There’s something out there. We’ve known about it for a long time. No one knows where it came from or who sent it. But one thing is it wants us to find it.
The S.D.F. Jericho is a new ship, built from a new design, with a single purpose — to retrieve the artifact. She’s still in the early stages of shakedown cruise when the call comes in. The artifact is at the far end of the solar system beyond Saturn’s orbit. Only one ship has ever been built to travel that far, and once they pass Jupiter, they will be completely on their own.
Like every Fleet vessel, the Jericho has a platoon of Space Marines. They are all combat veterans, special forces, and Black Ops commandos. The Senior NCO, Master Sergeant Steel, is fresh from winning the Medal of Honor, but nothing in their training or experience has prepared them for what’s to come.
Join the crew of the Jericho, led by Captain Zeke Darius, as they go on a mission that will change the course of human history forever. Artifact is the first book in a new military sci-fi series by master storyteller Toby Neighbors. Told from the point of view of the characters on the ship and full of action, Artifact will take your imagination to a place it has never gone before. Prepare yourself for an epic series that will instantly become one of your favorites. Artifact (Starship Jericho Book 1) is an all-out thrill ride that will keep you turning pages and leave you anxious for more.
This is a fun space opera, but someone needs to hire this author a science advisor and proofreader. So much of the science is incorrect, or hung up on the wrong concept, while missing what’s the salient limit. In the first 100 pages: 1. Gets the concept of the vacuum of space incorrect repeatedly. Book talks about “sonic shields” repeatedly. Um, in the vacuum of space? Sound doesn’t have a medium in which to travel, so “sonic shields” which are talked about repeatedly, can’t work. And the ship travels at “2 million kph” which is many many times the speed of sound, so a “sonic shield” would propagate much slower than the ships travel speed. So any sonic shield would be impossible in front of the ship. 2. Gets the speed of light wrong 3. Gets the scientific nature of constants wrong 4. Gets the theory of evolution wrong 5. Propulsion and g forces are all wrong: the specs for the ship are in 2M kph, when instead the relevant measure is delta-V 6. Acceleration on the ship is un-cancelled by any kind of counter-grab or structural integrity field 7. Yet the ship decelerates “by half” from 2M kph to 1M kph over 6 hours, which by my back-of-the-envelope sketch, would be 6 hours at a 13G retrograde acceleration, and should have killed everyone on the ship from strokes, collapsed lungs, and every bone in their bodies broken. But there’s no mention of this: everyone is all just happily strolling around with their coffee cups in their hands. No mention of how this happens, not even the slightest bit of hand-waviium science words to explain it away. It just happens, unremarked upon. 8. Orbital mechanics are mis-understood entirely. Basic facts-checks on the distance from Jupiter to Saturns closest approach aren’t checked. 9. Radar is presumed to be instantaneous, instead of having speed-of-light constraints at interplanetary distances. 9. A “complete visual inspection” of a space artifact is described, when the ship is approaching from a stationary object from one side. How is the back side imaged for the “complete visual inspection” when the object has been repeatedly described as “stationary”? 10. On a six month voyage, no comms between the spaceship and any other outpost are described. Nobody receives a letter, birthday photo of the family they left behind, there’s no mail delivery, and no orders updates from HQ? Really? Just so MANY fact checks and science fails, that it was too immersion-breaking for me. I had to put the book down after the first 150 pages. I won’t be finishing the series.
About18% in we are treated to a pointless and highly inaccurate exposition of intelligent design, shortly thereafter it descends into totally unnecessary telepathy. Didn't read on.
I love "artifact" type books, I also love books with alien AI's (think Skippy in Expeditionary force!). So I went into this with high hopes.
I was disappointed.
(Light spoilers)
Let's start with the good first -- there's an interesting story hiding in here - conquered civilization, desperate for help, last gasp effort is to seed systems with rising civilizations and wait until they are technically capable. It also moves along at a good (I would say too fast perhaps) pace, and has some potentially deep characters especially in elite special forces operators.
Where it fails is a complete dissonance in many dimensions. For example the characters are supposed to be smart and experienced, but they seem to have the analytical and problem solving ability of a the village idiot. The ship is the epitome of technology but it relies on a (single) navigator to double check them working the (if I recall the term) "3D Equations of motion" out longhand. The Alien AI shows set them up to navigate hyperspace, a thing they knew nothing about, but she goes ahead and checks that math also. Twice (because it sounds more sure fire).
(Slightly more spoilers).
It just seems like the author's mental view of the story lacked someone saying "Is this what real people would do in such situations" in a gross fashion. One specific example: The AI blocks communications with Earth after it is recovered. The crew sits around and speculates why, meanwhile multiple crew are asking the AI everything from history of the galaxy to its own structure to its own intents, but not one thinks to say "Why can't we contact Earth". They just take the lead speculation at face value. Somewhere along the lines someone says "We have no reason to distrust it" (or words to that effect), even with it basically hijacking the ship, modifying the ships computer, and cutting off communications.
It's almost like the cliche dumb teenagers in bad horror movies ... oh wait... there's those as well when they go into the temple to search out the treasure.
I kept reading mostly because I wanted to see if the predictable trends followed the obvious path (hint: they do). I don't need to read volume 2, any more than in most teen age horror movies you know which ones will get killed by the monster.
Wait.. before I close... in a tip of the hat to "See, I know science, I can write science fiction"... the ship is protected by "while there's no sound in space" (they say that just before explaining) sonic shields. So "no sound in space" but their sonic shields can send out sound waves to break up inbound threats to the ship. There are more such bad-science, the sort that is now all too common when people with no science knowledge decide "how hard can science fiction be". Sigh.
A drone or ship has been found deep inside the all galaxy, but what is it friend or foe? A new ship has been built to find out, but it know that they are coming and seems to know more about the ship then its crew. The information that it passes to the crew comes as a surprise that they didn't expect.
DNF @38% (Chapter 18). The "Science" was really, really bad. The author keeps talking about velocities, but perhaps the most important thing we can learn from Einstein is that velocity is RELATIVE. You can't just say we're going 2 million kilometers per hour, it has to be relative to a reference point, so the concept that this is the "fastest" a spaceship has ever gone is meaningless. Also, 2M kph is just bad SI usage. That literally translates 2 million thousand kilometers per hour, which sounds uglier than the British expression "thousand million," why not just say two billion km/h? And yes, the proper SI abbreviation is km/h not kmh.
At one point we get a screed that the "Seed Theory" (directed panspermia) negates the theory of evolution and brings the divine into the story of the origin of life, begging the question of who created God? or is it just "turtles all the way down?" Overall, this leads me to believe the author is going to dive into Christian apologetics, or at least lean that way in the book.
Constantly referring to established characters by full rank and full name like: "Master Sergeant Miles W. Standish" is an overdone trope in this genre that needs to die, and this author overuses it mercilessly. Speaking of rolling eyes, Pete Best was the Beatles' first drummer and Remington Steele was a fictional action hero/detective from 1980s TV.
The author displays poor scientific knowledge of how space works, especially space flight. I also found too much exposition which dragged the story out. DNF
This book honors the traditions of the Marines: highly regimented, intensely disciplined, formidable special forces who worked precisely in teams. It’s a clean and exciting read.
We enter the world of Master Sargeant Remmy Steel, a medal-of-honor-winning Marine with a firm resolve to bring his platoons back alive, despite the fact that the Viking Class long-range ship, the Jericho, would be taking them to places no human had ever gone before.
When told to have his Marines shadow the workers on the ship, to take over their jobs in case of loss of crew, that should have triggered a warning in Remmy that this was more than an experimental space flight.
The plot is intriguing, close enough to our own times and thinking to engage the reader in probabilities, yet far enough into Sci Fi to hook those who love to imagine other solar systems and alien cultures. The characters pull you in—including the alien! I found myself wanting to read just one more chapter each time I should put the book down.
The captain warns, “Nothing is free in life. It always costs someone. And even in the most charitable situations, there is, at the very least, a hope that said gift will lead to a life change for the recipient.” They have received incredibly advanced technology—but at what cost?
Captain Zeke Darius was taking a new cruiser for a test flight.
His mission is to fly the new cruiser on its shakedown cruise, then fly past the orbit of Saturn to examine and return an artifact positioned in empty space. Whatever the artifact was, it had been there for hundreds of years. Then suddenly, the artifact had awakened and communicated the plans for the very cruiser Captain Darius was now leading. The artifact communicated that it was a Galactic Information and Guidance Instrument - GIGI for short. The cruiser, named Jericho, carrier a crew of 100 and 14 Marines. After retrieving GIGI, the artifact directed them to a trip through hyperspace to retrieve a power source for an Arodoni battleship. While his orders were to return GIGI to Earth, the artifact wouldn't assist in anything but retrieving the power source. Captain Darius chose to follow GIGI's directions. And the fun begins! Great loveable characters and a terrific storyline from the mind of a master storyteller create a great read!
Book 1 of New Toby Neighbor Series A Powerful Start
A completely new space ship, an extremely experienced captain and the best crew thqt can be gathered with a group of highly trained and experienced Marines set on a mission that has taken centuries to develope. Toby Neighbors weaves all these people together blending their background and experience and knowledge into book one of his new space series Artifact. Toby does a wonderful job of presenting intrigue with introduction to new characters while adding increasing intrigue, drama, danger and mistery into this book, it ends on a powerful note. I had great trouble putting the book down, wanting to continue the next and next page, I am definately going to get the next book in the series. This is Toby Neighbors at his best, a great read.
Proofreading is not an extinct art form. It should have been applied, here.
As for the characterization of Special Forces operators, done at a (poor) comic book level. Thoroughly unprofessional. The characters are also comic book and two-dimensional level.
The unknown alien artifact observing humankind is a classic meme; but the two second integration and a “sure, that’s OK” reaction is hardly believable. On the whole, pretty much at the Flash Gorden level and zero sophistication of thought or plot. Will not bother with the next volume.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
A great read, exciting new starship, Jericho. Blueprints of the space ship was transmitted to Earth in different languages. It took 3 centuries for the ship to be built. The men and women on the ship Jericho retrieved an Alien computer that was sentient from Saturn’s space. The alien computer GIGI leads them to an ancient artifact of tremendous power and that matches their ship. Next book in the adventure to retrieve an ancient battleship in another sector, a different galaxy.
It started off ok? But then the speculation, of course we didn't evolve, we were made - by what we don't know. And the perfect ship, we can't make good things. Well no we can actually, but capitalism means we don't because there is no money in it.
3 stars. OK, this is a tough one. On the positive side, I pretty much enjoyed the story. Now, it wasn't profound in any way, and the characters were a bit thin, but I thought it was fairly good as an escapist book. Now the bad side...the science, or lack thereof, was atrocious. Not quite as bad, but still common, were the grammar and word choice mistakes. Bottom Line: if you can tolerate "Star Wars", then you should be able to tolerate the errors in this book and perhaps be entertained by the story.
This is a good story with lots of action, suspense and a little sideline love story. Has a great cast of characters. I don't think this book would had been as good without the cast that Toby thought of. A really good read. I recommend reading this to all that love science fiction.
I enjoyed this book, excellent character development, with an interesting plot. I'm looking forward to the book in what appears to be a promising series.
A rather unusual space story with lots of futuristic devices and critters. The usual marine and space ship crews and fantastic futuristic ship and power source. A great beginning for the next story.
Fast paced with military style. Very creative and well written. Looking forward to reading more from this author. 👍👍. Waiting to read the next in the series
Good characters, good plot, no abusive language, good relationships. Overall, another great read from Tony whose writing has one big fault. As soon as you finish the book, you're hungry for the next to come off the press.
Plenty of action, good character dev. A little romance and plenty of new tech to think aabout. Grab a copy and enjoy. But if your like me I ended up reeading it in one sleepless night lol.
Great read. Really enjoyed the story. Plenty of things going on with the plot to keep you interested and looking forward. Good character development and a great plot development. Look forward to the next installment.
The book started out with a new starship for the United countries of Earth..all hush, hush..decades in the making. The fast moving tale takes us thru science that we don't have a clue about, to a intergalactic war that is coming. Want book #2!!
This was a fast interesting read which keeps your interest throughout the book. Good characters and plot without the roll your eyes at silly sub plot and scenes found in many books.
This book is a fantastic adventure. I was holding onto the edge of my seat. The story moves at a fast pace. I have the the other two books and I can not wait to start them.
Earth gets instructions on how to build a star ship. We do and we have first contact. But not with alien people, rather with a computer like object. Looking forward to more books in this series.