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Spectral Shift: A Spectral Worlds Novel
We were never alone-a prescient rendering of a dark cyberpunk future, a Neon Dystopia with a Lovecraftian flair
Abernathy Squire, an agent for the Homeland, is reluctant to come out of retirement. A century has passed since the Spectral Wars. The world has changed. The elite have fled to other planes and those left in the sprawling megacities are ruled by the five syndicates. No longer hidden, the Spectral races now mingle with the forever young mortals. But a friend and an artifact have gone missing, and this is his chance to settle an old score.
Abernathy Squire, an agent for the Homeland, is reluctant to come out of retirement. A century has passed since the Spectral Wars. The world has changed. The elite have fled to other planes and those left in the sprawling megacities are ruled by the five syndicates. No longer hidden, the Spectral races now mingle with the forever young mortals. But a friend and an artifact have gone missing, and this is his chance to settle an old score.
- GenresScience Fiction
340 pages, Paperback
Published August 7, 2017
70 people are currently reading
97 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Arthur Smith
97 books237 followersDaniel Arthur Smith is a USA Today bestselling author. His titles include Spectral Shift, Agroland, The Cathari Treasure, and a few other novels and short stories. He also curates the phenomenal short fiction series Tales from the Canyons of the Damned and Frontiers of Speculative Fiction.
He was raised in Michigan and graduated from Western Michigan University where he studied philosophy, with focus on cognitive science, meta-physics, and comparative religion. As a young man Daniel was a bartender, barista, poetry house proprietor, teacher, then became a technologist and futurist for the Fortune 100 across the Americas and Europe.
Daniel has traveled to over 300 cities in 22 countries, residing in Los Angeles, Kalamazoo, Prague, Crete, and now writes between Manhattan and Connecticut where he lives with his wife and sons.
For more information, visit danielarthursmith.com
He was raised in Michigan and graduated from Western Michigan University where he studied philosophy, with focus on cognitive science, meta-physics, and comparative religion. As a young man Daniel was a bartender, barista, poetry house proprietor, teacher, then became a technologist and futurist for the Fortune 100 across the Americas and Europe.
Daniel has traveled to over 300 cities in 22 countries, residing in Los Angeles, Kalamazoo, Prague, Crete, and now writes between Manhattan and Connecticut where he lives with his wife and sons.
For more information, visit danielarthursmith.com
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 8, 2017
This story just carried me away to another place and time. Wonderful writing.
I was given this book as an advanced reader copy in exchange for a honest review. I have to say I found this book really awesome!
Called out of retirement Abernathy Squire, known to his friends as Abby, is contacted by a long time colleague of the his from the bureau he retired from. He is asked to come back into service and help them find a missing artifact of great value. This artifact is said to have mystical and magical properties. He reluctantly agrees.
Abby is living in a world where everyone around him is trying to appear to be something or someone else. With the help of 'mods' each person can change most aspects of who and what they are. But having superior 'mods' himself, he is capable of working around people wearing such devices.
Now, lumbered with an assistant he doesn't want, he must dip once more into the murky world of his past to find the missing artifact before someone else does.
This is an interesting mixed species romp whose characters can flit from one 'plane' to another. Filled with red eyed bad guys and near naked dominatrix henchwomen, this story just grows more and more interesting as you get into it. I really enjoyed the clever twists and turns in the plot, they kept it interesting and very enjoyable. And the ending...I did NOT see that coming! Loved it. It made me hungry for more.
I think the author, Daniel Arthur Smith, is definitely a man to watch...he seems to have a really cool grasp on this genre.
I was given this book as an advanced reader copy in exchange for a honest review. I have to say I found this book really awesome!
Called out of retirement Abernathy Squire, known to his friends as Abby, is contacted by a long time colleague of the his from the bureau he retired from. He is asked to come back into service and help them find a missing artifact of great value. This artifact is said to have mystical and magical properties. He reluctantly agrees.
Abby is living in a world where everyone around him is trying to appear to be something or someone else. With the help of 'mods' each person can change most aspects of who and what they are. But having superior 'mods' himself, he is capable of working around people wearing such devices.
Now, lumbered with an assistant he doesn't want, he must dip once more into the murky world of his past to find the missing artifact before someone else does.
This is an interesting mixed species romp whose characters can flit from one 'plane' to another. Filled with red eyed bad guys and near naked dominatrix henchwomen, this story just grows more and more interesting as you get into it. I really enjoyed the clever twists and turns in the plot, they kept it interesting and very enjoyable. And the ending...I did NOT see that coming! Loved it. It made me hungry for more.
I think the author, Daniel Arthur Smith, is definitely a man to watch...he seems to have a really cool grasp on this genre.
August 17, 2017
this would make an awesome TV series. can't wait to read more!
August 9, 2017
"Age is only skin deep ..."
The world has changed in the years since the Spectral Wars. Humans can be forever young, different races co-exist and travel is possible between planes. Arcadia is where the elite live, away from the congestion of normal folk, with blue skies and tangerine light. But it's not all paradise: an artefact believed to hold great power has been stolen and a long retired agent from Homeland is commissioned to find it.
Well written and with great imagination, this is a swirling colourful action story set in a future and different world. Although complete in itself, it is the first of what should prove to be an excellent series as Commander 'Abby' Squire and his Homeland Security Special Agent 'babysitter', Captain Leta Serene chase the almost mythical jade statuette, the Jasper Stone. An excellent read.
The world has changed in the years since the Spectral Wars. Humans can be forever young, different races co-exist and travel is possible between planes. Arcadia is where the elite live, away from the congestion of normal folk, with blue skies and tangerine light. But it's not all paradise: an artefact believed to hold great power has been stolen and a long retired agent from Homeland is commissioned to find it.
Well written and with great imagination, this is a swirling colourful action story set in a future and different world. Although complete in itself, it is the first of what should prove to be an excellent series as Commander 'Abby' Squire and his Homeland Security Special Agent 'babysitter', Captain Leta Serene chase the almost mythical jade statuette, the Jasper Stone. An excellent read.
August 5, 2017
Great book to be advised
March 29, 2018
I read this book is part of the Dominion Rising anthology.
This story starts off very slowly, presumably for the sake of world-building. But, as at least one other reviewer points out, there isn't much to speak of. For example, it took me about halfway through the book for me to conceptualize what "shifting up/down the spectrum" might look like and how such a thing could be done at will using technology.
The teaser talks about a Lovecraftian vibe, but since I am not as familiar with Cthulhu, etc., this felt way more Phillip K. Dick with the cyber-punk dystopian future. And if I needed any confirmation that the story was inspired in part by Blade Runner, there's a minor, synthetic sex-doll character named Pris. I almost fell off the treadmill.
Once the lead characters are established, though, and their (supposed) mission revealed, things pick up considerably. The relationship between Abernathy and Leta is fun, and Jazz makes it better. There's more than a bit of a Deus ex Machina introduced when situations get really tight that never gets explained in this volume, and that didn't sit well with me. The cliffhanger setup is intriguing, though probably not so much that I'll be investing in the sequel.
This story starts off very slowly, presumably for the sake of world-building. But, as at least one other reviewer points out, there isn't much to speak of. For example, it took me about halfway through the book for me to conceptualize what "shifting up/down the spectrum" might look like and how such a thing could be done at will using technology.
The teaser talks about a Lovecraftian vibe, but since I am not as familiar with Cthulhu, etc., this felt way more Phillip K. Dick with the cyber-punk dystopian future. And if I needed any confirmation that the story was inspired in part by Blade Runner, there's a minor, synthetic sex-doll character named Pris. I almost fell off the treadmill.
Once the lead characters are established, though, and their (supposed) mission revealed, things pick up considerably. The relationship between Abernathy and Leta is fun, and Jazz makes it better. There's more than a bit of a Deus ex Machina introduced when situations get really tight that never gets explained in this volume, and that didn't sit well with me. The cliffhanger setup is intriguing, though probably not so much that I'll be investing in the sequel.
December 28, 2018
This book is a lot of fun and has a cool explanation for various mythologies of Earth, and the action setpieces are cool enough.
That said, I had three major problems.
- I guess I'm old, or maybe it's the availability of the internet, but lascivious descriptions of every woman in a story tends to make me feel bored these days. Honestly 10% of this book reads like a Penthouse letter that never gets to the actual sex.
- The conceit is just too much and is thrown in with a lot of other unexplained world phenomena. Yes, you can just go along with it and you have to to get any enjoyment out of the narrative, but at the same time, every major plot point feels like deus ex machina because we literally have no idea what the physical rules of this world are, what the geography is, what all of the infrastructure that is described is actually for.
- Not the author's fault, but Amazon recommended this book to me without really letting me know it was not a complete story. After years of Robert Jordan, GRRM, Patrick Rothfuss...I just don't want to read part 1's until part 2, 3, 4, etc. have been actually written and the story is complete. So, anyone reading this review - this novel ends with a cliffhanger.
That said, I had three major problems.
- I guess I'm old, or maybe it's the availability of the internet, but lascivious descriptions of every woman in a story tends to make me feel bored these days. Honestly 10% of this book reads like a Penthouse letter that never gets to the actual sex.
- The conceit is just too much and is thrown in with a lot of other unexplained world phenomena. Yes, you can just go along with it and you have to to get any enjoyment out of the narrative, but at the same time, every major plot point feels like deus ex machina because we literally have no idea what the physical rules of this world are, what the geography is, what all of the infrastructure that is described is actually for.
- Not the author's fault, but Amazon recommended this book to me without really letting me know it was not a complete story. After years of Robert Jordan, GRRM, Patrick Rothfuss...I just don't want to read part 1's until part 2, 3, 4, etc. have been actually written and the story is complete. So, anyone reading this review - this novel ends with a cliffhanger.
September 8, 2017
(I read this in the ebook collection Dominion Rising)
This was an interesting book, but I felt out of the loop quite a bit. I understand that the way the author decided to impart knowledge of this world was by totally immersing the reader right away and only giving us the thoughts of the main character Abby, but there was so much going on and happening. All the knowledge that a citizen of this time and place knows and takes for granted (basically the backstory of how the world even came to be how it is) none of that is explained outright - you have to read and read and read to get nuggets of an idea of how things became like this ... and that just isn't what I enjoy in a book.
Overall the concept of the book was cool and kept me reading to see how things ended, but I really don't like continuously feeling like I'm missing information that would make the story make more sense.
This was an interesting book, but I felt out of the loop quite a bit. I understand that the way the author decided to impart knowledge of this world was by totally immersing the reader right away and only giving us the thoughts of the main character Abby, but there was so much going on and happening. All the knowledge that a citizen of this time and place knows and takes for granted (basically the backstory of how the world even came to be how it is) none of that is explained outright - you have to read and read and read to get nuggets of an idea of how things became like this ... and that just isn't what I enjoy in a book.
Overall the concept of the book was cool and kept me reading to see how things ended, but I really don't like continuously feeling like I'm missing information that would make the story make more sense.
April 23, 2020
Fantastic!
Five stars for creativity and awesome entertainment, a well executed and written sci-fi tale with a whole cup of lovecraftian fantasy as if the author knew my liking of H. P. Lovecraft horror stories. For those who enjoy H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, this book is for ya, and then some!
Five stars for creativity and awesome entertainment, a well executed and written sci-fi tale with a whole cup of lovecraftian fantasy as if the author knew my liking of H. P. Lovecraft horror stories. For those who enjoy H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, this book is for ya, and then some!
September 5, 2017
Just an ok read, will I read another like this? No Way. It was ok, but I was left feeling like I had wasted my time.
September 14, 2017
Abby is a fine character, Leta and Jazz are great side kicks. the world is complicated, but I think I got the gist of it.
September 29, 2023
fun worldbuilding
I enjoyed this detective noir style action romp. An interesting world with interesting abilities. If Judge Dredd + Jedis were in cyberpunk detective noir.
I enjoyed this detective noir style action romp. An interesting world with interesting abilities. If Judge Dredd + Jedis were in cyberpunk detective noir.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews