze.
As a side note, I won a physical copy of this audiobook. It was shipped over from the UK and at first it looks like a little cassette tape. Cleverly, there is a thumb drive inside that has the mp3 files for the book. Hooray! I really liked the way it was packaged.
I won a copy of this audiobook (via The Audio Book Reviewer) with no strings attached.
The Narration: The audio was OK. Osian Edwards starts off a little rough – I can hear mouth noises and there’s a little bit of an echo. But it gets smoother going forward. The character voices are kept distinct using different regional accents and Heidi’s voice passes for female.
May 28, 2016
Aboard the Raven, deep in space, something is about to go very, very wrong. A strange purple haze appears on the ship and Heidi Watts is the first crewman to fall victim to it. As each crewman meets the danger, more clues fall into place as to what they are dealing with.
A three-person crew manages the Raven: Captain Bill Hubbard, Heidi Watts, and Ken Mallory. They’re a good team. This short story made me think of the Bermuda Triangle stories, with something taking out one crewman after another, finally leaving an empty ship afloat. Honestly, I didn’t know until the end if this tale would end similarly or if part of the crew would make it out safely, vanquishing the mysterious purple haze.
Of course, purple haze makes me think of that song, but that’s what the characters called it. But it’s set far, far in the future so maybe our three heroes never heard the song. Anyway, throughout the story we get to know more about each character as they each relive a significant event from their past. That really added some depth to the characters, which I wasn’t expecting with this short story.
I liked the whole ‘mystery contained in a bottle’ feel to the tale. These three are on their own, too far out for distress beacons to do them much good. They have to figure out what is happening and a way to defeat it or perish. I was a little sad to see that we have only 1 female character (Heidi) and she is the first to fall victim. Also her relived memory is a little cliched as it deals with domestic violence. Ken does spend some time thinking about his sister Lindsey and that helps balance things out a bit. Still, I like my space heroines to be a little more involved in the plot.
The story grabbed my attention right away and held it all the way through. Ken turned out to be a favorite character. I was rooting for him. It was interesting to see to what lengths he was willing to go to defeat the purple haze.
As a side note, I won a physical copy of this audiobook. It was shipped over from the UK and at first it looks like a little cassette tape. Cleverly, there is a thumb drive inside that has the mp3 files for the book. Hooray! I really liked the way it was packaged.
I won a copy of this audiobook (via The Audio Book Reviewer) with no strings attached.
The Narration: The audio was OK. Osian Edwards starts off a little rough – I can hear mouth noises and there’s a little bit of an echo. But it gets smoother going forward. The character voices are kept distinct using different regional accents and Heidi’s voice passes for female.
A three-person crew manages the Raven: Captain Bill Hubbard, Heidi Watts, and Ken Mallory. They’re a good team. This short story made me think of the Bermuda Triangle stories, with something taking out one crewman after another, finally leaving an empty ship afloat. Honestly, I didn’t know until the end if this tale would end similarly or if part of the crew would make it out safely, vanquishing the mysterious purple haze.
Of course, purple haze makes me think of that song, but that’s what the characters called it. But it’s set far, far in the future so maybe our three heroes never heard the song. Anyway, throughout the story we get to know more about each character as they each relive a significant event from their past. That really added some depth to the characters, which I wasn’t expecting with this short story.
I liked the whole ‘mystery contained in a bottle’ feel to the tale. These three are on their own, too far out for distress beacons to do them much good. They have to figure out what is happening and a way to defeat it or perish. I was a little sad to see that we have only 1 female character (Heidi) and she is the first to fall victim. Also her relived memory is a little cliched as it deals with domestic violence. Ken does spend some time thinking about his sister Lindsey and that helps balance things out a bit. Still, I like my space heroines to be a little more involved in the plot.
The story grabbed my attention right away and held it all the way through. Ken turned out to be a favorite character. I was rooting for him. It was interesting to see to what lengths he was willing to go to defeat the purple haze.
As a side note, I won a physical copy of this audiobook. It was shipped over from the UK and at first it looks like a little cassette tape. Cleverly, there is a thumb drive inside that has the mp3 files for the book. Hooray! I really liked the way it was packaged.
I won a copy of this audiobook (via The Audio Book Reviewer) with no strings attached.
The Narration: The audio was OK. Osian Edwards starts off a little rough – I can hear mouth noises and there’s a little bit of an echo. But it gets smoother going forward. The character voices are kept distinct using different regional accents and Heidi’s voice passes for female.
March 18, 2016
Disclaimer: Review originally posted at www.audiobookreviewer.com
In the year 2405, the Raven, a spaceship with a small crew of three people, suffers an abnormal shake followed by a purple cloud which causes strange dreams to the crew, where they seem to travel with their minds to an important event in their past, with a different outcome to the original one.
This is a short story, the audiobook is just over one hour, and it could have been Star Trek or even a Doctor Who episode. Aaron Crocco builds up the the suspense and the horror, keeping your attention, until the inevitable end.
The characters are well built, and even though the book is very short, they have some depth and their actions and words are believable. In just over an hour, Aaron got to make these three characters alive.
I like when science fiction makes you think without the need of spectacular special effects, like in this case, and this novel makes you think about what one's life would have been just if the outcome of an event would have been a different one.
The audio production is correct but I have noticed some slight audio changes and a bit reverberation that I am not used to. Osian Edwards was able to catch the right emotions for every character and situation in the book. Even though Aaron Crocco is American, the narrator of this story is British. I just wanted to let you know, just in case this bit of information is important to you or you may have issues with different accents, although I have to say that Osian's speech is very clear.
I finally gave the book just four stars because the story is quite short and this could have made a very good longer book where more ramifications could have been contemplated and explored. This was a very interesting idea and I just wanted more of it.
If you enjoy this book, know that for a limited time, you can get a free copy of its tie-in story: Chrono Virus: Fall of the Horizon from Aaron Crocco's web site.
In the year 2405, the Raven, a spaceship with a small crew of three people, suffers an abnormal shake followed by a purple cloud which causes strange dreams to the crew, where they seem to travel with their minds to an important event in their past, with a different outcome to the original one.
This is a short story, the audiobook is just over one hour, and it could have been Star Trek or even a Doctor Who episode. Aaron Crocco builds up the the suspense and the horror, keeping your attention, until the inevitable end.
The characters are well built, and even though the book is very short, they have some depth and their actions and words are believable. In just over an hour, Aaron got to make these three characters alive.
I like when science fiction makes you think without the need of spectacular special effects, like in this case, and this novel makes you think about what one's life would have been just if the outcome of an event would have been a different one.
The audio production is correct but I have noticed some slight audio changes and a bit reverberation that I am not used to. Osian Edwards was able to catch the right emotions for every character and situation in the book. Even though Aaron Crocco is American, the narrator of this story is British. I just wanted to let you know, just in case this bit of information is important to you or you may have issues with different accents, although I have to say that Osian's speech is very clear.
I finally gave the book just four stars because the story is quite short and this could have made a very good longer book where more ramifications could have been contemplated and explored. This was a very interesting idea and I just wanted more of it.
If you enjoy this book, know that for a limited time, you can get a free copy of its tie-in story: Chrono Virus: Fall of the Horizon from Aaron Crocco's web site.
June 18, 2014
When I was looking through the ebooks that I've downloaded (they were on sale, I got them, then I forgot about them), I found this interestingly titled book called Chrono Virus. And since the author is none other than +Aaron Crocco, I had to read it straight away.
Chrono Virus is an interesting sci-fi short story. Set on the spaceship Raven, the three crew members get attacked by a strange mist. Each time their attacked, they flashback to a life-changing moment in their past - or is it more than a flashback?
Although this story was short, it was very well-written. I was interested in the characters, and I found the idea of the Chrono Virus to be very interesting. I think that the small number of crew numbers was a good idea, because it allowed for properly fleshed out characters without making the book unwieldy. And the number is not so small that the book ended too soon.
Since the book does use the word "Chrono" in its name, the narrative is, of course, non-linear. It jumps back and forth with the different characters, but was never confusing to read. I actually managed to figure out how the Chrono Virus worked even before the end, where it was explained because of how the narrative worked (not going to give away any spoilers here).
I honestly wish that this book was longer. It's a great book and I really enjoyed reading it. Now, I have to go and save up more money, because my TBR list is getting longer and longer.
This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile
Chrono Virus is an interesting sci-fi short story. Set on the spaceship Raven, the three crew members get attacked by a strange mist. Each time their attacked, they flashback to a life-changing moment in their past - or is it more than a flashback?
Although this story was short, it was very well-written. I was interested in the characters, and I found the idea of the Chrono Virus to be very interesting. I think that the small number of crew numbers was a good idea, because it allowed for properly fleshed out characters without making the book unwieldy. And the number is not so small that the book ended too soon.
Since the book does use the word "Chrono" in its name, the narrative is, of course, non-linear. It jumps back and forth with the different characters, but was never confusing to read. I actually managed to figure out how the Chrono Virus worked even before the end, where it was explained because of how the narrative worked (not going to give away any spoilers here).
I honestly wish that this book was longer. It's a great book and I really enjoyed reading it. Now, I have to go and save up more money, because my TBR list is getting longer and longer.
This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile
March 16, 2013
This review is for the Kindle edition ebook.
An exciting, suspense filled story that will keep you guessing.
A cargo ship in space, not always following the law, but not breaking it bad, either. The cargo must be delivered, if possible. Somehow, a virus got on board, even though the ship was completely disinfected at port.
This is a short story that will keep you guessing. It is full of suspense and action, and can be read without putting the book down. I found myself hoping that the crew would survive, and somehow manage to deliver the cargo. For a short story, the twists and turns in this book keep the reader guessing at what is next.
As a short story, this book is complete. It has a great beginning, a good spin on the outer space ship in danger plot, and an ending I could not guess.
I recommend this story be read by those who enjoy outer space science fiction. I will be reading more by Aaron Crocco, and have indeed purchased other books by him.
An exciting, suspense filled story that will keep you guessing.
A cargo ship in space, not always following the law, but not breaking it bad, either. The cargo must be delivered, if possible. Somehow, a virus got on board, even though the ship was completely disinfected at port.
This is a short story that will keep you guessing. It is full of suspense and action, and can be read without putting the book down. I found myself hoping that the crew would survive, and somehow manage to deliver the cargo. For a short story, the twists and turns in this book keep the reader guessing at what is next.
As a short story, this book is complete. It has a great beginning, a good spin on the outer space ship in danger plot, and an ending I could not guess.
I recommend this story be read by those who enjoy outer space science fiction. I will be reading more by Aaron Crocco, and have indeed purchased other books by him.
July 4, 2014
All I can say is Wow! Character development was not forced and the story kept you highly interested. This book left me wanting more.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews