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Distant Suns #2
Eclipse of Procyon
"The characters pop off the page. The action is electric. Mark R. Healy is a new voice in sci-fi that's worth keeping an eye on!" - Rhett C. Bruno, author of Titanfall and The Circuit .
The stunning sequel to Dawn of Procyon
The human race is at war.
The ruthless alien war-species, the Argoni, are marshalling a massive force under the surface of Procyon One in preparation for an onslaught that could wipe out every human on the planet.
In the midst of the interstellar conflict, mechanics Landry Stanton and Cait Underwood carry this terrible secret across the barren wasteland with no way of contacting home.
While the same alien armor keeping Landry alive slowly takes over his mind, Landry and Cait will be forced to outwit their alien pursuers in a last ditch attempt to save their own lives and warn the outpost of the impending invasion.
The stunning sequel to Dawn of Procyon
The human race is at war.
The ruthless alien war-species, the Argoni, are marshalling a massive force under the surface of Procyon One in preparation for an onslaught that could wipe out every human on the planet.
In the midst of the interstellar conflict, mechanics Landry Stanton and Cait Underwood carry this terrible secret across the barren wasteland with no way of contacting home.
While the same alien armor keeping Landry alive slowly takes over his mind, Landry and Cait will be forced to outwit their alien pursuers in a last ditch attempt to save their own lives and warn the outpost of the impending invasion.
- GenresScience FictionAliens
330 pages, Paperback
First published February 7, 2017
About the author
Mark R. Healy
16 books64 followersMark R. Healy is an author and musician from Brisbane, Australia. From an early age he loved to create, and often assembled his own illustrated books with accompanying stories - and then forced his parents to buy them.
Unfortunately this model was not scalable and Mark now seeks to promote his works to a wider audience.
Mark has also combined his storytelling prowess with music, creating a project called ‘Hibernal’ through which he interweaves original sci-fi stories with his own music to create an immersive theatrical experience for the listener. Combined with a professional voice cast and sound effects, these “audio movies” are available online through iTunes, Bandcamp and Amazon under the name ‘Hibernal’.
Unfortunately this model was not scalable and Mark now seeks to promote his works to a wider audience.
Mark has also combined his storytelling prowess with music, creating a project called ‘Hibernal’ through which he interweaves original sci-fi stories with his own music to create an immersive theatrical experience for the listener. Combined with a professional voice cast and sound effects, these “audio movies” are available online through iTunes, Bandcamp and Amazon under the name ‘Hibernal’.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 15, 2024
A great follow up to the first book. Mark R. Healy gives us another fast-paced slice of alien conflict SF in this sequel.
Sure, it very much wears its influences on its sleeve, which is why I couldn’t give it the full five stars, but it didn’t stop me enjoying the ride. Exciting, visceral stuff.
Sure, it very much wears its influences on its sleeve, which is why I couldn’t give it the full five stars, but it didn’t stop me enjoying the ride. Exciting, visceral stuff.
March 31, 2018
Alien invasions are staples of science fiction and, because of that, a lot of great story lines have long since been explored.
If, therefore, you - as an author - are going to write about malevolent aliens bent on attacking humanity you have to do more than create scary monsters. You must also effectively blend complex characters into a narrative that contains enough twists and turns to keep the reader not only invested in your protagonists but also interested in the plot. It also helps - a lot - if you can make the science believable.
If you're good, you can pull that off in a novel.
If you're really good, you can do so in a series.
Mark R. Healy is really good and he shows us just how good he is in this, the second book in his "Distant Suns" series.
In the first novel in the series Healy introduced us to Landry Stanton, a supervisory technician who signed up for work on a distant planet because he could no longer face life on Earth following the death of his wife. Healy also introduced us to Cait Underwood, a high-potential, high-achiever eager to take Stanton's job. She does just that when Stanton goes missing one day while trying to help a friend.
In this second installment in the series Cait has thrown caution to the winds and gone in search of Stanton, who is presumed lost in the wasteland that is the planet's surface.She finds him and together they uncover a plan to take over the outpost world they live on by the Argoni, an implacable alien species that has been warring with humanity for a decade or more.
Healy has excellent world-building skills and has created a hostile environment where humans can only survive inside their relatively small man-made outpost unless they are wearing special suits. It's a bleak world, by all accounts, and - in addition to the alien enemy - is quite dangerous on its own accord.
Having laid that groundwork, Healy goes on to create - in addition to Cait and Landry - a dozen or so memorable characters and infuse them with very complicated agendas. There are, for example, defense forces assigned to the outpost world who treat the civilian population with a certain degree of arrogance; subterranean workers who refer to the defense forces and everyone else who lives and works on the surface as "rabbits;" and a host of others. They are all very believable characters.
Finally, Healy weaves just enough science into the narrative to make this novel a true representative of the genre in addition to being a crackling good adventure story.
The verdict: A 5-star read and a great addition to the series.
If, therefore, you - as an author - are going to write about malevolent aliens bent on attacking humanity you have to do more than create scary monsters. You must also effectively blend complex characters into a narrative that contains enough twists and turns to keep the reader not only invested in your protagonists but also interested in the plot. It also helps - a lot - if you can make the science believable.
If you're good, you can pull that off in a novel.
If you're really good, you can do so in a series.
Mark R. Healy is really good and he shows us just how good he is in this, the second book in his "Distant Suns" series.
In the first novel in the series Healy introduced us to Landry Stanton, a supervisory technician who signed up for work on a distant planet because he could no longer face life on Earth following the death of his wife. Healy also introduced us to Cait Underwood, a high-potential, high-achiever eager to take Stanton's job. She does just that when Stanton goes missing one day while trying to help a friend.
In this second installment in the series Cait has thrown caution to the winds and gone in search of Stanton, who is presumed lost in the wasteland that is the planet's surface.She finds him and together they uncover a plan to take over the outpost world they live on by the Argoni, an implacable alien species that has been warring with humanity for a decade or more.
Healy has excellent world-building skills and has created a hostile environment where humans can only survive inside their relatively small man-made outpost unless they are wearing special suits. It's a bleak world, by all accounts, and - in addition to the alien enemy - is quite dangerous on its own accord.
Having laid that groundwork, Healy goes on to create - in addition to Cait and Landry - a dozen or so memorable characters and infuse them with very complicated agendas. There are, for example, defense forces assigned to the outpost world who treat the civilian population with a certain degree of arrogance; subterranean workers who refer to the defense forces and everyone else who lives and works on the surface as "rabbits;" and a host of others. They are all very believable characters.
Finally, Healy weaves just enough science into the narrative to make this novel a true representative of the genre in addition to being a crackling good adventure story.
The verdict: A 5-star read and a great addition to the series.
April 7, 2025
This one was tough. The first book was great I gave it 5 stars easy. Great characters, and a duel story form 2 perspectives that worked together to tell the story. That story was very concise, had loads of back story, and ended in a mini climax, ready for this book.
This one did have the great characters and brought in some others. Those had some backstories but they were not as deep as the first book, and the stories did not work together quite as well to form the main story, often instead of 2 parallel stories where characters learn parts of the other characters, but it was like a more linear story told from difference perspectives.
What was worse and really annoyed me, is instead of that slow burn mystery where we learn about this world, characters and plot, this one just has a lot of chaos. Action upon action. A lot of subverting the expectation of the audience by throwing in new issues, randomly that did not often serve to move the story, but to make the story seem more fast paced. Some people like that, and a little of that would be okay, but it was just too much, especially after the first book presented a less chaotic list of events.
For example without too many spoilers, there was a lot of infighting that was "resolved" in the heat of the moment when something else happened. It would have been better to remove some of that infighting or resolve it first before something new what thrown at the characters. It was not quite Deus Ex Machina but some times it felt like that level of nonsense. And part of that was the first book was so great, so different, and a better pacing, that this felt like a let down of a second half.
The ending saved it a bit, the characters were still great, it just felt like a lot of issues got in the way of the story, that were not fully resolved, and then the book ends in a good way. But it was a bit of a struggle to get there as the reader.
I would love to read another book in the world, but I hope it would work more like the first book, and less like this one.
This one did have the great characters and brought in some others. Those had some backstories but they were not as deep as the first book, and the stories did not work together quite as well to form the main story, often instead of 2 parallel stories where characters learn parts of the other characters, but it was like a more linear story told from difference perspectives.
What was worse and really annoyed me, is instead of that slow burn mystery where we learn about this world, characters and plot, this one just has a lot of chaos. Action upon action. A lot of subverting the expectation of the audience by throwing in new issues, randomly that did not often serve to move the story, but to make the story seem more fast paced. Some people like that, and a little of that would be okay, but it was just too much, especially after the first book presented a less chaotic list of events.
For example without too many spoilers, there was a lot of infighting that was "resolved" in the heat of the moment when something else happened. It would have been better to remove some of that infighting or resolve it first before something new what thrown at the characters. It was not quite Deus Ex Machina but some times it felt like that level of nonsense. And part of that was the first book was so great, so different, and a better pacing, that this felt like a let down of a second half.
The ending saved it a bit, the characters were still great, it just felt like a lot of issues got in the way of the story, that were not fully resolved, and then the book ends in a good way. But it was a bit of a struggle to get there as the reader.
I would love to read another book in the world, but I hope it would work more like the first book, and less like this one.
June 20, 2020
A very good series. The ending of book 2 leads one to believe there will be a book 3 but no mention of it at this time.
This was such a good series that I decided to start another book by this author in hopes that the magic continues..
Well the aliens are the most alien things I could imagine. No matter where you go in time there is always a bureaucracy to grind you down. Mark is a good guy who is broken and is hiding from real life and feeling anything on an outpost. He just wants to fix broken machinery and not think about anything he left behind on earth. But when he does a favor for his only friend on the base, very bad things happen. It's always the aliens. But those aliens are some kind of icky.. so Mark disappears and Cait gets his job.. she's kinda hiding from facing her dad back on earth, trying to prove she is worthy.. then Stephen she finds out that Mark may still be alive and finds a illegal child. She has to figure out if she will now to the grinding bureaucracy or care enough to do something.
I really liked this author. Will be reading more of his works.
This was such a good series that I decided to start another book by this author in hopes that the magic continues..
Well the aliens are the most alien things I could imagine. No matter where you go in time there is always a bureaucracy to grind you down. Mark is a good guy who is broken and is hiding from real life and feeling anything on an outpost. He just wants to fix broken machinery and not think about anything he left behind on earth. But when he does a favor for his only friend on the base, very bad things happen. It's always the aliens. But those aliens are some kind of icky.. so Mark disappears and Cait gets his job.. she's kinda hiding from facing her dad back on earth, trying to prove she is worthy.. then Stephen she finds out that Mark may still be alive and finds a illegal child. She has to figure out if she will now to the grinding bureaucracy or care enough to do something.
I really liked this author. Will be reading more of his works.
February 24, 2017
Good read!
Well written and well thought out plotlines. I enjoyed it very much and would recommend it to any scifi buffs
Well written and well thought out plotlines. I enjoyed it very much and would recommend it to any scifi buffs
March 1, 2017
2nd book , very good.
February 28, 2017
Strong series. You want to read more.
February 27, 2017
This was another great one! Keep them coming!
February 9, 2017
This is the second book in the Procyon series by Mark R Healy and published by Future House Publishing. These books appear to be aimed at a teen audience but much like novels such as The Hunger Games they appeal to all ages due to the quality of the writing.
I won’t go into detail about the plot (don’t want to give any spoilers) but the human colony of Procyon A is under threat from the alien race The Argoni and this book like its predecessor continues the story through the eyes of its main characters Landry and Cait whilst vastly expanding the focus on a previously peripheral character and introducing some new ones along the way.
Mark has weaved a tight action packed novel full of excitement and humour. Mark’s characters must be perpetually exhausted (in all his books) as they never get any breaks or for that matter any rest. You never quite know what’s going to happen next but you care enough about these people to want to find out. Mark understands the importance that his key characters have and that they need to rounded and believable people. He does this brilliantly.
All in all another fabulous offering from a talented author.
Can’t wait for the next one
I won’t go into detail about the plot (don’t want to give any spoilers) but the human colony of Procyon A is under threat from the alien race The Argoni and this book like its predecessor continues the story through the eyes of its main characters Landry and Cait whilst vastly expanding the focus on a previously peripheral character and introducing some new ones along the way.
Mark has weaved a tight action packed novel full of excitement and humour. Mark’s characters must be perpetually exhausted (in all his books) as they never get any breaks or for that matter any rest. You never quite know what’s going to happen next but you care enough about these people to want to find out. Mark understands the importance that his key characters have and that they need to rounded and believable people. He does this brilliantly.
All in all another fabulous offering from a talented author.
Can’t wait for the next one
February 10, 2017
Once again Healy has written another fast paced book with plenty of action. I was really thrilled to continue Landry and Cait's story and I really like the addition of the new characters as well. The story is taken to another level with the additional intertwining plot line. I love that there also continue to be moments of humour which Healy so cleverly weaves into the story! A great read!
April 22, 2017
Waiting for the next installment
I hate waiting to find out what happens next. Sure hope the n ext installment is coming soon so we can follow Landry, Kait and co.
I hate waiting to find out what happens next. Sure hope the n ext installment is coming soon so we can follow Landry, Kait and co.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews