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Forsaken Stars Saga #1
Attack on Phoenix
Two hundred years ago, an interplanetary expedition crashed on a deserted planet. Their ship was destroyed. Their technology lost.
They built a new society while they waited for rescue. It never came.
Instead they caught the attention of the dragzhi, an aggressive alien species, and found themselves in the midst of a war they were doomed to lose.
Torsten Vikker, a soldier who’d rather read than fight, is on a mission to recover an artifact rumored to have the power to defeat the dragzhi. Rell, a woman raised in a cult, will stop at nothing to keep him away from what she holds sacred.
Yet only together can they hope to save humanity from utter annihilation.
They built a new society while they waited for rescue. It never came.
Instead they caught the attention of the dragzhi, an aggressive alien species, and found themselves in the midst of a war they were doomed to lose.
Torsten Vikker, a soldier who’d rather read than fight, is on a mission to recover an artifact rumored to have the power to defeat the dragzhi. Rell, a woman raised in a cult, will stop at nothing to keep him away from what she holds sacred.
Yet only together can they hope to save humanity from utter annihilation.
- GenresScience FictionSpace
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 20, 2015
62 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
About the author
Megg Jensen
37 books607 followersMegg Jensen is a two-time USA Today bestselling author of epic fantasy.
No stranger to top ten lists on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the iBookstore, Megg's novels have garnered millions of downloads, attracting fans from all over the world.
She lives in Chicago with her husband, kids, and two insane miniature schnauzers.
No stranger to top ten lists on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the iBookstore, Megg's novels have garnered millions of downloads, attracting fans from all over the world.
She lives in Chicago with her husband, kids, and two insane miniature schnauzers.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
December 20, 2015
endlessly creative and action-packed!
September 18, 2018
Tl;dr: I didn’t finish this because of the poorly developed plot, and the even more poorly written characters. I don’t have anything particularly thrilling to say about this book so I hope you’ll avoid my mistake and simply not read it.
I just don’t know what to say about this book, other than that it’s a mess. It’s one of the few that I just can’t bring myself to finish. (I may or may have deleted it in a fit of pettiness at 1AM, simply because I’d spent a good part of my evening trying to read it, and I just wasn’t getting any enjoyment out of it.)
The premise started off well: humans crash landed on a planet and established a colony, and separated out into three groups - the grounders, the defenders, and the buried. The buried worship gods revealed to them through tablets discovered on the planet, while the rest of the planet is mistrustful of religion and outright bans it...but I couldn’t be sure, because the plot kind of falls apart after the first few pages.
Rell is a buried who serves as an acolyte to her gods, and she may or may not have sent by the gods to defend a mystical item known as the Key. I couldn’t tell you what being an acolyte involves, or if her gods even exist; Rell and the buried could well be hallucinating from ingesting toxic cave mold, and that might make more sense to me. Torsten and his sister Leila are defenders, who joined the military after their parents allegedly died, and are sent on a last ditch mission with two others to find the Key. I couldn’t tell you if their parents actually died either, because the plot is murky and weird on this point too. Rell, Torsten, Leila, and the others cross paths in the middle of an alien invasion while pursuing their missions, and the story spirals even harder.
I never really got any explanation as to how any of these people supported themselves on this planet, or how they survived. I got plenty of explanation of the grounders’ artsy skin-tight leather attire and fun colored hair, and how the buried favor androgynous appearances and robes, but no idea how any of these people managed to cultivate food, or survive, or wage war against the alien ‘dragzhi’. What have they even been doing for the past 200 years? I didn’t really have any skin in the game when it came to the human-dragzhi war either; we get no description of what the dragzhi even look like until more than 60% of the way through the book, and no idea what the conflict even is about aside from ships bombing each other.
My pet peeve was also realized to shocking degree in this book. I love my beta heroes: guys who (generally, hopefully) avoid the pitfalls of toxic masculinity, connect with their love interest first and foremost on an intellectual level, and use their non-traditional strengths to help win the day. Torsten isn’t really a beta; he happens to read books and no one else does, but that’s about the extent of it. He is Hot with a capital H (the author tells us about how he used to “be pudgy” and now has chiseled abs; barf...) and immediately defaults to stereotypically physically dominating behavior that goes against Rell’s bodily integrity and religious beliefs.
Basically, trying to find any consistent thread of plot, stable characterization, and even sentences without errors was a struggle. I made the executive decision to just save myself the trouble of finishing this book.
I just don’t know what to say about this book, other than that it’s a mess. It’s one of the few that I just can’t bring myself to finish. (I may or may have deleted it in a fit of pettiness at 1AM, simply because I’d spent a good part of my evening trying to read it, and I just wasn’t getting any enjoyment out of it.)
The premise started off well: humans crash landed on a planet and established a colony, and separated out into three groups - the grounders, the defenders, and the buried. The buried worship gods revealed to them through tablets discovered on the planet, while the rest of the planet is mistrustful of religion and outright bans it...but I couldn’t be sure, because the plot kind of falls apart after the first few pages.
Rell is a buried who serves as an acolyte to her gods, and she may or may not have sent by the gods to defend a mystical item known as the Key. I couldn’t tell you what being an acolyte involves, or if her gods even exist; Rell and the buried could well be hallucinating from ingesting toxic cave mold, and that might make more sense to me. Torsten and his sister Leila are defenders, who joined the military after their parents allegedly died, and are sent on a last ditch mission with two others to find the Key. I couldn’t tell you if their parents actually died either, because the plot is murky and weird on this point too. Rell, Torsten, Leila, and the others cross paths in the middle of an alien invasion while pursuing their missions, and the story spirals even harder.
I never really got any explanation as to how any of these people supported themselves on this planet, or how they survived. I got plenty of explanation of the grounders’ artsy skin-tight leather attire and fun colored hair, and how the buried favor androgynous appearances and robes, but no idea how any of these people managed to cultivate food, or survive, or wage war against the alien ‘dragzhi’. What have they even been doing for the past 200 years? I didn’t really have any skin in the game when it came to the human-dragzhi war either; we get no description of what the dragzhi even look like until more than 60% of the way through the book, and no idea what the conflict even is about aside from ships bombing each other.
My pet peeve was also realized to shocking degree in this book. I love my beta heroes: guys who (generally, hopefully) avoid the pitfalls of toxic masculinity, connect with their love interest first and foremost on an intellectual level, and use their non-traditional strengths to help win the day. Torsten isn’t really a beta; he happens to read books and no one else does, but that’s about the extent of it. He is Hot with a capital H (the author tells us about how he used to “be pudgy” and now has chiseled abs; barf...) and immediately defaults to stereotypically physically dominating behavior that goes against Rell’s bodily integrity and religious beliefs.
Basically, trying to find any consistent thread of plot, stable characterization, and even sentences without errors was a struggle. I made the executive decision to just save myself the trouble of finishing this book.
January 8, 2018
Pretty decent YA book
I found this book to be very interesting. I really liked the idea of humans getting stranded on a planet, and then seeing what they decided to do about it. These people split into three different groups. The defenders, the grounders and the buried. Each with their own messed up ways.
After about 100 years the people accidentally hit the attention of an alien race that keeps killing them. Definitely more to that story, but I won't get into that. The defenders are your military, they live in the tower and fight in space. The grounders live in the city on the planet and function just like a normal town would. The buried live underground, hence the name buried. They are the religious people, who worship God's that they discovered on the planet. More of a cult in my opinion...
You follow two main characters, the male lead and female, from different groups. He is a defender, she is a buried. It was hard for me to feel sympathetic towards the female lead. I personally could not blindly follow, I'd ask too many questions. She asks very few and then it feels like The wrong ones. The male lead is full of questions. The characters seem to advance in development. I like that.
Overall this book was a very enjoyable read.
I found this book to be very interesting. I really liked the idea of humans getting stranded on a planet, and then seeing what they decided to do about it. These people split into three different groups. The defenders, the grounders and the buried. Each with their own messed up ways.
After about 100 years the people accidentally hit the attention of an alien race that keeps killing them. Definitely more to that story, but I won't get into that. The defenders are your military, they live in the tower and fight in space. The grounders live in the city on the planet and function just like a normal town would. The buried live underground, hence the name buried. They are the religious people, who worship God's that they discovered on the planet. More of a cult in my opinion...
You follow two main characters, the male lead and female, from different groups. He is a defender, she is a buried. It was hard for me to feel sympathetic towards the female lead. I personally could not blindly follow, I'd ask too many questions. She asks very few and then it feels like The wrong ones. The male lead is full of questions. The characters seem to advance in development. I like that.
Overall this book was a very enjoyable read.
September 19, 2018
I read this book as part of the "Galactic - Ten Book Space Opera Sci-Fi Boxset"
This story started out all right but the ending seemed rushed and more juvenile than the earlier parts of the book. I will not be reading the sequel(s).
This story started out all right but the ending seemed rushed and more juvenile than the earlier parts of the book. I will not be reading the sequel(s).
May 6, 2019
DNF
This obviously was not for me. I think it is a very juvenile basic YA book. At 20% I gave up. Rell, the heroine, came off as clunky is maybe the word. It just didn't flow and grab my interest.
This obviously was not for me. I think it is a very juvenile basic YA book. At 20% I gave up. Rell, the heroine, came off as clunky is maybe the word. It just didn't flow and grab my interest.
October 11, 2019
Interesting premise to this story which had a few surprising twists. I am not sure why, but it just didn't pull me in. I own the first three novels in the series but am not sure if I will ever continue.
August 6, 2018
I can see were some people might enjoy this type of book/writing, but not for me. I found it dry and boring and I kept falling asleep. If you read this good luck!
October 27, 2020
A very will written romantic, thriller Sci-Fi novel with interesting characters. The story line is full of action. I would recommend for readers who like action novels. Enjoy reading 2020
December 31, 2016
OK....
December 1, 2015
I've been a fan of Megg Jensen since I picked up Anathema, the first book in her Cloud Prophet Trilogy. Since then I've pretty much everything else she's written (I still have a few books to go in her Dragonlands series.) When I found out she was starting a new Sci-Fi series, no one had to twist my arm to check it out. Attack on Phoenix was the perfect beginning to what promises to be another amazing series.
Rell and Torsten may have both lived on the same planet, but they essentially existed in two totally different worlds. Rell was totally sheltered in the underground cult. Torsten was isolated by choice. He played his part in the Tower, but only to keep his sister safe and ensure her future. The thing about Phoenix was that nothing was as it seemed.
Even though this is the beginning of a series and the introduction to a new world, including the characters that inhabit it, the story didn't lag. In fact, Attack on Phoenix was pretty much non-stop with a fair amount of time devoted to the main characters just trying to survive. Speaking of which, if you've read any books by this author, you already know that no character is held sacred. They're all vulnerable to some extent and even when you think everyone's safe... Did I mention the cliff hanger? I may or may not have 'yelled' at the author near the end.
Basically Forsaken Stars Saga totally lived up to my expectations and then some. The next book is Scattered Ashes and I for one can't wait until it's released. Once again, procrastination in picking up a book has paid off because I don't have too long to wait for its release.
Rell and Torsten may have both lived on the same planet, but they essentially existed in two totally different worlds. Rell was totally sheltered in the underground cult. Torsten was isolated by choice. He played his part in the Tower, but only to keep his sister safe and ensure her future. The thing about Phoenix was that nothing was as it seemed.
Even though this is the beginning of a series and the introduction to a new world, including the characters that inhabit it, the story didn't lag. In fact, Attack on Phoenix was pretty much non-stop with a fair amount of time devoted to the main characters just trying to survive. Speaking of which, if you've read any books by this author, you already know that no character is held sacred. They're all vulnerable to some extent and even when you think everyone's safe... Did I mention the cliff hanger? I may or may not have 'yelled' at the author near the end.
Basically Forsaken Stars Saga totally lived up to my expectations and then some. The next book is Scattered Ashes and I for one can't wait until it's released. Once again, procrastination in picking up a book has paid off because I don't have too long to wait for its release.
October 19, 2016
Bad Teenage Angst Poorly Disguised As SciFi
"Attack on Phoenix," is a poorly conceived and executed novel of teenage angst, centered on adolescent romance, religious zealotry, and loss. A paper thin veneer of SciFi, is the author's failed attempt, to mask the immature and juvenile writing and storyline. It's not the age of the main characters that make the novel an adolescent disaster, it's the incompetence and ineptitude of the author, Miss Jensen.
The author lacks the most basic writing skills: incoherent storyline, plot narrative that contradicts itself, needless repetition, characters that are one dimensional, are just some of the issues. If Miss Jensen's objective was to write as an unformed, lovesick, young teen in middle school, she succeeded.
The eBook is NOT recommended and is among the worse examples of SciFi drivel that has been my misfortune to read.
"Attack on Phoenix," is a poorly conceived and executed novel of teenage angst, centered on adolescent romance, religious zealotry, and loss. A paper thin veneer of SciFi, is the author's failed attempt, to mask the immature and juvenile writing and storyline. It's not the age of the main characters that make the novel an adolescent disaster, it's the incompetence and ineptitude of the author, Miss Jensen.
The author lacks the most basic writing skills: incoherent storyline, plot narrative that contradicts itself, needless repetition, characters that are one dimensional, are just some of the issues. If Miss Jensen's objective was to write as an unformed, lovesick, young teen in middle school, she succeeded.
The eBook is NOT recommended and is among the worse examples of SciFi drivel that has been my misfortune to read.
July 21, 2016
Part coming of age story, part space opera and part fantasy, kind of. An interesting mix that for the most part works fairly well.
The trinity based dragzhi are too fantastical for a pure sci-fi buff adding an element of fantasy that provides a distinct twist to the story line. There are numerous points where the science just does not work for the reader (or at least this reader) and you have to switch to a more fantasy based mind set.
The plot is what carries this novel. The characters are somewhat typical; the siblings one an underdog one the over achiever, the sheltered heroine, etc. but they work. Megg Jensen has written a fast moving interesting story that shows promise.
The trinity based dragzhi are too fantastical for a pure sci-fi buff adding an element of fantasy that provides a distinct twist to the story line. There are numerous points where the science just does not work for the reader (or at least this reader) and you have to switch to a more fantasy based mind set.
The plot is what carries this novel. The characters are somewhat typical; the siblings one an underdog one the over achiever, the sheltered heroine, etc. but they work. Megg Jensen has written a fast moving interesting story that shows promise.
October 23, 2015
The plot was interesting, but with all the "technology" they did have for being stranded kind of threw me off. I also thought the "aliens" could have been more alienish (I know not a word but you get my point) but come on large rock people, water people, and shocker...fire people!! I enjoyed the descriptions of the people on Phoenix, Megg has a way with her descriptions, which is one of the reasons I like reading her work even if I didn't so much like certain things in it. I will probably read the second book. I did receive an advanced copy for an honest review.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 9, 2015
*Received in exchange for an honest review*
I loved this! I have read and enjoyed all of Megg Jensen's books and this was no exception. Before I started reading it, I was a bit nervous because I know that Megg said it was different than her other books. But as soon as I started reading it, I was drawn in and found myself having a hard time putting it down. The story line was something completely new and was a great combination of Sci-Fi and fantasy. If you are looking for something new and enjoy fantasy or Sci-fi then you will not be disappointed. Waiting for the next one will be hard!
I loved this! I have read and enjoyed all of Megg Jensen's books and this was no exception. Before I started reading it, I was a bit nervous because I know that Megg said it was different than her other books. But as soon as I started reading it, I was drawn in and found myself having a hard time putting it down. The story line was something completely new and was a great combination of Sci-Fi and fantasy. If you are looking for something new and enjoy fantasy or Sci-fi then you will not be disappointed. Waiting for the next one will be hard!
July 30, 2016
Better than I expected but still just OK. Basically another YA dystopian environment (on another planet).
Defenders are the military living in a tall tower and act like love sick teenagers.
Grounders live on the ground. They seem to be normal except the females tend to dye their hair pink or blue, etc.
Buried live underground and are supposedly extremely devout to the gods that they learn about on the planet.
I did enjoy the story enough to finish it in one day but not sure I will read the next book in the series.
Defenders are the military living in a tall tower and act like love sick teenagers.
Grounders live on the ground. They seem to be normal except the females tend to dye their hair pink or blue, etc.
Buried live underground and are supposedly extremely devout to the gods that they learn about on the planet.
I did enjoy the story enough to finish it in one day but not sure I will read the next book in the series.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 20, 2015
Amazingly original
Absolutely love the story. Extremely original in content and character. It grabs you from the start and keeps you until the end. The next one won't be here fast enough. Keep up the great work.
Absolutely love the story. Extremely original in content and character. It grabs you from the start and keeps you until the end. The next one won't be here fast enough. Keep up the great work.
November 1, 2015
Attack on Phoenix
This is a different style for Megg. I really appreciate the way she attacks her writing. The story is entertaining and full of adventure with a great storyline. This book is definitely worth your time to read.
This is a different style for Megg. I really appreciate the way she attacks her writing. The story is entertaining and full of adventure with a great storyline. This book is definitely worth your time to read.
December 28, 2015
Decent intro
The emotions of the characters seemed fake many times, often jumping to conclusions the author desired without good explanation. Other shortcomings include weakness in Romance.
The emotions of the characters seemed fake many times, often jumping to conclusions the author desired without good explanation. Other shortcomings include weakness in Romance.
December 22, 2015
2.5. A little too jumpy for me. I couldn't buy into the characters changing positions so quickly and yet being so rigid or trusting.
June 11, 2016
This book appears to be intended for a younger audience with a stronger ability to suspend disbelief.
July 15, 2023
Did not finish
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews