Explorer X - Beta

Explorer X #2

by L.M. Preston

Barely escaping their captors, Aadi and Eirena are determined to save their dying friend. After their final confrontation with the species that tortured them, they've changed-unfortunately, not for the better. The changes caused by a terrible experiment force Aadi to accept the possibility that he may never be fit to go home, and that holding onto his sanity, or leading his friends to safety will end in failure and may rip his friendship with Eirena apart, forever. Time is slipping away and the possibility of losing his friend is not an option, but the foe that awaits them may be worse than the one they left.

206 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2012

About the author

LM. Preston was born and raised in Washington, DC. An avid reader, she loved to create poetry and short-stories as a young girl. With a thirst for knowledge she attended college at Bowie State University, and worked in the IT field as a Techie and Educator for over sixteen years. She started writing science fiction under the encouragement of her husband who was a Sci-Fi buff and her four kids. Her first published novel, Explorer X - Alpha was the beginning of her obsessive desire to write and create stories of young people who overcome unbelievable odds. She loves to write while on the porch watching her kids play or when she is traveling, which is another passion that encouraged her writing.

Reviews

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following on from Explorer X – Alpha, L.M. Preston’s second middle-grade novel in the series stands alone quite effectively with just enough reference to past events to leave readers hoping they’ll find the earlier book. Young teens sent to space camp have found there’s more to themselves and everything else than they’d ever imagined. Genetic manipulation empowers them to transform and fit in with alien societies, breathing the air of foreign worlds and coping with radical extremes of temperature. But they’re still teens, still determined to be human, and still eager to help each other.

In this novel Dakota copes with the guilt he feels at bringing a friend into danger. Meanwhile Aadi learns to live with his mistakes and Eirina deals with fears brought on from remembered pain.

The author has created a fascinating mix of technology and genetics in the premise to this series. Her characters are pleasingly resourceful, convincingly inexpert, and satisfyingly resolved to overcome the odds stacked against them. Civilizations attack the strange and are suspicious of individuality—some nice life lessons stored in there. And innocent games have somehow morphed into war.

Cross Lost in Space with Ender’s Game and the Fantastic Four, then you’ll have something a bit like this book, as teams of child gladiators battle for survival on an alien world. It’s an easy read with fast-flowing adventure, fun dialog, interesting dilemmas, and intriguingly imaginative science, plus a nicely straightforward storytelling technique and just the right amount of backstory. Highly recommended.



Disclosure: I received a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review as part of the Lighting Book Promotions tour

[Mario]

I don't feel comfortable rating this book as it is the second in a series and I never read the first (I didn't know it was a sequel when I entered to win it; I usually avoid those for this very reason). I don't mind reviewing it, though.

My first problem with the book was exactly the reason I can't give it a rating -- the author just drops you right into the story, in what I'm guessing is the period right after the last book ended. There is no exposition at all, and that's not something you can live without in a sci/fi-type book. Things might make more sense if you read the first book, I don't know, but I found it very difficult to figure out what was going on. What is a batiluk? I don't think I ever found out. And (not a spoiler, I believe) Ebu is something other than a person -- I didn't know that until I was something like 80% of the way through the book.

Another problem I had was the writing style. The book is loaded with action, which isn't a bad thing at all, but that's not what I look for, personally. Overall, though, the visual descriptions were pretty lacking; there's a particular main alien race, and it felt like the author didn't want to stop for a second and explain what, exactly, they looked like, even though I'm pretty sure that they didn't even appear in the first book. The result is that you are forced to form your own image of them in your head, which wouldn't be bad, except that later on that image is slowly taken from you as the author eventually describes, over the course of the entire book, their actual physical features.

Then there's the plot. The book really isn't that bad, but the author unnecessarily forces a nice, perfect resolution of all of the little plot points. The kids just happen to meet the future leaders of both sides, the current leaders of both sides just happen to die at the same time, etc. The book is just too clean. The result is neither believable nor satisfying.

I can see a lot of promise here, but I guess my ultimate takeaway is that the author simply needs to slow down a little and let the reader know what's going on.




I received this free through Goodreads First Reads (thanks!)

[Mariah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am excited to be the first stop on the blog tour for Explorer X: Beta by LM Preston.

I read the first book as part of a blog tour before it first came out so it has been a while since I read it so at the beginning it was hard to remember/understand what was going on. So I would definitely recommend reading the first book before reading this one. Once I got into the story it was really interesting and fun.

I really liked getting back into the characters lives and slowly remembering what happened in Explorer X: Alpha. At times the plot was little confusing but I was really tired while reading it so that could have had something to do with it.

I didn’t like the fact that as the story progressed the characters started to keep secrets from each other and not communicate, it was aggravating but I guess that helped add to the suspense.

I enjoyed learning more about their powers and the different worlds. The overall arc that was created become more complex and intriguing which I really liked.

Overall I think this is a fun book that would be great for upper middle grade.

Be sure to check out my review of Explorer X: Alpha!

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the first book in the series awhile ago so I was confused at the beginning of the book, but after that, I pretty much remembered what had happened. Although like in last book, I got a lot of the different species and characters confused. I don't normally read sci-fi so maybe this is why.

There is definitely lots of action in this book! I was continuously wondering just what was going to happen next and if the teenagers were going to get home!

I would definitely reccommend this for teen boys. I'm not so sure that teen girls would get into it much, but I think that teen boys need something they can really get into. And I think this series would definitely be it. There's fighting and aliens and different species and different planets. I think this book would be right up any teenage boy's alley!