Rift Warrior: The Techborn

Rift Warrior #1

by B.V. Larson

The colony on Haven-7 has gone rogue. The colonists have split into two the Techborn and the Dusters. The Techborn have always ruled the planet. They control the remnants of the crashed starship that brought humanity to this new world. The Dusters… they eat Techborn dust.

But now, the Techborn strength is waning. Their weapons are getting old, and radiation leaks from the aging reactors have created mutations. Some of these, like their brutish troops known as Tuskers, have proven useful—but others are abominations.

When the Dusters rebel, civil war breaks out. Special Forces operative Dane Tanner is transmitted to Haven-7 to stabilize the colony… by any means necessary.

THE TECHBORN is the thrilling 1st book of the RIFT WARRIOR series. With millions of copies sold, USA Today Bestselling author B. V. Larson is the king of modern military science fiction.

Genres: Science Fiction

361 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 31, 2024

About the author

Brian Larson is an American science fiction and fantasy author

Reviews

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I was fooled.

You know things are not going well for a book when you hear yourself say "this is the dumbest book I've read in a long time" more than once. There is just zero substance here. This hero has no real reason for doing anything other than it seems like a good idea at the time. I had no sympathy for all the abuse he took. I certainly had no sympathy for any of the women he slept with. The space between the Dusters and the Techborn was way overdone, no real believable reason for it. This had such great potential - but was reduced to a cartoon. Sad. Mark Boyett was great on the audio.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointed! Yeah, that sums up this book and probably this series. I doubt I’ll be reading any more of this trash! Pretty harsh words from someone that really likes some other B. V. Larson books. But this book just stinks. I think the author really wanted to write a western novel but didn’t know how so he stuck everything that he knew how to write about westerns in this dumb book. I am sorry I read it all the way through, so be warned.

Our main character, Dane Tanner, is a muscle-bound idiot. I don’t think he’s that intelligent but that could be due to the author’s poor writing. He was working for some high-tech lab that was apparently doing genetic experiments on various animals and even alien species. Things went wrong when one of the experiments broke out of its containment. Tanner was a security guard for the place and he had already been injured when things really started going bad. Still, he manages to save the only other alive person, a beautiful young girl whom he protects until help arrives. Not terribly bad so far, but you haven’t read much of the story yet.

Tanner used to work for XCU (Xenothreat Containment Unit) as an operative. His job was to go to Earth colonies and solve problems with the new settlements. Usually this meant he would fight off any indigenous plants or animals to make the place save for the new Earth colonist. He also would go out to fix problems between colonist. Some of these colonies had been around for a while and they had settled into different factions on the same planet. Tanner would try to find out what the problems were between the factions and get them back to working together. Sometimes he’d have to fight one or the other faction until that got his point.

He had been fired from the job so had found this security gig that at least paid most of his bills. Now XCU was calling him back. They had a particular problem with an operative on Haven-7. This operative hadn’t reported in for several months. So XCU made Tanner an offer he couldn’t refuse especially since it also involved hiring Tina Lazar, the woman Tanner had just saved from the destroyed labs. He was to go to Haven-7, find Silas, a.k.a. “The Preacher” and get his reports coming back in. This planet was a dust ball. There wasn’t much of anything to warrant contact with Earth so I don’t know why they are even interested in someone going out there, but that’s Tanner’s job.

The way he goes is also pretty idiotic. They can create a transdimensional quantum gateway that will allow only one person to be transported to the destination; one completely naked person! It seems that sending a fully clothed person through the gateway cost too much energy and therefore was too expensive. So Tanner was going to be dropped on a strange planet with no idea of where or what was going on and he was going to start out completely naked, unclothed and definitely unarmed. Who in their right mind would even do/consider such a thing. Like I said, Tanner is all that bright.

Tanner arrives on Haven-7 in his birthday suit, wonders around the desert for a few days, and then stumbles into, of course a pretty girl. She doesn’t seem to be surprised about a naked, dirty man standing in the desert so she takes him in and leads him to, eventually, Silas. Along the way, Tanner finds out that the planet was once colonized by a starship called the Arabella. It had crashed landed, but the survivors that lived soon split into to groups. The Dusters were farmed barely living off the land and the Techborn, those who stayed on the ship and used the technology still working. The Techborn thought they were far superior to the Dusters. They were also trying to use the Dusters as slaves anytime they caught one. Well, Tanner didn’t think this was right so he had to intervene. Why, I don’t know.

So the book now devolves into something like “there’s a new Sherriff in town” and he’s going to clean up the place. The Dusters have nothing and I don’t know what keeps them alive. Apparently this planet can’t grow anything so I don’t know how they exist. The Techborn at least live in their destroyed ship and they have scientists (mostly mad scientists) inventing new ways of doing stuff. I don’t know how they get food, that’s not explained. Anyway, Tanner gets captured by the Techborn and almost becomes an experiment by one of the mad scientists. He rescued by another beautiful lady, Baroness Callista, who ain’t no lady.

Now all through this story, every woman that Tanner meets winds up going to bed with him, usually more than once. He also seems to want to fight everything he sees and gets to do plenty of that even though he usually only has some kind of electric sword. Anyway, Tanner goes about killing the Techborn to include the son of the Overlord. Of course that makes him mad so he vows to kill Tanner and all the Dusters.

Several times during the book, the author references walkers. These must be some kind of horse substitute and you catch the author writing “horses” instead of walker several times. The entire story has no point. Earth has decayed beyond any possible way of helping any of these colony worlds. They don’t have ships to conduct trade and with the cost of quantum gateways, can’t even keep in contact with most colonies so why is Tanner here and why is XCU even interested. None of it makes sense. This is kind of a “canned” story where the good guy goes out, beats the bad guys, and gets the girl, lots of girls/women. Definitely not my kind of story and one I’m not going to continue to read. IMHO, this book was badly written.

[Leslie Baptiste · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is not one of the authors, Best Works, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

First of all the world building was so so kind of Science Fiction western. What those people who like that type of series. The MC is totally unlikable. In my opinion, he is very lascivious and things about having sex at the most inappropriate times during the story. He has no redeeming values, no skills, no special abilities, he certainly is no james McGill. You may like it, I did not.

[James Arthur Ward · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unexpected quality

Unexpected quality or rather the lack of quality , I have come to appreciate from B. V. Larson. Nothing original no characters that the reader can empathize with and the villains are so dumb there is nothing to worry about. Hopefully this book is just an anomoly and Larson will be back to his usual excellence for the rest of the series.

[William (Mr. Bill) Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rift Warrior: The Techborn action thriller

Writer B.V. Larson always provides exciting sci-fi books like this one, "Rift Warrior: The Techborn." This book is a "Stargate" type of adventure with several important differences. Their method of travel is a far cry from the sophisticated stargate portal.
On this first trip, the in-and-out mission planned for Dane Tanner devolves into an all-out war.
When Tanner arrives, he meets his contact. He is soon drafted into fighting against a society of genetically modified and technically advanced beings.
If you like a lot of action, this is the series for you! - Mr.Bill

[HYPHEN MED · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely below average for a B.V. larson book, but I’m so excited for more. The main tech driving this series is basically just a 2 way casting couch from Undying Mercenaries. The author just wants to send a naked man across the galaxy to save entire planets, without the burden of having to work it into Undying Mercenaries, and I’m absolutely here for it. I can’t wait to see where this goes and what ideas he comes up with.

[Murphies_law · Rating 2 out of 5]

A moron on a wild west planet

DNF at 32%

The protagonist is quite slow and acts like a rebellious teenager. Despite claiming to be a pro, he didn't listen to anything in his briefing and keeps acting like a buffoon due to that.. i loved how he ignored the first guns and then desperately gets another one just some moments later..

Given the protagonist's idiocy and obstinatte behaviour i understand why he lost every job before and stopped caring about him and the plot..

[Henry Riley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Predictable. Worn out story line. Waste of time reading.

Predictable. Worn out story line. Waste of time reading. Book had one purpose... Just enough poorly scripted action to keep you reading to set you up to buy more of this thrash in subsequent books..
Wished I never clicked on it.
If you buy it after reading this review, you have nobody to blame but yourself.
You have been made aware.

[Richard Jeffery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Escapism sci fi style

A Rambo style character full of vim and vigor (and a bit of Errol Flynn) visiting different worlds through a man-made rift.
Solving interplanetary problems. Yep .. on his own .. believe it or not!
Kind of a pallet cleanser of novels .. No.deep thinking required.
I think 2 in this series is about right.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poor man’s 80s action movie

This book was a miss for me. The characters were flat, the dialogue was cringy, and the story overall would fit perfectly as a cheesy 80s action movie starring Arnold or Stallone.

[Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always a good read

Typical Larson book. He's always an enjoyable read. Nothing too complicated always good action I've never read one of his books that I was disappointed in or regretted wasting my time

[rnagy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Techborn

An exciting action novel with potential for many sequels. Imaginative new colony worlds with a novel way of getting there. I look forward to the next book in the sequence.

[El Presidente · Rating 1 out of 5]

A Chat GPT prompt of write me a most unoriginal B.V. Larson book ever would do a better job.
This is just lazy.