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Adventures of the Starship Satori #9
Dust & Iron
Charline Foster was marooned on a desert planet during an alien attack.
Taking command of the handful of people stranded with her, she struggles to survive a desolate and hostile world. But the predators stalking them are the least of their worries. The aliens who forced the Satori to flee return, seeking the survivors.
Charline must forge her small band into an effective fighting force and engage the enemy. Together, they must strive to do the impossible if they want to ever see Earth again.
Taking command of the handful of people stranded with her, she struggles to survive a desolate and hostile world. But the predators stalking them are the least of their worries. The aliens who forced the Satori to flee return, seeking the survivors.
Charline must forge her small band into an effective fighting force and engage the enemy. Together, they must strive to do the impossible if they want to ever see Earth again.
370 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 21, 2018
275 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
About the author
Kevin O. McLaughlin
177 books138 followersWhen not practicing hobbies which include sailing, constructing medieval armor, and swinging swords at his friends, Kevin McLaughlin can usually be found in his Boston home. Kevin’s award-winning short fiction is now available in digital form at all major ebook retailers. He writes fantasy in settings both historical and contemporary, and science fiction in both the near and distant future.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
May 14, 2019
A battle
A great adventure to the stars and beyond in a battle of life and death for the human race and earth
A great adventure to the stars and beyond in a battle of life and death for the human race and earth
May 4, 2019
Enjoyed
Once again the author kept a fast paced story. The characters held the story together and brought about a great read
Once again the author kept a fast paced story. The characters held the story together and brought about a great read
April 19, 2019
I'm still well and truly hooked. Please continue writing this brilliant epic. Thank you.
March 31, 2019
Hard to Believe
Read each book and couldn't wait for the next one to begin. I hope in future stories they come across peaceful aliens instead of hateful ones.
Read each book and couldn't wait for the next one to begin. I hope in future stories they come across peaceful aliens instead of hateful ones.
October 29, 2018
Five Star Story, needs minor editing
Great story and heroic characters who face challenge after challenge. This book focuses on Charlene and really builds her into a hero in her own right. The story gets five stars, four for the book overall due to typos and author placeholders remaining occasionally. These are mildly distracting but don’t let that deter you from enjoying this excellent story and series.
Great story and heroic characters who face challenge after challenge. This book focuses on Charlene and really builds her into a hero in her own right. The story gets five stars, four for the book overall due to typos and author placeholders remaining occasionally. These are mildly distracting but don’t let that deter you from enjoying this excellent story and series.
November 3, 2018
This book focuses on Charlene and really builds her into a hero in her own right. She is stranded on Dust with a small amount of people; it’s a great story and heroic characters that face challenge after challenge. She also is able to not only win out, but pulls off a great plus for earth. But not without loss. Looking forward to the next book.
December 22, 2019
Continued excitement in sci-fi pulp!
Non stop excitement, twists and turns as this book focuses on Charline. She gets to become more 3 dimensional while maintaining her bad a## hacker skills. Looking forward for more books in the series.
Non stop excitement, twists and turns as this book focuses on Charline. She gets to become more 3 dimensional while maintaining her bad a## hacker skills. Looking forward for more books in the series.
October 22, 2018
The great story continues
This is a fantastic series with scary bugs and humans fighting to survive. You will be on the edge of your seat to the end.
This is a fantastic series with scary bugs and humans fighting to survive. You will be on the edge of your seat to the end.
March 4, 2019
Satori
Wonderful series lots of action but the characters are what makes the books makes you want to go into space and defend earth with these heroes
Wonderful series lots of action but the characters are what makes the books makes you want to go into space and defend earth with these heroes
March 11, 2019
Hard to put down
I rated this book 5 stars because they turned 5 stars. It's a unique story and a unique series one that is well worth reading.
I rated this book 5 stars because they turned 5 stars. It's a unique story and a unique series one that is well worth reading.
December 23, 2018
When you write a series about someone or something, you’d think that thing or person would be a major part of the story. Not so here. This isn’t about the Starship Satori at all. Instead, it’s about Charline, the geeky, formerly scared as sh*t programmer. The only thing that was ever good about Charlene was that she could shoot! And that’s a good thing if she ever got the courage to do anything with it. Most of the time, Charlene was supposed to get the Satori human computer system to interface with the alien stuff. She did that pretty well, but I never figured her to have a book all her own, but here it is.
I think that author stretched Charlene’s character a little too much. Earth Command has decided that a human colony needs to be established someone out in the galaxy before the Naga obliterate everyone on Earth. That’s probably a good idea, but then they make two really bad ideas. The first was to direct that the human colony be established on Dust! Yeah, that’s the dead planet with nothing but Ratzards and man-eating centipedes! Not the wisest of choices.
Second, they pick Charlene to be the leader of the colony group. Now why would anyone select a geeky computer nerd for a major leadership role? To Charlene’s credit, she has the same thoughts, but doesn’t have the sense to refuse the job. And she’s supposed to take far less people than you would expect to establish a human colony on a very hostile planet.
Things don’t go right from the start. While the Starship Satori did attempt to deliver the colonist to Dust, the didn’t have time to off-load all the equipment and people. A hostile starship showed above Dust and the Satori had to go defend everyone. From that point on, the Starship Satori is out of the book. Now, it’s up to Charlene to take over and be the boss, which she is not even close to being suited for.
Well, authors can write anything that want and this author certainly did. With the help of a familiar stowaway from the Satori, Charlene seems to transform overnight into a “take no prisoners, kill’em all” military genius. Her colony group didn’t have any where near enough people to establish a colony in the first place and they had even less security for the conditions of the planet. Their first great idea (NOT!) was to inhabit the caves where they were almost originally wiped-out by the killer centipedes! That didn’t work so well, but due to sheer pig-headedness and lack of preparation in the first place, that where they sat up.
Then they find out just how dangerous this planet can be. If it wasn’t for the fact that they had a heavy lifting armored suite as part of the gear that did make it onto the planet, they’d of been toast in the first five minutes of the book! Yet, with the fortunate situation of having a genius engineer and a print-anything 3D printer available, the manage to print and put together other armor units in a remarkably short time.
Meanwhile, Charlene has some how turned into a rough, tough take-charge Commander, not only commanding every battle with the aliens, but leading the charge! As a reader, I can see why the author had to do this, they would have all been dead five-minutes after landing, if someone didn’t step-up and assume the role. Still, to have Charlene do this really destroyed her previous character. Oh, and Andy, well, let’s just say he’s not around to do much but take orders! Strange!
I don’t see Charlene every returning to the Satori. I also don’t want to read any more stories about her since I think her character is all wrong. Still, there appears to be more stories in the Starship Satori series. I only hope they are about the Starship Satori and not some spin-off of something else. I mean, we’ve lost just about everyone from the original story that there’s not much left to write about.
I think that author stretched Charlene’s character a little too much. Earth Command has decided that a human colony needs to be established someone out in the galaxy before the Naga obliterate everyone on Earth. That’s probably a good idea, but then they make two really bad ideas. The first was to direct that the human colony be established on Dust! Yeah, that’s the dead planet with nothing but Ratzards and man-eating centipedes! Not the wisest of choices.
Second, they pick Charlene to be the leader of the colony group. Now why would anyone select a geeky computer nerd for a major leadership role? To Charlene’s credit, she has the same thoughts, but doesn’t have the sense to refuse the job. And she’s supposed to take far less people than you would expect to establish a human colony on a very hostile planet.
Things don’t go right from the start. While the Starship Satori did attempt to deliver the colonist to Dust, the didn’t have time to off-load all the equipment and people. A hostile starship showed above Dust and the Satori had to go defend everyone. From that point on, the Starship Satori is out of the book. Now, it’s up to Charlene to take over and be the boss, which she is not even close to being suited for.
Well, authors can write anything that want and this author certainly did. With the help of a familiar stowaway from the Satori, Charlene seems to transform overnight into a “take no prisoners, kill’em all” military genius. Her colony group didn’t have any where near enough people to establish a colony in the first place and they had even less security for the conditions of the planet. Their first great idea (NOT!) was to inhabit the caves where they were almost originally wiped-out by the killer centipedes! That didn’t work so well, but due to sheer pig-headedness and lack of preparation in the first place, that where they sat up.
Then they find out just how dangerous this planet can be. If it wasn’t for the fact that they had a heavy lifting armored suite as part of the gear that did make it onto the planet, they’d of been toast in the first five minutes of the book! Yet, with the fortunate situation of having a genius engineer and a print-anything 3D printer available, the manage to print and put together other armor units in a remarkably short time.
Meanwhile, Charlene has some how turned into a rough, tough take-charge Commander, not only commanding every battle with the aliens, but leading the charge! As a reader, I can see why the author had to do this, they would have all been dead five-minutes after landing, if someone didn’t step-up and assume the role. Still, to have Charlene do this really destroyed her previous character. Oh, and Andy, well, let’s just say he’s not around to do much but take orders! Strange!
I don’t see Charlene every returning to the Satori. I also don’t want to read any more stories about her since I think her character is all wrong. Still, there appears to be more stories in the Starship Satori series. I only hope they are about the Starship Satori and not some spin-off of something else. I mean, we’ve lost just about everyone from the original story that there’s not much left to write about.
March 12, 2020
Charline does it all
This book focuses solely upon Charline's development as a tactical leader. Remember Dan went back to Dust, and couldn't find her. That's because she'd already left. How she got if Dust, and what she did after makes for an exciting adventure. Again, it's only the story. It's like reading one of Burrough's Martian books. The difference being that Burroughs had better editing. Wrong word; misspelled words; homonyms; even spellchecker errors. Science? Not so you noticed. Tactics? I don't think we're ever going to figure the usefulness of a simple shield. Not the round kind, but the nice interlocking long kind like the Roman's with a nice "bull" in the middle to put the attacker off balance. Never the less, the story is fun, and I recommend it.
This book focuses solely upon Charline's development as a tactical leader. Remember Dan went back to Dust, and couldn't find her. That's because she'd already left. How she got if Dust, and what she did after makes for an exciting adventure. Again, it's only the story. It's like reading one of Burrough's Martian books. The difference being that Burroughs had better editing. Wrong word; misspelled words; homonyms; even spellchecker errors. Science? Not so you noticed. Tactics? I don't think we're ever going to figure the usefulness of a simple shield. Not the round kind, but the nice interlocking long kind like the Roman's with a nice "bull" in the middle to put the attacker off balance. Never the less, the story is fun, and I recommend it.
April 13, 2019
The same old same old!
In this book.Charline is leading and bunch of colonists back to the planet Dust. The PTB on earth have decided that Dust will be a good fall back for a seed population who would be given the job of saving humanity from extinction if earth is attacked again. This time it is Charline who takes on the enemy and succeeds against all odds! I have previously recommended it for young readers but I think that I might be selling this new generation short! How many times can an author get away with the same old plots. Oh well!
In this book.Charline is leading and bunch of colonists back to the planet Dust. The PTB on earth have decided that Dust will be a good fall back for a seed population who would be given the job of saving humanity from extinction if earth is attacked again. This time it is Charline who takes on the enemy and succeeds against all odds! I have previously recommended it for young readers but I think that I might be selling this new generation short! How many times can an author get away with the same old plots. Oh well!
December 31, 2019
If you like Charlene’s character, you will enjoy this book.
Full of combat Malay and ranged. Not sure who will live or die.Glad to see Charlene grow in this book, great to see her morph into a more competent capable character. I hope the author will do additional books with her as the central character she has the potential to become a real bad ass. I really think this book should’ve been a subset since the starship Citori was not in this book at all. Besides that a great book go ahead and read it.
Full of combat Malay and ranged. Not sure who will live or die.Glad to see Charlene grow in this book, great to see her morph into a more competent capable character. I hope the author will do additional books with her as the central character she has the potential to become a real bad ass. I really think this book should’ve been a subset since the starship Citori was not in this book at all. Besides that a great book go ahead and read it.
March 30, 2019
Just Battle Through
Charlene and part of her colony crew are stranded on Dust. Aliens attacking Naga have also targeted human ships and Dust. Not wanting to wait for the Santori to return, they decide to steal an alien shuttle and hope to eventually sieze a ship capable of wormhole travel. Thank goodness for the Mech, 3D printer and mechanical genius. The excellent adventure continues.
Charlene and part of her colony crew are stranded on Dust. Aliens attacking Naga have also targeted human ships and Dust. Not wanting to wait for the Santori to return, they decide to steal an alien shuttle and hope to eventually sieze a ship capable of wormhole travel. Thank goodness for the Mech, 3D printer and mechanical genius. The excellent adventure continues.
June 5, 2021
Charline leads her team to kick bad alien butt!
Charline becomes the kind of combat leader that create legends. Along the way many of her teammates give their all & become Heroes and Legends themselves. Awesome character development and wonderful plot. If you like nonstop military SciFi, you WILL love this book. Read it now, along with the rest of this great series, you WILL be glad you did! :)
Charline becomes the kind of combat leader that create legends. Along the way many of her teammates give their all & become Heroes and Legends themselves. Awesome character development and wonderful plot. If you like nonstop military SciFi, you WILL love this book. Read it now, along with the rest of this great series, you WILL be glad you did! :)
April 20, 2019
Another excellent book.
Although the initial team has all gone their separate ways it gives more opportunities for additional books. I want to know more about the bugs and if my theory that they also found this technology, which is why it hasn’t developed over the centuries is true.
Although the initial team has all gone their separate ways it gives more opportunities for additional books. I want to know more about the bugs and if my theory that they also found this technology, which is why it hasn’t developed over the centuries is true.
June 11, 2019
The story continues ...
So sad I have to wait to find out where the Sartori is, why Andy disappeared and the connections between the bugs and the Naga coming to an explanation. This is why I like Space Opera. This series is classic and glad your having as much fun as I am. Please keep writing.
So sad I have to wait to find out where the Sartori is, why Andy disappeared and the connections between the bugs and the Naga coming to an explanation. This is why I like Space Opera. This series is classic and glad your having as much fun as I am. Please keep writing.
October 23, 2019
An amazing storyteller
I love this series. Each book has been true to form- an engrossing, hard to put down, fast paced story line, wonderful charismatic characters, and the crowning feature, a book that gets you emotionally involved. That's what turns an ordinary author into an amazing storyteller.
I love this series. Each book has been true to form- an engrossing, hard to put down, fast paced story line, wonderful charismatic characters, and the crowning feature, a book that gets you emotionally involved. That's what turns an ordinary author into an amazing storyteller.
June 6, 2020
Change of Pace
I was quite surprised in this one as the change of pace and focus took me a little while to follow comfortably but i think it was for the best as otherwise the next book would have left to much questions and the time line would be shifted too much.
Some great action and concepts which i enjoyed throughly however.
I was quite surprised in this one as the change of pace and focus took me a little while to follow comfortably but i think it was for the best as otherwise the next book would have left to much questions and the time line would be shifted too much.
Some great action and concepts which i enjoyed throughly however.
May 14, 2019
Maybe The Best in the Series
As the story developed, the characters became believable from their action and dialogue. Their escape from the bug planet was well-written and allowed the reader to see hope at the end of the series.
As the story developed, the characters became believable from their action and dialogue. Their escape from the bug planet was well-written and allowed the reader to see hope at the end of the series.
May 17, 2019
Exploits of Charlene
This books chronicles the adventures of Charlene, Andrew and the colonists stranded on Dust. It is a great battle against the Kkikitchikut. Another good action packed novel with an ending promising more.
This books chronicles the adventures of Charlene, Andrew and the colonists stranded on Dust. It is a great battle against the Kkikitchikut. Another good action packed novel with an ending promising more.
July 9, 2019
The saga continues...
I took a break between volumes 8 and 9 and was not at all disappointed by this one. A remarkable story that holds ones interest well. I’m looking forward to reading volume 10.
I took a break between volumes 8 and 9 and was not at all disappointed by this one. A remarkable story that holds ones interest well. I’m looking forward to reading volume 10.
August 31, 2019
A great tribute to one of the key characters.
A great tribute to one of the key characters in the saga. Charlene is the star in this one. If you’ve read the preceding volumes, you’ll like this one, too.
A great tribute to one of the key characters in the saga. Charlene is the star in this one. If you’ve read the preceding volumes, you’ll like this one, too.
August 19, 2020
With joy comes sadness
Love the connection with the characters of this series. That being said, what were you thinking, Kevin?! Man what an ending to this book. Can't wait to see what happens next.
Love the connection with the characters of this series. That being said, what were you thinking, Kevin?! Man what an ending to this book. Can't wait to see what happens next.
February 10, 2025
I throughly enjoyed this book. It had a good story line and kept me interested throughout the entire story. I recommend reading this book.
September 25, 2024
Charlene and Andy are abandoned on the inhospitable planet, Dust. They must find a way home before they either starve to death or are killed by the local inhabitants. Their plan to escape is bold, desperate, and defies the odds but, they don't have many choices. More shoot-em-up adventure for the crew of the Starship Satori. As always, well-written by McLaughlin.
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May 17, 2019Another good read
Once again Kevin McLaughtin presents an enjoyable read. The adventures continue and I am looking forward to the next episode. He obviously got a bit sick of writing. I was anticipating a bit more about the jump to earth and the reception when they appeared out of the wormhole but the story skipped straight to a summary of what happened and future plans.
Once again Kevin McLaughtin presents an enjoyable read. The adventures continue and I am looking forward to the next episode. He obviously got a bit sick of writing. I was anticipating a bit more about the jump to earth and the reception when they appeared out of the wormhole but the story skipped straight to a summary of what happened and future plans.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews