The Forgotten Ship

The Forgotten Ship #1

by J.N. Chaney, Terry Mixon

Somewhere in the universe, a forgotten starship is waiting.

Drake steals artifacts so they can benefit all of mankind. They belong in a museum, after all, not hoarded by a select few in their private vaults. It's a dangerous life, but someone has to do it.

Then he learns of a map to the location of a lost mega-freighter once belonging to the ancient royal family. Drake, like so many before him, can't resist the siren's call. After all, it's the find of a lifetime.

All he needs to do is steal the map, right?

Except nothing is ever easy for Drake. The map is housed inside a super vault, surrounded by guards ready to shoot on sight, and now there's a woman with an eyepatch and a vendetta. And all of that could end up being the easy part.

Getting the ship and keeping it will be much more difficult.

Experience a riveting, brand new science fiction saga from USA Today Bestselling Authors J.N. Chaney and Terry Mixon. If you're a fan of the Last Hunter, Renegade Star, or Backyard Starship, you'll love this tale of science fiction intrigue, galactic exploration, and unfathomable discovery.

Genres: Science Fiction, Audiobook, Space Opera

424 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 20, 2025

About the author

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Reviews

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just good enough to read the next book

Stilted writing style. Interesting premise that takes most of the book to get interesting. Was hoping for so much more from this writing team.

[Randal Gritzner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top Notch Science Fiction!

[Carol Darling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aftermath

A virus is sent out to infect the human race, it infects and takes weeks to show signs they are ill. The virus kills after a months so it spread quickly. After centuries humans have started to recover.
Finding the lost ship belonging to the dead Empire has been a fantasy of every treasure Hunter for generations now it may be found. Good Read.

[Jason Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great start to a new series. I look forward to reading more.

[David Eve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lost treasures and aliens!

On a mission to obtain artifacts from the long past Golden Kingdom, and a personal vendetta, a thief and an assassin, come across an old 'foe'. Between themselves they come across a possible location for the flagship of the Golden Kingdom, an ultimate haul for both the Institute or personal gain. However can they trust each other and what will they find when they reach the proposed location?
Events conspire to reveal an intriguing, suspenseful tale full of interactions, revelations, twists and turns. A highly enjoyable read for the start of this series.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

More idioms than you can shake a stick at

The author uses a lot of idioms, enough that it was distracting to me.
I enjoy the characters and look forward to seeing Drake, Yukiko, and Peyton in the next episode.
The AI felt weak for being from the future.
Sometimes a character’s style of speech would change and it was noticeable.
Pacing was good. Background felt well fleshed out. I know I nitpicked a lot but if it was bad I wouldn’t have rated it at four stars and I wouldn’t follow up with the sequel.

[Joel · Rating 3 out of 5]

First 2/3rds of the book was really slow and pretty boring. This isn’t what i expect from a Terry Mixon book but definitely something id expect from Chaney. Perhaps thats because it reads like the first half of book one instead of book one. Otherwise once it got interesting it seemed like a good start of a series.

[Gary Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

And yes, I preordered the next in the series. I enjoyed this book in particular because it was a great story and did not need to have a lot of blood and guts/death and destruction to fill up the space. 🙂

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great start

Fast paced with a great plot this story had me captivated from the beginning. The world building and character development is excellent. I'm hanging out for the next installment.

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great book.

This book is the start of a great new storyline. These two authors are some of my favorites and I've enjoyed many of their series. I can't wait to see what they come up with together. When is the next book??

[linda blahovec · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rollicking space adventure

This rollicking space adventure has everything from the underbelly of society as two of the MC's to high society with aliens, AI's lost treasure, and adventures . The potential of a romance in the future. Bring on the next book

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story, interesting characters

This is an interesting and well told story. I enjoyed reading it and look forward to the next installment. Period.

[Jeff Cheung]

This had potential but moves very slowly.

[Gail Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love it!!!

Definitely a mix of Indiana Jones, Stargate, and maybe Expeditionary Force.
Can't wait to see what happens next.
Give this book a chance.

[Joe McGowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was ok

It’s not a grand space adventure, but a fine summer read - unsure if book 2 is on my radar.

[John Mchale · Rating 4 out of 5]

slow start and medicore pace but good story

[ralph vaughn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

Great book. Plenty of suspends and subtle romance. I would enjoy more books by this author. Recommend this book to other readers.

[Richard Kolan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Unique Story

This was a novel that I actually couldn't put down, and it's been a long time since I read one of those. Good character development, etc., story keeps moving...

[Lastewolf · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful

Incredibly badly written, started interesting then went downhill.

The characters continually make the dumbest choices at every opportunity.

One star.

[Tom Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and worth another read

Well I was wondering if this series was really worth getting into.I guess I am sort of hooked and will wait for book two to make sure I like it.

[Dan Donovan · Rating 3 out of 5]

mediocre

All the elements are here for a good novel but somehow it just doesn’t flow well and become an entertaining story.

[Bob Weyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Page turner

Good read. Hard to put down.
If you like fast passed adventure sci fi, this is one series to read.

[Ron · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @73%. It just got to be too much. Too grandiose and over the top.

First we have fallen civilizations and recovering artifacts. That's a good story line. Then we meet a sentient AI running a ship, that's a nice add-on to our derelict spaceship, makes it self-repairing 'n stuff. Then we have a 500 year old Rip Van Winkle character. Buck Rogers was good, let's crib from that, too. Then we get sucked into a worm-hole and get sent all the way across the Milky Way galaxy and meet scammy space aliens. Sure lets do that plot line, too. Altogether, it just got to be too much. I'm 300 pages in, and I still don't know what quite to expect from the series. And frankly, I'm thinking I really don't want to know. The authors have blown my sense of disbelief in their universe because they keep adding more and more phantasmagorical gumbo to the mix.

[Brennon Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poor world-building, sci-fi is sloppy

Started out interesting - had potential. I've liked other Cheney novels.

Lots of cliche phrases or phrases that you won't hear in a far away place and time and sometimes make it feel more like dialogue you'd read in a litRPG. The AI is poorly developed and unbelievable. Lots of time spent talking about avoiding awkward living arrangements to maintain modesty. This and many other aspects left me disappointed - won't be reading the next book.

[Claire Jarvis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seems like AI

Not the usual Chaney book, I just couldn't connect with the characters, the writing when the characters spoke was wooden. In fact there wasn't a lot of difference between them. If I was told AI wrote it I wouldn't be surprised. Having said that, the premise was an interesting one so I'll carry on in the hope that their personalities develop. Some more humour would be good too, its a bit lacking so far.

[Brian Laux · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new, but different space opera

The vast majority of space operas have some down on their luck nobody rising to implausibly save the universe. This one starts with very interesting characters who have their own share of skills. And the initial situation is also a novel concept. I’ve enjoyed it so far and look forward to continuing the journey.

[Michael Hackerott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast Start but a Slow Finish

The first part of the book was really well written with a good pace and action. However, after they came out of the megastructure the story slowed down. I am still looking forward to the next book in the series.

[Roy Randolph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminds me of MacGyver

Characters are not well developed, but overall it was a great read. The main character (Drake), approached problems with an open mind and had creative solutions.

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're looking for top notch scifi, then you've found it. This is a great story, and I sure hope there's more planned for this series, because I'd love to read more.

[Marion G. Waters III · Rating 5 out of 5]

interesting and pleasant reading!

I am very definitely looking forward to the next book in this series. The characters are interesting and the plot is a good one.