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The Infinity Corps: Crisis on Thoraxus Prime
Prepare for Launch!
A worldwide tragedy that fell from the heavens gave rise to the Infinity Corps, the Earth Union Alliance’s effort to defend Earth and indulge humankind’s unquenchable desire to discover what wonders and dangers await beyond our solar system.
During the public unveiling of a galaxy-shattering secret, Lieutenant Jessica Justice discovers the root of a sinister conspiracy that could tear humanity apart and destroy the fledgling Infinity Corps. The mystery of a missing Exploration Division rocketship drags Lt. Justice into a crisis far larger than she could imagine, and it is up to her and her ragtag crew of humans, robots, and aliens to travel to a strange new world in search of clues and potential allies to fight the coming storm.
But unknown danger lurks in everyone who crosses their path. Enlisting the help of an academy friend with startling abilities, an accident-prone engineer, a trigger-happy infantry veteran, an obsolete mechanoid pilot, and an oft-distracted sci-bot, Lt. Justice must match wits with a devious threat capable of wearing anyone’s face, including her own…
A worldwide tragedy that fell from the heavens gave rise to the Infinity Corps, the Earth Union Alliance’s effort to defend Earth and indulge humankind’s unquenchable desire to discover what wonders and dangers await beyond our solar system.
During the public unveiling of a galaxy-shattering secret, Lieutenant Jessica Justice discovers the root of a sinister conspiracy that could tear humanity apart and destroy the fledgling Infinity Corps. The mystery of a missing Exploration Division rocketship drags Lt. Justice into a crisis far larger than she could imagine, and it is up to her and her ragtag crew of humans, robots, and aliens to travel to a strange new world in search of clues and potential allies to fight the coming storm.
But unknown danger lurks in everyone who crosses their path. Enlisting the help of an academy friend with startling abilities, an accident-prone engineer, a trigger-happy infantry veteran, an obsolete mechanoid pilot, and an oft-distracted sci-bot, Lt. Justice must match wits with a devious threat capable of wearing anyone’s face, including her own…
268 pages, Paperback
Published July 20, 2023
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 23, 2026
TL;DR version:
Book is GREAT, filled with beautiful prose, interesting and diverse cast that doesn’t preach, yet explores several sci-fi concepts and ethical issues within this single novel in a self-contained way, reminiscent of the Best Star Trek had to offer.
Highly recommended if you love pulp sci-fi or good stories in general!
---
Long version:
Have been looking forward to reviewing this book for a long time, IRL commitments suck lol. Let’s hop to it!
The Infinity Corp: Crisis on Thoraxus Prime (CoTP) is the first full novel by long time BattleTech Author and Editor Philip A. Lee, whom you may know as the editor of many Battletech anthologies such as “Battlecorp” and the current “Shrapnel” series.
So brief summary: Mankind has advanced into the Earth Union Alliance, a steampunk/sci-fi space exploration focus group much like Star Trek’s The Federation.
The tone of the stories is very optimistic retro sci-fi, but not blindly optimistic. the universe is still a mostly unexplored and dangerous place, and the characters may be optimistic, but they are not naive and are mostly competent.
It is actually preceded by a series of short stories that flesh out some of the featured characters in this book but are in no way necessary to understand or enjoy this novel. CoTP Ties in the previous stories nicely, this is how a good series should be written, each separate piece of fiction should add to the universe, not detract from it by their absence and make you go, "huh?".
So major points given here as a distressingly large number of modern stories require you to reference other works to even have a basic understanding.
Speaking of characters, they are an interesting motley bunch, all loaded onto the Infinity corp vessel, “The Verne” (HA. Nice one). Like Star Trek but with actual "alien" lifeforms, instead of just a bunch of humans with different skin tones.
For example, Lieutenant Jessica (the main protagonist and ship’s captain) is a great female character, stoic and resilient, yet not a one note character who can actually pass as someone with command experience. I can really buy into the fact she is a highly trained, yet at times naive officer.
Finally, a female protagonist who achieves something by dumb luck and perseverance, rather than incredulously having the exact skillset needed at the moment.
Philip takes the time to flesh out his supporting characters as well, with little flourishes that really make them seem more than a 2D cutout, emotional and intense.
I particularly like Thorrsen, their chief gunner and weapon specialist who in a lesser story could just be a dumb gun wielding moron but has a surprising amount of influence throughout the book, the same of which could be said of the myriad of other characters both friendly and antagonistic.
I could go on and on about them, but this review is already way too long and I’m lazy lmao.
Thrilling action punctuates the book, which I guess is a testament to Philips experience as a Battletech author, the battles are not just slogs to read through but actually serve not only to highlight the crew’s abilities, way of thinking and different philosophies.
I.e., the conflicts serve to illustrate different aspects of this universe and are not perfunctory.
There is a lot of great vivid writing that really sells the scenes, e.g., the Squiff morphing into different forms was very evocatively described (go read it yourself). Also, Philip takes the effort to smoothly introduce alien slang into the character's lexicon via telepathy and antagonist exposition.
Very naturalistic writing. Characters are exposed to new concepts in a natural fashion that doesn't feel like an exposition dump.
On the topic of language and prosody, there is great use of synonyms to give that extra bit of flavour, "alienness" to the prose. E.g., describing an alien as having "nictitated" their eyes instead of just "blinking". Very evocative writing, like describing an organic ship wholly with references to body parts, "stoma", "pores" etc.
You can tell the descriptions were done with care and effort and I expanded my vocabulary quite a bit, a rare and precious novelty within the modern reading landscape.
In summary this is one of the most fun, well written, and beautiful pieces of prose I read in the last couple of years.
5/5
P.S.
Go buy the book lol. No, I don't get paid a single cent for this. Just go support great literature lmao.
https://www.amazon.com/Infinity-Corps......
P.P.S.
"Bellum". Hahaha. It works.
Book is GREAT, filled with beautiful prose, interesting and diverse cast that doesn’t preach, yet explores several sci-fi concepts and ethical issues within this single novel in a self-contained way, reminiscent of the Best Star Trek had to offer.
Highly recommended if you love pulp sci-fi or good stories in general!
---
Long version:
Have been looking forward to reviewing this book for a long time, IRL commitments suck lol. Let’s hop to it!
The Infinity Corp: Crisis on Thoraxus Prime (CoTP) is the first full novel by long time BattleTech Author and Editor Philip A. Lee, whom you may know as the editor of many Battletech anthologies such as “Battlecorp” and the current “Shrapnel” series.
So brief summary: Mankind has advanced into the Earth Union Alliance, a steampunk/sci-fi space exploration focus group much like Star Trek’s The Federation.
The tone of the stories is very optimistic retro sci-fi, but not blindly optimistic. the universe is still a mostly unexplored and dangerous place, and the characters may be optimistic, but they are not naive and are mostly competent.
It is actually preceded by a series of short stories that flesh out some of the featured characters in this book but are in no way necessary to understand or enjoy this novel. CoTP Ties in the previous stories nicely, this is how a good series should be written, each separate piece of fiction should add to the universe, not detract from it by their absence and make you go, "huh?".
So major points given here as a distressingly large number of modern stories require you to reference other works to even have a basic understanding.
Speaking of characters, they are an interesting motley bunch, all loaded onto the Infinity corp vessel, “The Verne” (HA. Nice one). Like Star Trek but with actual "alien" lifeforms, instead of just a bunch of humans with different skin tones.
For example, Lieutenant Jessica (the main protagonist and ship’s captain) is a great female character, stoic and resilient, yet not a one note character who can actually pass as someone with command experience. I can really buy into the fact she is a highly trained, yet at times naive officer.
Finally, a female protagonist who achieves something by dumb luck and perseverance, rather than incredulously having the exact skillset needed at the moment.
Philip takes the time to flesh out his supporting characters as well, with little flourishes that really make them seem more than a 2D cutout, emotional and intense.
I particularly like Thorrsen, their chief gunner and weapon specialist who in a lesser story could just be a dumb gun wielding moron but has a surprising amount of influence throughout the book, the same of which could be said of the myriad of other characters both friendly and antagonistic.
I could go on and on about them, but this review is already way too long and I’m lazy lmao.
Thrilling action punctuates the book, which I guess is a testament to Philips experience as a Battletech author, the battles are not just slogs to read through but actually serve not only to highlight the crew’s abilities, way of thinking and different philosophies.
I.e., the conflicts serve to illustrate different aspects of this universe and are not perfunctory.
There is a lot of great vivid writing that really sells the scenes, e.g., the Squiff morphing into different forms was very evocatively described (go read it yourself). Also, Philip takes the effort to smoothly introduce alien slang into the character's lexicon via telepathy and antagonist exposition.
Very naturalistic writing. Characters are exposed to new concepts in a natural fashion that doesn't feel like an exposition dump.
On the topic of language and prosody, there is great use of synonyms to give that extra bit of flavour, "alienness" to the prose. E.g., describing an alien as having "nictitated" their eyes instead of just "blinking". Very evocative writing, like describing an organic ship wholly with references to body parts, "stoma", "pores" etc.
You can tell the descriptions were done with care and effort and I expanded my vocabulary quite a bit, a rare and precious novelty within the modern reading landscape.
In summary this is one of the most fun, well written, and beautiful pieces of prose I read in the last couple of years.
5/5
P.S.
Go buy the book lol. No, I don't get paid a single cent for this. Just go support great literature lmao.
https://www.amazon.com/Infinity-Corps......
P.P.S.
"Bellum". Hahaha. It works.
Displaying 1 of 1 review