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Translucent #5
Black Sun
Orbiting three hundred miles above an alien planet, Space Shuttle Endeavour desperately searches for signs of life following the mass abduction of all humanity. Its crew: an Air Force colonel, an astronaut, and two teenagers.
To Leona, the mind-numbing hours of radio silence mean everyone who loves her is dead. Onboard, the one boy she might confide in hates her guts. It’s all she can do to not give up.
But when an explosion knocks the shuttle out of orbit, forcing them to crash land on the dead planet, it seems all hope is lost.
But no one expects the bizarre reality awaiting them on the surface.
To Leona, the mind-numbing hours of radio silence mean everyone who loves her is dead. Onboard, the one boy she might confide in hates her guts. It’s all she can do to not give up.
But when an explosion knocks the shuttle out of orbit, forcing them to crash land on the dead planet, it seems all hope is lost.
But no one expects the bizarre reality awaiting them on the surface.
313 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 14, 2016
4 people are currently reading
66 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 20, 2016
OMG, this one--holy crap, that climax!!! So freaking good!
September 12, 2016
Actual rating 3.5 stars.
The Translucent series has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride – so much going on, characters popping in and out of established traits – and ‘Black Sun’ sticks to this pattern. We go back to annoying and immature Leona at the start of this novel... why are you punishing me Dan Rix? I was just starting to like her and now it feels like nails on a chalk board.
Leona took this step backwards for much of the novel, but I was glad to see her redeemed before the end – though this is something that is going to have me deducting a point. After so much growth and development I don't want to waist a large part of the book reading drivel. I also got annoyed at the repeated phrase of Leona biting her nails - surely you can use your writers brain and come up with a few more synonyms Mr Rix.
A tawdry sex scene later in ‘Black Sun’ did nothing for me. It was uncouth and animalistic (and sudden,) no build-up of emotion to the moment. I thought I was reading soft core erotica. It seems to be the trend in YA at the moment, many titles have rough and urgent copulation that doesn’t add a lot to the story or the characters’ motivations; and I can only guess it’s included for sensationalism and titillation. It’s not something you expect to read in YA science fiction if it is not driving the story forward in some aspect.
I was delighted again for the last quarter of ‘Black Sun’ when we got ballsy Leona again, thank goodness. I hope her strength and sassy nature remain throughout the final novel in this series.
Loving the twist with her love interest Emory! And I didn't really have a clue what was going on. That kind of plot developments is what keeps me reading.
The sci-fi element is fan-bloody-tastic! Dark matter, portals, white space, black holes, evil entity/alien... I'm totally engrossed. Still trying to make sense of everything - and appreciate how it's not all explained and the story keeps changing - Leona being an unreliable narrator - well, they all are, because no-one knows what the hell is going on. What started off as slow and annoying, ‘Black Sun’ changed its tune with pacing towards an end that was invigorating. All that craziness (and the conclusion in a hum-dinger of a cliff hanger) - now I'm hankering for the 6th and final book to come out near the years’ end.
The Translucent series has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride – so much going on, characters popping in and out of established traits – and ‘Black Sun’ sticks to this pattern. We go back to annoying and immature Leona at the start of this novel... why are you punishing me Dan Rix? I was just starting to like her and now it feels like nails on a chalk board.
Leona took this step backwards for much of the novel, but I was glad to see her redeemed before the end – though this is something that is going to have me deducting a point. After so much growth and development I don't want to waist a large part of the book reading drivel. I also got annoyed at the repeated phrase of Leona biting her nails - surely you can use your writers brain and come up with a few more synonyms Mr Rix.
A tawdry sex scene later in ‘Black Sun’ did nothing for me. It was uncouth and animalistic (and sudden,) no build-up of emotion to the moment. I thought I was reading soft core erotica. It seems to be the trend in YA at the moment, many titles have rough and urgent copulation that doesn’t add a lot to the story or the characters’ motivations; and I can only guess it’s included for sensationalism and titillation. It’s not something you expect to read in YA science fiction if it is not driving the story forward in some aspect.
I was delighted again for the last quarter of ‘Black Sun’ when we got ballsy Leona again, thank goodness. I hope her strength and sassy nature remain throughout the final novel in this series.
Loving the twist with her love interest Emory! And I didn't really have a clue what was going on. That kind of plot developments is what keeps me reading.
The sci-fi element is fan-bloody-tastic! Dark matter, portals, white space, black holes, evil entity/alien... I'm totally engrossed. Still trying to make sense of everything - and appreciate how it's not all explained and the story keeps changing - Leona being an unreliable narrator - well, they all are, because no-one knows what the hell is going on. What started off as slow and annoying, ‘Black Sun’ changed its tune with pacing towards an end that was invigorating. All that craziness (and the conclusion in a hum-dinger of a cliff hanger) - now I'm hankering for the 6th and final book to come out near the years’ end.
June 24, 2016
Whoa! Wow. What?
Back at the start of the year, I binge-read the first four books in Rix’s Translucent series. I loved them, and you can go to my blog and read reviews of them. It’s been several months since I was last in narrator Leona’s headspace, and would that hiatus break the momentum of the series for me? Or would the metaphorical distance have made the heart grow fonder? Well, let’s find out.
Please note that I’ll do what I can to keep the review spoiler-free for this book, but I really do have to mention plot points from the previous four.
First off, look at that stunning cover. I’ve enjoyed the consistency of the cover designs for this series, all clearly from the same photo shoot, but this one with the girl’s back arched as if she’s about to plummet backwards is such a striking image. Before reading a single word, it put me in a mindset to expect that Leona and her few remaining allies may fall before they prevail—and that’s exactly where the penultimate book in a gripping series should take me (consider who was lost in the penultimate Harry Potter book). Commendations to the design team for all the covers but particularly this one.
The previous book ended with Leona, Emory, Captain Connor, and pilot Natasha on the shuttle heading to Tartarus, the dark and ashy planet orbiting a black hole on which Leona found herself alone in book three. It’s in the book description, so I’m not spoiling anything when I say that they find no signs of life there. That’s bad, as they believed that everyone not killed by the lampreys in book four had been sent through the dark-matter wormhole to Tartarus. But where is everybody?
Then something bad happens—and I won’t tell what it is—and the ship is forced to make an emergency landing on the planet’s surface. Really tense stuff leads to the crash and continues through the crash, and this sequence is one of several strong passages in the book. Now on the barren Earth-replica surface, they head for their houses to get some rest before figuring things out.
But what they wake up to? The book description calls it a “bizarre reality.” That’s an understatement that I won’t spoil with details.
Let’s just say that the evil entity known as “Dark”—and your jaw will drop at the cliffhanger ending when Dark reveals its true name—can use the dark matter to manipulate reality. We’ve already seen it make people and objects invisible in book one, supposedly bring “Ashley” back from the dead in book two, render Leona intangible and transport her across the universe in book three, and create a doppleganger Leona in book four. But what Dark does here? I found each twist and turn jarring, and that’s a good thing since it made me feel like I was right there in The Twilight Zone wrapped inside The Outer Limits.
So Leona and Emery (the boy who loves her but can’t fully get over the fact she killed his sister) have to manipulate the dark matter on their own, and as a science teacher, I applaud their experimental skills. I particularly like a new ability Leona learns: placing herself halfway between real space and the white space. I like how author Rix cleverly describes the phenomenon, and I really love how it’s used to tie into the theme of dealing with guilt.
When I first learned about book one, the fourth book had yet to come out, so I thought I’d be reading a trilogy about a girl who uses the power of invisibility to cope with her guilt. Honestly, that’s what drew me to the story, particularly the plot element of invisibility. And I thought the voice she heard in her head when invisible was her guilty conscience, not an evil interdimensional entity. Would I have started the series if I knew then that it had six parts culminating with an epic intergalactic showdown between good and evil (light and “Dark”)?
I’ll never know the answer to that question, but I’m so glad I did read these engrossing books. Actually, there’s a part of me wishing I could have waited until the final part came out so I could read them one right after another like I did with the first four. Especially after the final reveal here, which completely blew my mind.
Even though I thoroughly enjoyed the book, I do have a few quibbles. Leona has a specific nervous tic that I noticed repeatedly but don’t remember from previous books, and it’s gnawing at my brain to determine its significance, if any. And I was thrown by a couple scenes that were much more graphic than anything in the books preceding it.
But these are minor issues, and I’ve been invested so deeply in Leona’s story that this was a fun, mind-bending ride. Now I have to wait for the final book, but I have that Demon in Sight on my to-read list. Till then, Black Sun only blacks out half a sun for FOUR AND A HALF STARS.
Back at the start of the year, I binge-read the first four books in Rix’s Translucent series. I loved them, and you can go to my blog and read reviews of them. It’s been several months since I was last in narrator Leona’s headspace, and would that hiatus break the momentum of the series for me? Or would the metaphorical distance have made the heart grow fonder? Well, let’s find out.
Please note that I’ll do what I can to keep the review spoiler-free for this book, but I really do have to mention plot points from the previous four.
First off, look at that stunning cover. I’ve enjoyed the consistency of the cover designs for this series, all clearly from the same photo shoot, but this one with the girl’s back arched as if she’s about to plummet backwards is such a striking image. Before reading a single word, it put me in a mindset to expect that Leona and her few remaining allies may fall before they prevail—and that’s exactly where the penultimate book in a gripping series should take me (consider who was lost in the penultimate Harry Potter book). Commendations to the design team for all the covers but particularly this one.
The previous book ended with Leona, Emory, Captain Connor, and pilot Natasha on the shuttle heading to Tartarus, the dark and ashy planet orbiting a black hole on which Leona found herself alone in book three. It’s in the book description, so I’m not spoiling anything when I say that they find no signs of life there. That’s bad, as they believed that everyone not killed by the lampreys in book four had been sent through the dark-matter wormhole to Tartarus. But where is everybody?
Then something bad happens—and I won’t tell what it is—and the ship is forced to make an emergency landing on the planet’s surface. Really tense stuff leads to the crash and continues through the crash, and this sequence is one of several strong passages in the book. Now on the barren Earth-replica surface, they head for their houses to get some rest before figuring things out.
But what they wake up to? The book description calls it a “bizarre reality.” That’s an understatement that I won’t spoil with details.
Let’s just say that the evil entity known as “Dark”—and your jaw will drop at the cliffhanger ending when Dark reveals its true name—can use the dark matter to manipulate reality. We’ve already seen it make people and objects invisible in book one, supposedly bring “Ashley” back from the dead in book two, render Leona intangible and transport her across the universe in book three, and create a doppleganger Leona in book four. But what Dark does here? I found each twist and turn jarring, and that’s a good thing since it made me feel like I was right there in The Twilight Zone wrapped inside The Outer Limits.
So Leona and Emery (the boy who loves her but can’t fully get over the fact she killed his sister) have to manipulate the dark matter on their own, and as a science teacher, I applaud their experimental skills. I particularly like a new ability Leona learns: placing herself halfway between real space and the white space. I like how author Rix cleverly describes the phenomenon, and I really love how it’s used to tie into the theme of dealing with guilt.
When I first learned about book one, the fourth book had yet to come out, so I thought I’d be reading a trilogy about a girl who uses the power of invisibility to cope with her guilt. Honestly, that’s what drew me to the story, particularly the plot element of invisibility. And I thought the voice she heard in her head when invisible was her guilty conscience, not an evil interdimensional entity. Would I have started the series if I knew then that it had six parts culminating with an epic intergalactic showdown between good and evil (light and “Dark”)?
I’ll never know the answer to that question, but I’m so glad I did read these engrossing books. Actually, there’s a part of me wishing I could have waited until the final part came out so I could read them one right after another like I did with the first four. Especially after the final reveal here, which completely blew my mind.
Even though I thoroughly enjoyed the book, I do have a few quibbles. Leona has a specific nervous tic that I noticed repeatedly but don’t remember from previous books, and it’s gnawing at my brain to determine its significance, if any. And I was thrown by a couple scenes that were much more graphic than anything in the books preceding it.
But these are minor issues, and I’ve been invested so deeply in Leona’s story that this was a fun, mind-bending ride. Now I have to wait for the final book, but I have that Demon in Sight on my to-read list. Till then, Black Sun only blacks out half a sun for FOUR AND A HALF STARS.
May 21, 2016
WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR SALE JUNE 16, 2016!
Ju…ju…ju…j…j… Hoe my CHEESUS! I literally just finished reading Black Sun a few minutes ago. I STILL HAVE GOOSEBUMPS!
Typically I am not one for long drawn out series (often which could be made into two or three larger tomes) but I have to say that the Translucent series deserves every single book! Mr. Rix doesn’t waste a lot of words re explaining earlier events (perfect for binge reading) and his story line remains very consistent (I’ve often found changes about earlier story lines in later volumes in book serials) and he has almost constant edge of your seat action, without it feeling too forced or overdone.
In book five we are going back to Tartarus. Earth, the real Earth, gone. The only four humans left uncompromiesed by Dark, on Dark’s turf, in a battle for humanity. With a little, ahem, “romance”, a bit of swearing (thank you for keeping the language real!) and a lot of crazy topped with ass kickin, and the mother of all jaw droppers! Even if you haven’t read any of the Translucent series, now is the time to start!
“YOU CAN STOP CALLING ME DARK NOW DARK ISN’T MY REAL NAME”
"I JUST MADE IT UP"
A must read this summer!
Ju…ju…ju…j…j… Hoe my CHEESUS! I literally just finished reading Black Sun a few minutes ago. I STILL HAVE GOOSEBUMPS!
Typically I am not one for long drawn out series (often which could be made into two or three larger tomes) but I have to say that the Translucent series deserves every single book! Mr. Rix doesn’t waste a lot of words re explaining earlier events (perfect for binge reading) and his story line remains very consistent (I’ve often found changes about earlier story lines in later volumes in book serials) and he has almost constant edge of your seat action, without it feeling too forced or overdone.
In book five we are going back to Tartarus. Earth, the real Earth, gone. The only four humans left uncompromiesed by Dark, on Dark’s turf, in a battle for humanity. With a little, ahem, “romance”, a bit of swearing (thank you for keeping the language real!) and a lot of crazy topped with ass kickin, and the mother of all jaw droppers! Even if you haven’t read any of the Translucent series, now is the time to start!
“YOU CAN STOP CALLING ME DARK NOW DARK ISN’T MY REAL NAME”
"I JUST MADE IT UP"
A must read this summer!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews