What do you think?
Rate this book
The Derand Prototcol #1
The Derand Protocol - Book 1
Charles Derand was just another ghost on Old Earth—forgotten, overlooked, nothing special. Until a cryptic message pulled him off the streets and threw him into the Guild’s brutal training program for Slip Ship navigators.
Now he’s flying with a neural implant wired to an AI that knows more than it should, piloting a prototype ship the Guild wants buried, and running from enemies no one will admit exist.
But the real twist? The girl he saved.
Cici isn’t human. She’s Shal’Vaari—one of a psionic avian race the Dominion hunted, caged, and turned into weapons. Young, gifted, and marked for death, she’s the key to something ancient… and something the galaxy is killing to keep buried.
What starts as survival becomes something else. A missing species. A dead civilization. A god-tier ship built by a race that shouldn’t exist. And at the center of it all—Charles, altered by alien tech, outgunned, outnumbered, and still not backing down.
The Dominion wants silence.
The Hegemony wants control.
Charles wants answers.
And he’s not asking twice.
Now he’s flying with a neural implant wired to an AI that knows more than it should, piloting a prototype ship the Guild wants buried, and running from enemies no one will admit exist.
But the real twist? The girl he saved.
Cici isn’t human. She’s Shal’Vaari—one of a psionic avian race the Dominion hunted, caged, and turned into weapons. Young, gifted, and marked for death, she’s the key to something ancient… and something the galaxy is killing to keep buried.
What starts as survival becomes something else. A missing species. A dead civilization. A god-tier ship built by a race that shouldn’t exist. And at the center of it all—Charles, altered by alien tech, outgunned, outnumbered, and still not backing down.
The Dominion wants silence.
The Hegemony wants control.
Charles wants answers.
And he’s not asking twice.
- GenresScience Fiction
493 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 3, 2025
407 people are currently reading
35 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
May 20, 2025
I've read a few books by this author, and they were all haremlit novels. I mistakenly thought this one was, as well, but that doesn't factor into my review since that was my mistake.
This novel is what I call dry-sci-fi. As in, there is very little human/alien interaction for the MC. He does 90% of his communication with the AI in his implant/ship. Another 2% is to a person he meets who is quickly killed off, 7% to his sentient but not speaking until the very end animal companion he rescues, and maybe 1% to various others. This makes the book quite a slog to read, since it is devoid of good dialogue.
The world building and plot are intriguing for a future based sci-fi story. I'm actually interested in the plot to an extent, but that lack of interactions with others is really hurting this book.
I am on the fence about reading a sequel. I might if my TBR pile gets low.
This novel is what I call dry-sci-fi. As in, there is very little human/alien interaction for the MC. He does 90% of his communication with the AI in his implant/ship. Another 2% is to a person he meets who is quickly killed off, 7% to his sentient but not speaking until the very end animal companion he rescues, and maybe 1% to various others. This makes the book quite a slog to read, since it is devoid of good dialogue.
The world building and plot are intriguing for a future based sci-fi story. I'm actually interested in the plot to an extent, but that lack of interactions with others is really hurting this book.
I am on the fence about reading a sequel. I might if my TBR pile gets low.
June 25, 2025
Good story on need of an editor.
The overall story was great, however this book is in serious need of an editor. Spelling mistakes, word-choice mistakes, repeated sentences, even an entire repeated chapter. Also, the story moves a little too fast and doesn't extrapolate important parts, so it feels a bit clipped. It feels like you have to just take a lot on faith instead of filling in on some of the blanks.
The overall story was great, however this book is in serious need of an editor. Spelling mistakes, word-choice mistakes, repeated sentences, even an entire repeated chapter. Also, the story moves a little too fast and doesn't extrapolate important parts, so it feels a bit clipped. It feels like you have to just take a lot on faith instead of filling in on some of the blanks.
September 20, 2025
no bothering story, poorly edited.
The first 60% of the book, has decent word editing, sentence structure, and page layout. Then we start getting whole sections repeated, but written in a different, more complete way. It’s as if sections of the original draft were left after a rewrite to expand and enhance the chapter was done.
The story itself is in desperate need of an editor . The beginning is good, decent set up, enough info to get us invested in the character, than a hook to put us in an uncertain place.
Then it completely falls apart . I’m 80% through the book, and I’m quitting. We just introduced the sixth or seventh Random faction. With no buildup. At first, we had a standard space opera. A poor kid from earth joins the space, guild, etc., etc.. that’s all good. But we don’t know anything about the galactic government except that it prefers stability. Then further on Discover there’s a quasi religious movement that has huge power across the entire universe and fleets of ships of a town (not sure if you’ve noticed, but in 2025, no religion has carrier fleets with battleships and destroyers, and aircraft carriers to compete with governments, that’s just not how it works), then at some point we’re introduced to your resistance, which hence at a previously unknown history, then we’re introduced to an ancient galactic civilization of “real” humans, with a history older than all human civilization, they were introduced to a multi planetary system empire that has the technology to meet and beat everythingThe humans we know about so far have, but that group is somehow non-aggressive non-expansionist, but also has kept better technology than humanity for the last few hundred/thousand years. Static civilizations don’t evolve technology, so either they would’ve crushed us utterly from the first war, or we would’ve beaten them up a couple hundred years later because we would have better tech.
Throw in random alien encounters where it turns out their sentient aliens scattered about the universe, but they’re all lesser than humans.
Throughout the book if you know anything about technology, the magic tech handwaving drive you nuts.
You don’t think about biology the part where they mention the aliens “have only a few thousand members” will have you questioning if the author even has the biggest understanding of how civilization works. No sentient alien species evolve on an entire planet, and only has “ a few thousand members”, may be a few million or a few hundred million, but definitely not a few thousand.
And there’s a big bad aliens that are set up early on as a threat to all the civilization , or destroyed, but one small task group of human technology, and then properly thrown away as the big bad villain.
Overall, the author has a good imagination , and has the potential to mature into a good storyteller. To achieve that they need to find some beta readers and a story editor who will keep them on track, and not let them just throw in massive plot altering elements just because.
I will not be reading any more of the series .
The first 60% of the book, has decent word editing, sentence structure, and page layout. Then we start getting whole sections repeated, but written in a different, more complete way. It’s as if sections of the original draft were left after a rewrite to expand and enhance the chapter was done.
The story itself is in desperate need of an editor . The beginning is good, decent set up, enough info to get us invested in the character, than a hook to put us in an uncertain place.
Then it completely falls apart . I’m 80% through the book, and I’m quitting. We just introduced the sixth or seventh Random faction. With no buildup. At first, we had a standard space opera. A poor kid from earth joins the space, guild, etc., etc.. that’s all good. But we don’t know anything about the galactic government except that it prefers stability. Then further on Discover there’s a quasi religious movement that has huge power across the entire universe and fleets of ships of a town (not sure if you’ve noticed, but in 2025, no religion has carrier fleets with battleships and destroyers, and aircraft carriers to compete with governments, that’s just not how it works), then at some point we’re introduced to your resistance, which hence at a previously unknown history, then we’re introduced to an ancient galactic civilization of “real” humans, with a history older than all human civilization, they were introduced to a multi planetary system empire that has the technology to meet and beat everythingThe humans we know about so far have, but that group is somehow non-aggressive non-expansionist, but also has kept better technology than humanity for the last few hundred/thousand years. Static civilizations don’t evolve technology, so either they would’ve crushed us utterly from the first war, or we would’ve beaten them up a couple hundred years later because we would have better tech.
Throw in random alien encounters where it turns out their sentient aliens scattered about the universe, but they’re all lesser than humans.
Throughout the book if you know anything about technology, the magic tech handwaving drive you nuts.
You don’t think about biology the part where they mention the aliens “have only a few thousand members” will have you questioning if the author even has the biggest understanding of how civilization works. No sentient alien species evolve on an entire planet, and only has “ a few thousand members”, may be a few million or a few hundred million, but definitely not a few thousand.
And there’s a big bad aliens that are set up early on as a threat to all the civilization , or destroyed, but one small task group of human technology, and then properly thrown away as the big bad villain.
Overall, the author has a good imagination , and has the potential to mature into a good storyteller. To achieve that they need to find some beta readers and a story editor who will keep them on track, and not let them just throw in massive plot altering elements just because.
I will not be reading any more of the series .
May 3, 2025
Intriguing story with problems
I enjoyed the plot and where this story seems to be ultimately going. The world building is decent. But I had several issues with it. First, there are very few characters in a story that spans huge distances, literally and metaphorically. Secondly there are a bunch of plot holes that bugged me. For example, the MC sneaks onto gigantic starships from a hive species that have almost no inhabitants in them. The story is created as a mystery, and as with all mysteries, the characters make leaps of logic to move the story along, but here the leaps seem more like wild ass guesses with very little data backing them up. But what bothered me most was the writing style. Over and over and over again, the author describes things with this negative pattern: “not x, not y, but z”. Very often in adjacent paragraphs. That got old quickly. Ultimately I’m not interested enough in the mystery to continue past the problems into the next installments.
I enjoyed the plot and where this story seems to be ultimately going. The world building is decent. But I had several issues with it. First, there are very few characters in a story that spans huge distances, literally and metaphorically. Secondly there are a bunch of plot holes that bugged me. For example, the MC sneaks onto gigantic starships from a hive species that have almost no inhabitants in them. The story is created as a mystery, and as with all mysteries, the characters make leaps of logic to move the story along, but here the leaps seem more like wild ass guesses with very little data backing them up. But what bothered me most was the writing style. Over and over and over again, the author describes things with this negative pattern: “not x, not y, but z”. Very often in adjacent paragraphs. That got old quickly. Ultimately I’m not interested enough in the mystery to continue past the problems into the next installments.
November 13, 2025
Sci-fi book written by someone who clearly has 0 idea how space, or technology works, even at the most basic level. Now for an interesting plot that can be forgiven. But that is not the case here, the authors lack of understanding of how large space is, is a major detriment to the attempt at story telling here, and him not understanding how actual tech works makes, his long winded explanations full of incorrect jargon about how the fantasy tech sometimes works are just word salad rather than an actual explanation. He also just tries to hand wave it away at points, but can't even be consistent in how he is doing so.
November 21, 2025
This was a decent story. It was enjoyable to read. What was good about it?
Not just the writing.
Not just the story line.
It was the unique way in which the author presented the story. He had a way of explaining things that made them easier to understand.
Not long-winded.
Not condescending.
No. It was something else that I can't quite put my finger on. I will probably read the next in the series.
Not out of obligation.
Not out of some OCD requirement to finish what I start.
No. Because I enjoyed the book!
There was one part in which I was disappointed
Not the plot.
Not the flow.
No. It was the editing. There were entire chapters duplicated.
Not just the writing.
Not just the story line.
It was the unique way in which the author presented the story. He had a way of explaining things that made them easier to understand.
Not long-winded.
Not condescending.
No. It was something else that I can't quite put my finger on. I will probably read the next in the series.
Not out of obligation.
Not out of some OCD requirement to finish what I start.
No. Because I enjoyed the book!
There was one part in which I was disappointed
Not the plot.
Not the flow.
No. It was the editing. There were entire chapters duplicated.
September 14, 2025
Honestly, this is almost exactly a copy/paste of 'The Nanite Legacy' by the same author? Wtf?
I read one just before the other without noticing that it was by the same author, but once I started reading I stopped for the same reason: a young person is given something overpowered and then is dragged through the story by the overpowered device.
DNF. Returned.
I used to read a lot of D. Levesque books a while ago, but either my reading habits have changed (and/) or the author has changed.
I read one just before the other without noticing that it was by the same author, but once I started reading I stopped for the same reason: a young person is given something overpowered and then is dragged through the story by the overpowered device.
DNF. Returned.
I used to read a lot of D. Levesque books a while ago, but either my reading habits have changed (and/) or the author has changed.
January 24, 2026
DNF 22%
The book reads like a children book. The MC does zero planning or thinking about how his actions will affect the future. That includes not only long term but also immediate future - he just does things and that's it.
I also find his actions and reactions to be quite illogical.
Let me also copy this from the Applesaucey's review:
Sci-fi book written by someone who clearly has 0 idea how space, or technology works, even at the most basic level.
The book reads like a children book. The MC does zero planning or thinking about how his actions will affect the future. That includes not only long term but also immediate future - he just does things and that's it.
I also find his actions and reactions to be quite illogical.
Let me also copy this from the Applesaucey's review:
Sci-fi book written by someone who clearly has 0 idea how space, or technology works, even at the most basic level.
July 10, 2025
Very dissapointing book - sounded interesting and the beginning had potential (first person narration, interesting universe, hints of big things to come, cadet academy for space fliht) and then the book starts jumping the shark into solispistic nonsense with hero getting superhuman powers in a galaxy full of superhuman secrets, races and tech etc etc
April 11, 2025
Very good
I picked this book up, thinking it was going to be good. I was wrong. It was great. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's pretty standard sci-fi, but that's a good thing. I'm hoping for more.
Highly recommended.
I picked this book up, thinking it was going to be good. I was wrong. It was great. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's pretty standard sci-fi, but that's a good thing. I'm hoping for more.
Highly recommended.
April 13, 2025
Best
As another older than dirt, I must say that in my 74 years this is a Cracker! I have read your other works several times since the advent of e-books and this is has the potential of being your Best work yet! Thank you.
As another older than dirt, I must say that in my 74 years this is a Cracker! I have read your other works several times since the advent of e-books and this is has the potential of being your Best work yet! Thank you.
May 22, 2025
Lots of fun. Great story, good story telling. Weird repetitions of the text like the formatting is super bonked or it wasn't edited that closely. Some spelling mistakes. But all the errors felt human. Like whoever wrote this was just inexperienced.
Anyway, still a fun read.
Anyway, still a fun read.
May 31, 2025
big fan, surprisingly good story
Big D.L. fan and this book just continues to impress. One downer there were several glaring spelling mistakes in the first few chapters and one whole chapter was repeated in its entirely. This was unusual fort this author.
Big D.L. fan and this book just continues to impress. One downer there were several glaring spelling mistakes in the first few chapters and one whole chapter was repeated in its entirely. This was unusual fort this author.
June 12, 2025
Outstanding book
One of the best things I have read in quite a while. The thing that was the most irritating was the repeating paragraphs. I mean come on, really?
Great story but please get a better editor.
One of the best things I have read in quite a while. The thing that was the most irritating was the repeating paragraphs. I mean come on, really?
Great story but please get a better editor.
July 16, 2025
Its an ok story. If you are the kind of person who likes books where the things mentioned 2 pages ago are referenced correctly, the conversations make any kind of logical sense, or the bulk of the narrative isnt just word salad designed to make things longer I'd give it a skip.
November 5, 2025
sounded Logical
Nearly all of the scientific explanations sounded mostly logical. Of course, that is based on knowledge that is less than one percent based on scientific knowledge of space technology.
Nearly all of the scientific explanations sounded mostly logical. Of course, that is based on knowledge that is less than one percent based on scientific knowledge of space technology.
January 3, 2026
OK I've read all three books in this series and it was.... an enjoyable read - I liked the characters and plot.
The only thing I can whinge about was the desperate need for an editor to find all the typos, repeated sentences - even repeated chapters.
Repeated chapters - seriously? - and these flaws were in all three books.
The only thing I can whinge about was the desperate need for an editor to find all the typos, repeated sentences - even repeated chapters.
Repeated chapters - seriously? - and these flaws were in all three books.
January 24, 2026
Brilliant
A really great read. I enjoyed the story building and all the twists and turns. The tension was increased in bursts when you thought it couldnt get any worse. Looking forward to the next book.
A really great read. I enjoyed the story building and all the twists and turns. The tension was increased in bursts when you thought it couldnt get any worse. Looking forward to the next book.
April 6, 2025
Epic story, brings up original Star Wars thoughts mixed with something else I can't place. The story won't disappoint you.
April 13, 2025
Fully up to Levesque's usual high standards. Quirky, and fast moving. enjoy
June 29, 2025
Good book. Exhausting.
July 2, 2025
Page 424
I lost interest at page 424. Its difficult to list me issues without giving spoilers. No idea how it ends and no interest in finding out.
I lost interest at page 424. Its difficult to list me issues without giving spoilers. No idea how it ends and no interest in finding out.
July 23, 2025
Really cool take on a theme that has been done many times. Will be interesting to see if the author can make the next books in this series not campy because it could turn that way. I like the abruptness of themes and can see it might put others off, I thought it was great
August 21, 2025
This was either quite pretentious, or rather badly written. Either way it wasn’t for me.
August 31, 2025
An epic space adventure
I enjoyed the characters, the technology, and abilities. The combination of all three was compelling and entertaining. Overall the book was very enjoyable.
I enjoyed the characters, the technology, and abilities. The combination of all three was compelling and entertaining. Overall the book was very enjoyable.
September 1, 2025
Solo happy
I love finding hidden gems and this story is one of them. Charles is so unassuming a person... Choices shape us ALL.
I love finding hidden gems and this story is one of them. Charles is so unassuming a person... Choices shape us ALL.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews