Sentinels: Stellarax

Sentinels Superhero Novels #6

by Van Allen Plexico

The situation is dire. Four vast and powerful cosmic entities stand poised to destroy the Earth, while the spaceborne nano-virus called the Blight turns everyone--human and alien--into mindless zombies.


With the mighty Ultraa near death and powerful Vanadium a captive of the enemy, Lyn Li and Esro Brachis have no other choice. They must lead a ragtag group of heroes and villains on a desperate mission. If they’re going out, they’re going out with a bang. It’s one last hurrah-- before the end of the world!


Filled with action and adventure, STELLARAX sees our heroes through their greatest challenges ever--and no one is the same afterward.


“Nobody - not even Abnett and Lanning - is doing cosmic superheroes as well as Van Allen Plexico is doing them. Period.”
--Barry Reese, award-winning author and creator of The Rook

ebook

First published June 17, 2011

About the author

Van Allen Plexico has written a dozen novels and contributed to at least that many anthologies, but is best known for his popular and critically-acclaimed SENTINELS superhero novels, as well as the two-time Novel of the Year Finalist LORDS OF FIRE and its sequels in the "Shattering" space opera series. In the realm of nonfiction, he co-wrote the best-selling DECADES OF DOMINANCE and SEASON OF OUR DREAMS books about Auburn football and created the ASSEMBLED! books, exploring the history of Marvel’s AVENGERS comics. He writes and edits for numerous publishers including Airship 27, Pro Se Press, Permuted/Swarm Press, Maple Street Press, New Babel Books, Adamant, and White Rocket, along with occasional columns for RevolutionSF.com and the War Eagle Reader. He serves as an Associate Professor at Southwestern Illinois College.

Reviews

[Nathan Woll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some things were good. For example, Vanadium's arc was very fun and interesting. Yet there were several annoying parts in the book as well. First the Warlord, does Plexico have a contract with this guy or something? He was defeated in the first book! Stop bringing him back. Then, there is the unresolved ending. Loose threads are fine, but ending with a treaty as the solution to this huge crisis then like 3 pages later (!) breaking the treaty and leaving everything unresolved is ridiculous. Plexico's style of all action all the time is ok in some books, but it wears a bit in this book. Third, was the Kur-Bai plotline. I wanted much more of that. We needed about 5 more chapters on the politics and turmoil going on in ...(actually, I don't even know where it was happening, is there a Kur-Bai capitol planet, or city??? Nothing is explained or fleshed out)

Anyway, overall this is one of the weaker books on the series. Not as bad as book 2, but probably the next worst.

[Oliver Kitchen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series really does give the feeling of reading a pulp superhero story from around the 70s-80s, which is exactly what I'm here for. This specific book appears to take place over the course of about a day and is essentially one long climax for the second trilogy of books. It answers some questions and raises others going forward, particularly what happened to the "ghosts" and what happens next for Vanadium. I'll be honest though, I had sort of forgotten about the warlord after the first book...