Hero at Large

The Hunter Legacy #1

by Timothy Ellis

Surviving having survived, comes with a body count.

Jonathon Hunter has evoked the wrath of 27th century pirates. With his twin sexy bodyguards, Jonathon seeks to come to grips with station life in a suddenly hostile universe.

Celebrity, gratitude, sudden attacks, and a mysterious prophecy are more than most 18 year old's can handle.

A reluctant hero, Jonathon is on a journey, seemingly out of his time, but always in time.

Meet Jon Hunter as he starts a 2 year journey to prophecy, with his AI sidekick, and mostly female mercenary team.

Genres: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Military Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Military Science Fiction, Romance

243 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 22, 2015

About the author

#1 UK Best Selling Superhero/Metaphysical SFF/Cyberpunk 2023
#1 UK Best Selling Superhero/Metaphysical & Visionary/Space Marine/Alien Invasion 2022
#1 UK Best Selling Superhero/Metaphysical & Visionary/Space Marine 2021
#1 US/AUS Best Selling Arthurian Fantasy 2021
#1 AUS Best Selling Space Opera Science Fiction 2021
#1 UK Best Selling Superhero Fantasy 2021
#1 Best Selling 90-Minute Science Fiction & Fantasy Short Reads 2020.
#1 Best Selling Cyberpunk Science Fiction Author 2020.
#1 Best Selling Space Exploration Science Fiction Author 2020.
#1 Best Selling Metaphysical Science Fiction Author 2020.
#1 Best Selling Cyberpunk Author 2019.
#1 Best Selling Space Opera Author 2018.
#1 Best Free Space Opera Science Fiction Author 2017.
#1 Best Selling 45-Minute Teen & Young Adult Author 2016.
#1 Best Selling Metaphysical Science Fiction Author 2015.

(New info added at the bottom, in response to feedback and reviews.)

Timothy Ellis lives on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia; where he constantly battles with his cat for possession of his desk chair, Daleks do guard duty, and he keeps his sonic screwdriver next to his lightsaber and wand. Now there is a female Doctor Who, he eagerly awaits the sound of the Tardis materializing in his house.

He has spent his life reading and watching science fiction and fantasy, and has been playing Space Genre computer games since he used to be smuggled in to play the original text Star Trek game on a university mainframe, long before the PC or Apple appeared. Since 2004, he's written game guides for the Egosoft X Universe series, culminating in two versions of the X3 Handbook. He has also designed major mods for the various games, and dozens of mini mods.

He has been a farm worker, Antique Dealer, Computer Programmer, Systems Analyst, Operations Manager of a small retail chain, and Retail Store Owner. He is now a full time author, who still does Spiritual Healer and helper work.

After leaving behind the corporate and business worlds, he was opened to his Spiritual gifts. Now a Feng Shui Master, Feng Shui led him to Buddhism, Karma, the Tao, and back to western spiritualism. Since 2006 he has been writing spiritual articles and helping people via spiritual forums and Facebook Groups. His spiritual books include "Personal Healing Using Basic Meditation", "Life Harmony, Feng Shui in Plain English", '101 Tips for the John of God Brazil Experience', and "The Wisdom of the Ages is available for the price of asking a question" series of 8 books. His own spiritual healing led him to writing novels.

His first novel, 'Hero at Large', spawning the long running 'The Hunter Imperium' universe, brings together his love of the space genre, magic, spirituality, and cats. Now 10 series long, the universe covers 3 galaxies, 4100 years, and as at Dragon Imperative, 62 Novels, 7 shorts, and 2 companion books. There are 7 main entrance points across 10 series: Hero at Large, Admiral of Gaia, Yesterday's Spacemage, Crossover, Midshipman Spacemage, Old Magic, and Dragon Rider. Alternate entrance points if you don't need backstory first, are Adrift and Mage King, although Dragon Rider has 3 books before it about the dragons.

If you wish to be kept up to date with new releases and information in The Hunter Legacy Universe series, subscribe here: http://eepurl.com/bqMgVz, and follow on Amazon, Goodreads, or BookBub.

The fastest way to find out about a new release is my Facebook group/page, which get advance warning about 2-4 days before release, and again when the book is uploaded to Kindle; and my email list which goes out as soon as I have an Amazon page for the new book. Bookbub will let you know about 3-4 days after I remember to tell them.

I normally will release in advance of the specified release date whenever possible, so if you are a Kindle Unlimited reader, you will want another method to be notified of the actual release date, so you can read on day 1.

Reviews

[William Howe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Awesomely terrible

Here's a brief synopsis:

Marty Sue, magic, Marty Sue.

The writing isn't terrible. I mean, words are used properly, and everything is paced well.

There's the prophecy, and the magic belts, and an 18yr old kid from a backwater planet flys better than experienced pilots, and he redesigns ships and computer interfaces in ways no one else has ever thought of, and then there are the twins. Twin female bodyguards he shares some mystic connection with.

Thankfully, the author only uses two or three military ranks.

His characters don't act like people. Pirates continue attacking out of a need for revenge...because getting their butts handed to them repeatedly by an 18yr old kid hurts their feelings? And pirates don't like that.

This isn't science fiction, it's future fantasy. I should check to see if he ghost writes for George Lucas...midichlorians...

[Persnickety · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good one. Not.

Kindle Unlimited ~ YAY!!!

I gave this 5-stars because I liked it a lot even though it is so not my usual genre preference and it's highly unlikely that I'm even close to resembling the demographic target reader. Kudos.

Then I changed my rating to 1 star. Heads up on this one. It's a long series (13 books) and written by a gamer. Gamer. Big hint. Hang in there and when you hit the end, the resolution is a reset to an earlier start point and an alternate path that "happened" outside of the storyline you spent time reading about. Fictional fiction. I even left positive reviews along the way. Might be fun for gamers. I just felt pranked.

[Muhammad Gibran · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a decent story. In the past I would give this book 4-5 stars, but recently a learn a new word,"plot armor", and I think the plot armor in this book is rather thick.
The beginning is good, you got a MC that seem ordinary but have a hidden strength.Continue forward, the author started to throw all sort of talent to him, and mixed all culture altogether, it's not that bad, but everything become shallow.
I also have problem with the idea that the MC have. The idea his having is rather ordinary, but other people doesn't have that kind of inspiration, weird.

[Ptdog · Rating 5 out of 5]

This well written, engrossing and fascinating series begins here with a high adventure, well paced story of a boy becoming a warrior. Read this book and you'll be hooked.

[Ronni Callsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

After having read the first 4 books in this series, I don't understand why this series has such a high rating.

The reasons why I give it at most 3 stars is: (maybe this is a spoiler, but not really)
1:
There is no opposition in this and the next 4 books and there is no consequent. At any given point the "hero" is just walking through killing fields without anything but a few yellow marks on his body. There is at no point any real setback at any point especially not for the main group. If this was in a diagram the wealth, rank, intelligent and so on would all be at a 45 degree upwoth without any break.

2:
The plot armor is thick in this one. It's not as obvious as in James E. Wisher's The Portal Wars Saga, but everything is like in a bad James Bond Movie where the new tech is exactly what they need to kill the enemy..

3: Everybody that is not the hero has a IQ and temperament of a 10-year-old child. Even Generals and admirals or harden seasoned mercenaries are more stupid then anybody has a right to be. AND the pride. Everybody has such a high self confidence that even logically reasoning don't matter as they know best. This is to accommodate that the writer apparently don't know anything about warfare, and therefore pincer maneuvers and other tactics is reinvented as a marvelous new thing.

4: It's one long repetition of flying out, seeing the enemy, the enemy being proud and stupid, kill the enemy with 0 loses, recover the ships, get back, get paid, go out, find the enemy, enemy is proud and stupid kill the enemy with 0 loses, recover the ships, get back......

5: Shipyards that can build ships the sizes of small moons in the matter of days maybe a week at most... Do I have to say more.

So why not 0 stars.
It's a easy read, the story is fast pace and everything keeps evolving. It's decently written and the text is varied enough to not get boring.
So 3 stars for a decent book but nothing worth more then that.

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read for Adults

This is a solid read for a man. Not much to interest women, even if this is supposed to be a “coming if age story.” Although there are female characters, and a young male protagonist, it has references to polyamororous relationships and group sex. This makes the book inappropriate for YAs. The female characters are young, attractive, and shallow. The protagonist is equally vapid. His uncle is killed in the opening scene, but the protagonist is mainly unaffected by this personal tragedy. The protagonist kills at least 12 people by the end of the book, but the protagonist does little more than meditate to appease Karma. There are a lot of references to old movies, video games, and jargon from the 20th century. Standard Sci Fi props such as drop ships, stun guns, and futuristic weapons abound. So if you are looking for a light but shallow read this is the book for you. I hope the next 12 books in this series are designed to show a little more characterization on the part of all characters, and a plot that is a little less predictable. I think there are many other sci fi titles that have both credible characterization and interesting plots out there. Don’t get me wrong, Except for the group sex (these scenes are referenced but not in any detail), this book would be a great read for 14 yr. old boys.

[LMW · Rating 2 out of 5]

I reserve one star for books that I just could not finish. I finished this so it gets two, barely.

The plot is paper thin, and quickly becomes unbelievable. The author appears to have little or no understanding of physics. I am not talking exotic theoretical physics, but basic Newtonian physics get thrown out. He talks about some ships being faster than another. In space, that is crap. One may be able to out accelerate another, thrust to mass ratio and all, but once in motion it will stay in motion on the last trajectory, unless acted upon by a force. These ships sound as though when you stop the drives, the ships just stop.

The boy hero and his shipyard repairman seem to be able to pull new ships and designs out their backsides and build them up in weeks. Ideas that seem pretty basic but never occurred to anyone else in space. Another idea that violates the physics is the drop ship. The Mother ship goes into geosync orbit and just "drops" the drop ship. If you are in orbit and drop anything, it stays in orbit with you.

The interaction with our "hero" and the "A-team" is sophomoric and unbelievable.

The author has managed to actually combine Sci Fi with fantasy, but not in a good way.

[Mr Hedley M Batchelor · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you detach the analytical part of your brain, the storyline is good, if basic and predictable. The young hero can do no wrong in his technical choices (which no-one has thought of before) of spaceship design, in a universe that has space pirates somehow making a living in the barren environment of space. If you accept that, the greater stumbling block, not confined just to this author, is that the physics just don’t work. The spaceships involved can speed up easily, can slow down and stop by cutting the power, can turn on a small radius, and some are ‘faster’ than others ... this could all apply to airplanes in atmosphere, but is nonsense in space; half a textbook would be needed to explain why. The unfortunate thing is that the same story could have worked satisfactorily within the Newtonian laws of motion, if sorted out. It would then have been good if predictable, rather than a little irritating. A shame.

[Bryan457 · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The One" of prophecy.
Sexual fantasy fulfillment.
Immediately grasps the blindingly obvious alternate use for a piece of tech, (How did everyone else miss that?)
His first ship designs are better than anything possessed by the militaries of at least 3 multi-system space nations.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in bounties, captured ships & royalties pour in to his bank account constantly.
Various militaries keep promoting him rank after rank after rank.
Various minor day-to-day occurences explained in excruciating detail, multiple times. (I really don't care for every shower, every time anyone uses the underwear dispenser, or what he has to eat and drink for every meal.)
He gets the cutest kitten in the galaxy.
BUT-I still enjoyed the story, and picked up the next book in the series.
I just hope the story continues to be fun, and that the other bits become less pronounced before becoming too anoying to continue.

[Roh Bawt · Rating 2 out of 5]

**I don't think of this as spoilery as I dont go into any details but... well small warning**

I am not just commenting on this book but the series up until book five. I am not mad that the MC is a bit of a... others are calling it Marty Sue. But the way 90% of the females he meets all happen to almost immediately want to have casual and regular sex with him takes things from fun hero story into the realms of pathetic fantasy fulfillment that takes away from what have been some really solid female characters. Without that this series would be a s0lid 3 for me, where most books I enjoy fall, instead of me setting it down now. With just a little, not a lot, more depth of detail in descriptions to pull me into the world it would probably have made it up to a 4 star for me. Instead? I think I will be looking for my next read.

[Steeve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gadgets, Space combat, and Loot

A few things I didn't like, but many of the themes I enjoy. It's been a while since I found a decent space opera read. I needed my gadget fix, my space combat medicine, and my dose of wild adventure on the frontier of space. Toss in pirates and salvaging, and a young hero coming of age, and you have hit the sweet spot as far as I am concerned. I could have done without the prophecy, It was an unecessary story breaker for me and the attempt at spirituality was less than convincing to say the least, but this simple novel was a fun read nevertheless.

[Andrew Niemann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, I know that I am not necessarily the target audience for this book, but I have to say I really enjoyed it. The science is a bit (to say the least) fanciful and the story puts me in mind of the musing of a young man daydreaming about being a hero (always saving the day, always accepted, always getting the medals, and of course, always getting the girl); but who cares. The writing is good, the storyline is interesting, the action is just right, and most importantly, the characters are people to love or hate. This book an entertaining escape, pure and simple. I read all (5 at the time) books in one sitting and look forward to seeing more in the future.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun little read, fun but very predictable, the main character is one of the biggest "Mary Sue" characters I've read in a very long time. Everything just happens to go his way and it doesn't ever seem to stop going his way. This might not have been quite so egregious if the story had been more chronologically spread out but it isn't.

On the up side it's a really short read that like I said is fun assuming you like a story where the hero just keeps on winning... and winning... and winning some more.

Oh and the whole series is also fairly heavy on eastern religious traditions including reincarnation and such so if that sort of thing bothers you, be forewarned.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun little space romp that's easy to sit back and enjoy. Personally I felt the spirituality and prophecy aspects were really out of place and awkward however it's pretty obvious they're going to play a bigger part with some serious significance to the story in later volumes so it's pretty easy to blow past and enjoy the book for what it is. I'm aware that all sounded quite negative but Timothy Ellis has a smooth writing style with a fun idea and it's easy to just go along with the story so I would recommend readers give this a chance.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written Anime

Hero is better than military forces, better at ship design than ship designers, and the most creative user of a specialized suit. Dreaded enemies are dumb and poor fighters that have terrorized whole regions of space for decades. Also, there is basically a harem for the hero, just like an anime. Finished it and will read the next one (with suspended belief), hence the 3 star rating.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast paced space adventure. Enjoyable read. The story revolves around Jon, a young man who steps up to shine during an pirate attack. Jon is unsure of his abilities, but seems to have enough ability and luck to spare. Easily suspended my disbelief and kept me hooked to the story. Several hints of a bigger, more important destiny for Jon.

[Burt Md · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Space Saga with a great hero

There is a wonderful lightness and youthful exuberance that is beautifully captured in this first volume of the Hunter Legacy. The novel is well written and packed with action. It is great to see an Aussie Universe and a story with a hint of a spiritual side. This is a thoroughly enjoyable read! Thank you Mr. Ellis.

[Mark Swenson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written by an eighth grader for an eighth grader. If you want average boy that can work miracles but is still average boy, then this is the book for you.

Jonathan Hunter walks on water and flies through space with the greatest of ease.

Language is stilted, in the interpersonal relationships are almost as absurd as the rest of the book.

[Jim Basl · Rating 2 out of 5]

A start of an alright series

This book starts off alright. But the plot is very formulaic. The protagonist seems to know exactly what to do even though he has never left his planet. The supporting characters all seem one dimensional. Not sure if the rest of series will be read.

[Phil Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good

Reminds me of E. E. Smith. Hero prevails against overwhelming odds. Simplistic sexual scenes. Curious entertainment references. Is hero from the past?

[Danny L Walling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not to Bad

Very easy and fun to read. Love the story line. Great characters, especially the Hero and his "bodyguards". I just hope book two is not a let down.

[Mike Desmond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good fast read very enjoyable.

Needs a little more editing but a great read, fun, exciting and leaves you wanting for more. Ready for prime time as they say.

[Grazzit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent series, I hope there are many more..!!

Its an interesting series, some would say things are too easy, but i found it very entertaining!!

[Jhperry1435 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very fun read

[Kian · Rating 3 out of 5]

His history is a mystery but I still liked it and want to read the next book. The backstory is vague or nonexistent and the story needs properly setting.

[Lonna Cunningham · Rating 2 out of 5]

I actually fast forwarded towards the end, just to get it done.

It was... almost okay.

[Jon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Juvenile garbage. Did not finish.

[Noodle The Naughty Night Owl · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10: Good light-weight read, well done.

"I decided a long time ago to embrace my weirdness. I'm working on making 'weird' into an art form."

[Pandadragon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an Okey book but a bit weak from the sci-fi point of veiw. It also seems to be more a YA book.

[Red Tide · Rating 1 out of 5]

The opening of the book was OK and I liked some of his other books but this story moves way too fast. The main character does a lot of implausible and amazing things with little effort and no convincing background explanation, early on. That was my feeling before I realized that what felt like about five months of story (at a fast clip), was actually ten days. The MC had spent five of those days unconscious in a hospital ward. Every challenge gets met with new and amazing tech, tailor made for that eventuality. The book picks up speed after that!

I thought that the MC was OK and his new friends were OK but the backstory and the universe went by in a blur of constant activity. Most of this was fueled by good luck (which I didn't think was a great plot device) and a constant stream of outrageous amounts of income.

The characters were never developed before turning into cardboard cutouts in the service of the main character. There are moments when the characters closest to the hero almost breakthrough as real people and then the moment passes.

The combat gets confusing both on station and in space. The sense of distances, travel times, logistics and organization (military and otherwise) get lost in battles and exploding starships. The fighters and other warships become a bit much and it was impossible for me to block out the inconsistency of tech, the incredible hidden talents of an 18 yr old and the admitted incompetence of all of his foes.

There are prophecies, gun fights and space battles centered around the 18 yr old hero but had the action and interactions been slowed to a less fevered pace, it would have made room for better background universe and back stories and a little character development. It reads more like a story outline than a novel.

That being said, if a crazy action read with a lot of holes in the plot is acceptable, then this isn't that bad. I like this writer so, I'm going to see how this whirlwind turns into a decent drama but I can't recommend the series based on this book.