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Moon Wreck #1
First Contact
Disaster has struck the first moon landing to be attempted in years. Commander Jason Strong and his fellow lunar explorer Greg Johnson have become stranded with no way home. In desperation, they set off in their lunar rover to check out an anomaly they discovered on their descent. What they find will shake their beliefs and what they know of human history.
This is a short story of 13,000 words.
This is a short story of 13,000 words.
47 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 2012
116 people are currently reading
300 people want to read
About the author
Raymond L. Weil
93 books338 followersUSA Today Best Selling Author
I live in Clinton Oklahoma with my wife of 40 years and our cat. I attended college at SWOSU in Weatherford Oklahoma, majoring in Math with minors in Creative Writing and History.
My hobbies include watching soccer, reading, camping, and of course writing. I coached youth soccer for twelve years before moving on and becoming a high school soccer coach for thirteen more. I also enjoy playing with my five grandchildren. I have a very vivid imagination, which sometimes worries my friends. They never know what I am going to say or what I am going to do.
I am an avid reader and have a science fiction / fantasy collection of over two thousand paperbacks. The space program has always fascinated me and I've followed it since its inception. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be an astronaut. Now, I just write about it.
I live in Clinton Oklahoma with my wife of 40 years and our cat. I attended college at SWOSU in Weatherford Oklahoma, majoring in Math with minors in Creative Writing and History.
My hobbies include watching soccer, reading, camping, and of course writing. I coached youth soccer for twelve years before moving on and becoming a high school soccer coach for thirteen more. I also enjoy playing with my five grandchildren. I have a very vivid imagination, which sometimes worries my friends. They never know what I am going to say or what I am going to do.
I am an avid reader and have a science fiction / fantasy collection of over two thousand paperbacks. The space program has always fascinated me and I've followed it since its inception. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be an astronaut. Now, I just write about it.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
December 23, 2016
Nice short story to begin the series.
October 5, 2020
I came across this short story while trying to find a new SciFi series to read. It was interesting enough for me to read the rest of the Moon Wreck stories as an introduction to the Slaver Wars series.
May 26, 2015
A lot of people in the comment/review is saying that there is a gaping plothole in this book, and yes there is.
But if you continue on and read book 2 it will all be explained.
So i would say ita veru good book and defenetly woth a read
But if you continue on and read book 2 it will all be explained.
So i would say ita veru good book and defenetly woth a read
January 30, 2018
This is a decent, but tiny book, but really unnecessary to read, because while it's the first of a three book series, all three books are tied together into the first "Slaver Wars" book of the series of that name. The first book is called "Moon Wreck (The Slaver Wars #1)," not too different from this original. I've really enjoyed the Slaver War series, but really, these first three books are not essential if you're going to read that bigger series. Overall series recommended though.
August 9, 2020
Ok this was described as a short story so things happened very quickly. My thought is treat this first book like a prologue. It is a good start and gives you all the back ground story information to understand the how’s and why’s of the rest of the story. This story has a ton of promise and I am looking forward to the next book
January 3, 2018
Great short story
Great quick read tying in to his companion series for this universe. Moves at a nice pace filling you in with details of the backstory.
Great quick read tying in to his companion series for this universe. Moves at a nice pace filling you in with details of the backstory.
February 6, 2018
Nice start for series
I have sen the positive ratings for the Moon Wreck/Slaver Wars series. This is a short introduction that sets the stage nicely.
I have sen the positive ratings for the Moon Wreck/Slaver Wars series. This is a short introduction that sets the stage nicely.
March 19, 2024
great intro to this series!
There are only two main characters in this series introduction, but they are both developing well - I look forward to the rest of the series
There are only two main characters in this series introduction, but they are both developing well - I look forward to the rest of the series
March 12, 2017
Writing is better than in the first book. Character development needs some work. However, this is an intriguing story.
December 24, 2014
If you like your scifi full of holes and non-characters, this is for you. Skip past the spoilers below if you fall into the latter category and plan to read this.
This book in a nutshell:
Every few pages in this book and there is another giant gaping hole. This book had potential which could have been realized IF the author took the time to flesh it out and put it in front of an editor. Sadly - this didn't happen and its pretty much unreadable for anyone but a child or a brain-dead non thinking zombie.
After reading Peter F Hamilton's "The Abyss Beyond Dreams" - this has about as much substance as a floating soap bubble. I really hope the writer gets better in a few years.
This book in a nutshell:
Every few pages in this book and there is another giant gaping hole. This book had potential which could have been realized IF the author took the time to flesh it out and put it in front of an editor. Sadly - this didn't happen and its pretty much unreadable for anyone but a child or a brain-dead non thinking zombie.
After reading Peter F Hamilton's "The Abyss Beyond Dreams" - this has about as much substance as a floating soap bubble. I really hope the writer gets better in a few years.
July 17, 2013
This review is covering the three first short stories in Raymond L. Weil’s Moon Wreck series. Since I cover all three of them in one review you might find some light spoilers further down if you have not read books 1 and 2 yet and you might want to stop here. If you do, I can just tell you that I found all three books to be an enjoyable light read.
As I said, this is three short stories. Even taken together they make up a rather short, less than 200 pages, novel. Still I quite enjoyed reading them. I have always liked the kind of first steps in space, surprise discovery, changing mankind kind of stories and this one is just that.
The basic story, finding a wrecked space ship on the moon, is perhaps not the most novel one but so what. It is a workable one. Not even the fact that it was not really built by aliens is a novel idea but it still works. The author have taken simple plot elements and put together a fairly well working set of short stories. Each short story have a clearly defined beginning and end such that you get a sense of completion after each one and a feel that you are progressing through the main story arc in a nice enough pace.
Each book more or less centers on a surprise discovery from the discovery of the moon wreck to the discovery of the AI on the wreck and finally the discovery of the Ceres base. Even though there is not much real action going on the series had no problem keeping my interest peaked the entire time. Having said that, the basic foundation for the story, as we have learned it after the third book, definitely builds up for some serious action in future books.
I am not really a big fan of these really short stories but in this case the three stories was already published so I could read all three of them back to back more or less as a single “normal” novel. I am quite happy that I did. The story is a nice adventure/discovery story and certainly have possibilities for the future.
As I said, this is three short stories. Even taken together they make up a rather short, less than 200 pages, novel. Still I quite enjoyed reading them. I have always liked the kind of first steps in space, surprise discovery, changing mankind kind of stories and this one is just that.
The basic story, finding a wrecked space ship on the moon, is perhaps not the most novel one but so what. It is a workable one. Not even the fact that it was not really built by aliens is a novel idea but it still works. The author have taken simple plot elements and put together a fairly well working set of short stories. Each short story have a clearly defined beginning and end such that you get a sense of completion after each one and a feel that you are progressing through the main story arc in a nice enough pace.
Each book more or less centers on a surprise discovery from the discovery of the moon wreck to the discovery of the AI on the wreck and finally the discovery of the Ceres base. Even though there is not much real action going on the series had no problem keeping my interest peaked the entire time. Having said that, the basic foundation for the story, as we have learned it after the third book, definitely builds up for some serious action in future books.
I am not really a big fan of these really short stories but in this case the three stories was already published so I could read all three of them back to back more or less as a single “normal” novel. I am quite happy that I did. The story is a nice adventure/discovery story and certainly have possibilities for the future.
July 14, 2020
This book had the potential to become a full-length novel but it was written as a short story. As short stories go, it was OK. The characters were superficial and while the story had the potential to be suspenseful, exciting, or intriguing, it wasn't.
October 25, 2016
Two American astronauts have landed on the moon but their lunar lander has crashed. (They are from some private company and not the government.) Some signal had interfered with their landing so they set out on their rover to find whatever had caused the signal.
They end up finding a crashed spaceship that is quite large. Exploring the ship they find some sections that can be used to live in. They have two main discoveries. The first is the of the ship's pilot. The pilot seems to be human.
The second is that the ships AI is still functional. This leads to contact with the Earth and a lot of scientists coming from the Earth to study the wreck. Gradually they are able to piece together the story of what happened and learn that there was a huge space war and that the evil beings from that war are headed towards Earth.
They also make other major discoveries and begin their planning for the attack.
There are a couple of problems with the book, though. First is that the people that constructed the spaceship are human. No explanation is given to why there are humans very far away and humans on the Earth. Was Earth a colony? Why were humans in groups so distant from each other?
Second. The aliens will be here in 268 years. The scientists are studying the spaceships that still exist but no mention at all is given about the need to upgrade those ships since it can logically be presumed that the enemy will be upgrading theirs and not leave them as is for almost three more centuries.
These problems lower my rating for this book.
They end up finding a crashed spaceship that is quite large. Exploring the ship they find some sections that can be used to live in. They have two main discoveries. The first is the of the ship's pilot. The pilot seems to be human.
The second is that the ships AI is still functional. This leads to contact with the Earth and a lot of scientists coming from the Earth to study the wreck. Gradually they are able to piece together the story of what happened and learn that there was a huge space war and that the evil beings from that war are headed towards Earth.
They also make other major discoveries and begin their planning for the attack.
There are a couple of problems with the book, though. First is that the people that constructed the spaceship are human. No explanation is given to why there are humans very far away and humans on the Earth. Was Earth a colony? Why were humans in groups so distant from each other?
Second. The aliens will be here in 268 years. The scientists are studying the spaceships that still exist but no mention at all is given about the need to upgrade those ships since it can logically be presumed that the enemy will be upgrading theirs and not leave them as is for almost three more centuries.
These problems lower my rating for this book.
December 27, 2013
I've had this story waiting on my Kindle for some time and I recently got around to reading it. This is another example of the self-publishing that the ebook revolution has spawned, of which I am a huge supporter of. It's the first of a group of short novels that introduce a trilogy called 'The Slaver Wars'.
The story is okay, with a fair bit of intrigue. It's rather reminiscent of the first Perry Rhodan book 'Enterprise Stardust' where a moon landing is affected by mysterious forces and a journey across the Lunar surface reveals a startling discovery. I don't know if the author is familiar with the classic German 'pulp' sci-fi tales, but this had a very similar feel.
The story feels like it's written more for a teenage/young adult audience, which is okay, but felt a little 'juvenile' for my liking. I would have absolutely loved this as a 14-15 year old.
On a more negative note, there were more spelling mistakes than I'm comfortable with. I seldom read a book without picking up at least a few typographical erors (joke) but this one was a bit on the high side. Typical of the smaller amount of editing that a self-published story would get, so I guess that's quite forgivable.
Overall this story was alright. I'm not sure if it was enough to get me to go and get the following stories, but it may very well draw in other readers.
There are some positive reviews around and I wish this author well. It looks like he's putting in the effort.
The story is okay, with a fair bit of intrigue. It's rather reminiscent of the first Perry Rhodan book 'Enterprise Stardust' where a moon landing is affected by mysterious forces and a journey across the Lunar surface reveals a startling discovery. I don't know if the author is familiar with the classic German 'pulp' sci-fi tales, but this had a very similar feel.
The story feels like it's written more for a teenage/young adult audience, which is okay, but felt a little 'juvenile' for my liking. I would have absolutely loved this as a 14-15 year old.
On a more negative note, there were more spelling mistakes than I'm comfortable with. I seldom read a book without picking up at least a few typographical erors (joke) but this one was a bit on the high side. Typical of the smaller amount of editing that a self-published story would get, so I guess that's quite forgivable.
Overall this story was alright. I'm not sure if it was enough to get me to go and get the following stories, but it may very well draw in other readers.
There are some positive reviews around and I wish this author well. It looks like he's putting in the effort.
February 28, 2014
If you think that this short story was good you do not read enough. Was it written for children?
This is one of the worst short stories I've ever read, and if its purpose was to make me interested in a full length novel, or future short stories, the writing quality failed miserably.
I am not trying to cut this guy up. I know it takes guts to put something out, whether it is self published or officially published. But this was awful. It was colorless. It was lifeless. It was boring. The dialogue, the adjectives, the descriptions, the back stories. You better have a massive imagination while reading this brief appetizer because the author doesn't give us a damned thing -- little imagination, no awe-inspired imagery, and "shows" nearly nothing, "telling" us everything through exposition and narrative summary.
I was embarrassed reading this.
Of all the short stories I have read since college, amateur and professional, this was the least interesting.
Raymond, take these off the market and publish a whole novel. Or at least call someone to revise and edit this thing.
I know it sounds like I am disrespecting the author.... but the story, which had potential, was atrocious.
This is one of the worst short stories I've ever read, and if its purpose was to make me interested in a full length novel, or future short stories, the writing quality failed miserably.
I am not trying to cut this guy up. I know it takes guts to put something out, whether it is self published or officially published. But this was awful. It was colorless. It was lifeless. It was boring. The dialogue, the adjectives, the descriptions, the back stories. You better have a massive imagination while reading this brief appetizer because the author doesn't give us a damned thing -- little imagination, no awe-inspired imagery, and "shows" nearly nothing, "telling" us everything through exposition and narrative summary.
I was embarrassed reading this.
Of all the short stories I have read since college, amateur and professional, this was the least interesting.
Raymond, take these off the market and publish a whole novel. Or at least call someone to revise and edit this thing.
I know it sounds like I am disrespecting the author.... but the story, which had potential, was atrocious.
July 28, 2016
Holy crap, I'd get some less whiny less attached astronauts.
Got a family? Great - stay home with them. Lots of single people out there who would love to go.
Way too large of the percentage of the book deals with whining wanting to go back to be with the families. Just after discovering an alien spacecraft.
Are you kidding me?
The MC's do not seem to be well matched to their jobs.
Personally, I made it only a little less than halfway through the book but was thinking an interesting twist would be if the whole alien thing was an elaborate set up by some civilization to get the humans to kill the lizard guys. It would explain a lot rather than 'oh, humans all over the galaxy are just made like this. Ignore the whole evolution thing.'
It was OK but eventually the non-stop whining of the MC's wanting to be home all the time got to me. (Note - after leaving all my friends, country and continent for the last six years I am here to tell you 'it can be done with less whining').
Got a family? Great - stay home with them. Lots of single people out there who would love to go.
Way too large of the percentage of the book deals with whining wanting to go back to be with the families. Just after discovering an alien spacecraft.
Are you kidding me?
The MC's do not seem to be well matched to their jobs.
Personally, I made it only a little less than halfway through the book but was thinking an interesting twist would be if the whole alien thing was an elaborate set up by some civilization to get the humans to kill the lizard guys. It would explain a lot rather than 'oh, humans all over the galaxy are just made like this. Ignore the whole evolution thing.'
It was OK but eventually the non-stop whining of the MC's wanting to be home all the time got to me. (Note - after leaving all my friends, country and continent for the last six years I am here to tell you 'it can be done with less whining').
January 13, 2013
Moon Wreck
The story is about a lander sent to the moon and crashes. The two astronauts have to overcome many obstacles in their fight to survive. It has a surprising way of looking at their problems, that you must read to figure out.
It's a good little story about the resourceful human spirit. With puzzles that can't be solved, humans don't give up. What if you were stuck in a box, could you get out? The story, is written so any age can read it. Evan with limited science background, it is well written and worth getting a hold of. Great sci-fi read!
Rated: 4 1/5 stars
Cookie/ Nathan
juliesbookreview.blogspot.com
The story is about a lander sent to the moon and crashes. The two astronauts have to overcome many obstacles in their fight to survive. It has a surprising way of looking at their problems, that you must read to figure out.
It's a good little story about the resourceful human spirit. With puzzles that can't be solved, humans don't give up. What if you were stuck in a box, could you get out? The story, is written so any age can read it. Evan with limited science background, it is well written and worth getting a hold of. Great sci-fi read!
Rated: 4 1/5 stars
Cookie/ Nathan
juliesbookreview.blogspot.com
March 6, 2014
This review relates to the entire series of Moon Wreck which I have given * only.
The plot is - although not very original (sth like battle star galactica meets perry rhodan) - interesting and keeps you reading, despite the constant feeling about the low quality of writing. And this is the problem: Mr. Weil is just not good in writing ... Flat characters, over-simple sentences and wording, irritating breaks in logic and on top some primitive sexism.
Whenever the author thinks he should bring in some character building by deviating into the personal life of the acting people, he gets very boring and irrelevant.
What he does quite well are the battle scenes, but after the tenth of it ...
The plot is - although not very original (sth like battle star galactica meets perry rhodan) - interesting and keeps you reading, despite the constant feeling about the low quality of writing. And this is the problem: Mr. Weil is just not good in writing ... Flat characters, over-simple sentences and wording, irritating breaks in logic and on top some primitive sexism.
Whenever the author thinks he should bring in some character building by deviating into the personal life of the acting people, he gets very boring and irrelevant.
What he does quite well are the battle scenes, but after the tenth of it ...
June 2, 2013
Interesting idea and an easy quick read. As some have noted the writing isn't extraordinary, it's plain and straight to the point. I did, however, feel like I was reading Sphere...on the moon. Just saying, I haven't finished the series, so I don't know how close it is yet, but for now, I feel like I'm reading a watered down short story of Sphere...on the moon...
March 11, 2013
Interesting, easy to read, fast paced story. Very short, but interesting enough to continue reading stories. The only complaint I had was the constant reminders of the two main characters families back on Earth. Actually, I found the references between one man and his sister, disturbing and distracted from overall enjoyment of books.
May 8, 2013
After spending an hour reading this I didn't feel much at all. The story was good, definitely piped my interest, but the writing was barely pedestrian. There were many repeated phrases, and the characters were not developed. It's an interesting idea, and I hope with some practice the author dials in his writing; there's potential here.
January 18, 2013
Awesome beginning to a potential story but damn the author for cutting it short as it gets really interesting! He wants to make sure the readers like the story before continuing and now I'm suffering.
November 5, 2013
OK, interesting story line, The ending wasn't a real ending but not a cliff hanger either. I think my English teacher mom would have a lot of read marks, but I just read it and didn't let the wrong word bother me too much.
August 30, 2014
Wow, this was a stunningly bad book! There are so many problems that it's hard to know where to begin. I think I would just recommend hammering nails (plural) in both feet long before I would recommend reading this trash.
November 29, 2014
I agree with a lot of other reviewers it has so much potential I want to like the characters but the story is so one dimensional. I will give the next book in the series, a chance but the writing better be more inclusive or I am done.
October 1, 2016
This whole series is incredible! I've finished the Slaver series, and I'm on book 3 of the Lost Fleet series, and I can't help but think how awesome it would be to see movies or a TV series made from the whole epic.
I highly recommend them to any sci-fi fan!
Thank you Mr Weil!!!!
I highly recommend them to any sci-fi fan!
Thank you Mr Weil!!!!
June 1, 2013
The first book in the Moon Wreck series.
April 7, 2013
Only first chapter was this book (not a book, a chapter!).
Anyway, interesting story, simple English easy to read, I will try the next chapter.
Anyway, interesting story, simple English easy to read, I will try the next chapter.
April 3, 2014
An enjoyable read, now have download nr 2 and 3!
May 19, 2014
I was hooked, I mean really hooked! With that said, I read one book after another and was bummed when I ran out of story...
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews