Starship Alchemon

by Christopher Hinz

From the the award-winning author of the cult-80s classic Liege-Killer and The Paratwa Saga, comes Starship Alchemon - a deep-space action opera combined with a threat to all humanity.

Nine explorers aboard a powerful AI vessel, Alchemon, are sent to investigate an "anomalous biosignature" on a distant planet. But they soon realize their mission has gone to hell as deadly freakish incidents threaten their lives. Are these events caused by the tormented psychic mysteriously put aboard at the last minute? Has the crew been targeted by a vengeful corporate psychopath? Are they part of some cruel experiment by the ship's ruthless owners? Or do their troubles originate with the strange alien lifeform retrieved from the planet? A creature that might possess an intelligence beyond human understanding or may perhaps be the spawn of some terrifying supernatural force... Either way, as their desperation and panic sets in, one thing becomes clear: they're fighting not only for their own survival, but for the fate of all humanity.

File Under: Science Fiction [ Deep Space Isolation - Monster on Spaceship - Psychic Powers - All-powerful Sentient AI ]

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Space

376 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2019

About the author

Christopher Hinz is an author of science fiction thrillers – novels, comic books, screenplays and more.

Born in 1951 in Reading, PA, USA, his early passion for all things SF led to the writing of his first “book” in elementary school. A four-page epic, it featured a giant monster brought back from Mars who escapes and climbs the tallest building in Chicago, only to be blasted from that perch with a nuclear cannon. The inevitable fallout, along with other youthful digressions, steered Hinz away from science fiction writing – and Chicago – for many years.

His first mature work,LIEGE-KILLER, was originally published in 1987 by St. Martin’s Press. ANACHRONISMS, ASH OCK and THE PARATWA soon followed. The latter two novels, together with LIEGE-KILLER, form “The Paratwa Saga.”

A subsequent foray into comic books led to a number of publications, including creator-owned GEMINI BLOOD (with artist Tommy Lee Edwards) and DEAD CORPS (with artist Steve Pugh) for DC Comics, and BLADE for Marvel Comics, also with Pugh. An evolution into screenwriting resulted in the sale of BINARY, a script based on LIEGE-KILLER.

In addition to other SF projects, he has worked a variety of Earth-based jobs, including picture framer, turret-lathe operator, TV technical director and newspaper staff writer. He has played in rock bands, modeled dioramas and designed and marketed an auto racing board game. He currently creates new stories from the semi-seclusion of a wooded realm in Berks County, Pennsylvania.

Reviews

[Athena (OneReadingNurse) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you so much to Angry Robot via NetGalley for the eARC of Starship Alchemon in exchange for an honest review!

Starship Alchemon throws a pretty interesting crew of characters together on a research mission to investigate a bacteria growing on a distant planet where there shouldn't be life forms. One thing leads to another and they are battling a disastrously powerful life form trying to get home alive.

Let me start with the characters: the ship is guided by an AI enhanced human named Jonomy, who links with the ship to guide and run interference. An interesting history is provided on these enhanced humans, and I enjoyed finding out that he also had a personality and life and conscience of his own. LeaMarsa, the psionic (psychic type) brought onto the mission is the other central character. She has a troubled past and probably the most interesting background, as she discovers the true purpose of the life form on board and her powers send the rest of the ship into catastrophe. (Think betazoids on steroids for Star Trek fans). There are a handful of other characters including a snarky researcher, his assistant, the captain and ship doctor, and a psychologically troubled first officer.


There are quite a few subplots too, such as a shady character who is running these space missions. I wish that line had been resolved a little more. There is the history of the life form on board and LeaMarsa's interactions with it. The relationship between the captain and doctor provides a nice touch. The sub characters have their own little storylines too. There is a lot going on. Sometimes it turned into a jumble but I enjoyed the book quite a bit.


Technology plays a huge role as well, as it should in a sci-fi book! The levels of the ship's AI each play into the other lesser levels. There are robots and weapons and computers and space portals for transports into other galaxies.
 

Overall I think this was a long but honestly interesting book. The ending seemed a bit easy but I would recommend for any sci-fi fans. If you are like me and love space themed reads like Star Trek as the biggest example, I think you'll enjoy this. It released earlier in November so check it out if it seems up your alley!

[keikii Eats Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

To read more reviews like this, check out my blog keikii eats books!

89 points, 4 ½ stars
Quote:

“Bless my odorous ass,” Rigel said. “That blue stuff isn’t rock. It appears to be the surface of a single, carbon-based multicellular organism.”
“Alive,” Faye whispered.

Review:
Starship Alchemon was a ton of fun. From beginning to end, I enjoyed myself. The story took time to play out, and even at the end I was surprised at what was going on. It is always more entertaining when I can't guess everything before it happens.

First off, the worldbuilding is well done. It took a little bit of time to put all the pieces together in the beginning, but that was okay. I was a bit worried about the list at the beginning of the book with all the various parts to the spaceship, but that turned out to mostly be a non-issue. Initialisms just aren't by forte and I'm glad I didn't have to keep going back and forth every time one came up. The elements of sci-fi that Hinz chose to include really worked well in the story.

There were also a lot of characters, and I liked them all. Each character had something about them that contributed to the story as a whole. Which is a lot easier to do when every one of the characters is stuck on the same spaceship traveling through space. It also helps when it is a small crew. Yet it was still really well done.

The characters:
- There is the strong psychic who is fighting off recurring nightmares, and may be tormenting the crew because of it.
- There is the captain who is in way over their head, but has to make the best of it if they're going to survive at all.
- There is the guy in charge of all the science experiments, who doesn't care about the fact they're in danger so long as they get to continue their experiments.
- Then, there is the guy who has started displaying signs of going crazy.
- Plus more very good characters who didn't have as much impact.

Plus there is the lifeform that they retrieved from the planet. They don't know what it is. They don't know what it is doing. They don't know how to stop it from doing what they know it is doing. They don't know how the thing is doing it. And it is terrifying. It is messing with the ship, the thing they need to live. They can't fight back. It seems to have a goal, and even a personality, but they cannot communicate. There is no outside help. Everyone seems to be affected by it. Everything about this mysterious lifeform is terrifying. There is just this sense of crushing doom that works very well.

This is a book where things go from bad to worse. I really enjoyed reading it. I'm a bit surprised that I couldn't work out the end before it came. I like being surprised in a good way. The buildup to the ending was incredible. It didn't feel like it came from nowhere, it was very organic. It drew from the facts presented from the very beginning to create one wonderful ending. The whole book reminded me of one of my favourite Doctor Who episodes, which I never, ever thought to see in a book, so this was even more astounding for it.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Christopher Hinz, Angry Robot, and Netgalley for providing the opportunity to review this copy.

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's nothing wrong with this, but it just didn't click with me. I found myself putting it down, walking away, not interested. It'll go well with the right reader.

[Jocelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. Review to come soon!

[Vigasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is entertaining s/f novel with an easy to follow narrative. It was important to me, because I am not native english speaker and often science fiction novels are confusing for me because I don't understand all that tech terms. There were a few here too, but overall I could follow the story quite swiftly.

My main issues are the slow start - the tension raises but only in the second part of a novel and some chapters are constructed mostly with dialouges and there were times I found myself drifting off.

I am also not entirely satisfied with the ending. It wasn't exactly bad but ... I don't know, it's just my personal opinion. Anyway I can't say more because spoilers.

Oh, and there are some great characters.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review is here, on my blog!

This is the story of the Starship Alchemon (duh) which is a research vessel that has been sent by one of the ‘megas’ (giant corporations that more or less govern Earth) to a planet far, far away to investigate a biological creature found on an entirely dead planet.

At the very last minute, the corporation running the show have put a strange psychic woman on the ship and sent them on their way. They get to the perhaps not-so-aptly named planet Sycamore and find a seemingly intelligent gooey blob with… a fetus inside it? So, they bring it on board, because of course they do.

And that’s when all the freaky incidents start happening. Everyone’s having nightmares. People are randomly lashing out at other people. What is the cause of these abnormalities? Is it the organism? The psychic? The ship, which is itself a powerful, sentient AI?

I quite liked this one. It was a quick, fun read that was easy to pick up and put down when needed. It’s fairly hard sci-fi, in that the jargon and acronyms are rather hard to follow in the beginning (and the included list of acronyms didn’t help as much as I had hoped), but, I picked up on it eventually, and the story just flew on by.

LeaMarsa de Host (the freaky ghost) was an interesting character, who had quite a complex backstory. It made sense and was explained pretty well in the end. I also really enjoyed the character of Jonomy, who is a genetically engineered human known as a lytic. They are bred to interface with the AI ships through an umbilical cable connected right to their brain. He reminded me of Data from Star Trek: TNG, in many ways, though with more emotion.

All told, I quite enjoyed it. I’m a sucker for the ‘monster on a spaceship’ kind of story, and so this one sated that craving pretty well. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes a pretty hard sci-fi with dangerous aliens mixed with dangerous (and not super well-adjusted) humans.

Thanks to the author, as well as Angry Robot for the review copy.

[S. Naomi Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

++ DISCLAIMER – I received an advanced reading copy of this book from the publishers and NetGalley in return for an honest, unbiased review. My thanks to Angry Robot for allowing me to read and review this book. ++

This novel follows the lives of nine explorers aboard the titular starship, Alchemon, as they are despatched to the distant world of Sycamore to investigate an “anomalous biosignature”. What they find on Sycamore, and the events that transpire as they attempt to return their find back to Earth, make for what ultimately turns out to be a frenetic, high-stakes space adventure.

The first half of the novel focuses on the ship’s arrival at Sycamore and the crew’s discovery there of an apparently alien organism which they christen Bouncy Blue. What’s even more intriguing is the second organism they identify inside Bouncy Blue, a second organism they call Baby Blue (they’re an original bunch, these explorers). After a brief discussion they bring the organisms back aboard Alchemon and begin their journey back to Earth, and that’s when the trouble begins. Crewmembers start to act irrationally, equipment starts to malfunction, and the AI that oversees the ship begins to fall apart.

The narrative does start off quite slowly, though I suspect that’s got a lot to do with the various character arcs and threads the author has woven into this story. All nine characters aboard the Alchemon have something major to contribute to the narrative, and Hinz juggles the character development between the nine of them really well. Each character gets their own share of the limelight and while a few do seem to get the lion’s share in the second half of the story, none of them seem superficial or are ignored in any meaningful way.

Of all the characters perhaps the most interesting is LeaMarsa de Host, the ship’s resident psychic. It’s fairly obvious from the start that she’s going to be an integral part of the overall story arc, though the way in which Hinz plays with reader expectations surrounding the character is superlative. Right from the beginning of the story we’re given this sense of her being as much a part of the ship’s problems as the alien creature, though there are little flashes of insight that suggest she might be an unwitting party to what’s going on.

The action really begins to take off in the second half of the novel, though there are still a few twists and turns to come. The tension gets racked up to ten quickly, and with it the narrative really begins to gain pace. The final act fairly flies by, with a few characters falling by the wayside, and while I’ll admit the resolution does carry a bit of a whiff of deus ex machina it still fits within the framework Hinz has laid down in the four-hundred pages leading up to that point.

Despite the slow start, I was surprisingly satisfied with the way this novel turned out, and will certainly be adding Hinz to my list of authors to take a closer look at. If you’re a fan of modern space opera or like to have a touch of mystery in your science fiction then I’d say give this one a try. Definitely worth four out of five stars in my estimation.

[S.J. Higbee · Rating 4 out of 5]

If this type of adventure lights your fuses, then this offering comes highly recommended. The story is as cosily familiar as a cup of evening cocoa – a highly talented, but disruptive member of the crew that either clashes or attracts that fascinating-but-lethal thingy which has been brought aboard for further research, despite the foreboding of senior crew members.

The story was a bit slow to get going, as Hinz writes on the harder side of the sci fi spectrum, so there is a fair bit of tech stuff to get through. It seemed enjoyably plausible, though I did find, in common with many books within this sub-genre, that the characterisation suffered. So no one is written in much depth and as a consequence, I didn’t really care all that much for anyone. However, as the stakes went on rising, that became beside the point, anyhow as there were deaths amongst the crew that took me by surprise.

The pace certainly picked up as the story wore on and by the final quarter, it became difficult to put down as I was keen to discover how this one was going to end. I really couldn’t predict exactly which way this one was going. Hinz’s experience showed in his deft handling of the denouement – the snag with raising the stakes, is that the payoff needs to be sufficiently satisfying so that the conclusion doesn’t fall flat. It didn’t.

All in all, this was a classic sci fi alien encounter with plenty going on, and if lacked something in originality and character depth, it made up for it in the steadily rising tension and successful ending. Recommended for those who enjoy their sci fi from the golden era. The ebook arc copy of Starship Alchemon was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest opinion of the book.
7/10

[Ashley Cael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great premise, I loved the idea but the things that put me off were the pop culture references to now and the characters (specifically LeaMarsa), she just acted so much like a moody preteen that it was a bit annoying.

[D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly? What a birthday present this will be when I get the print copy!
I loved ti so much that I decided to go out and grab the print copy, and it's released around my birthday, so win.
A really enjoyable book - palpably tense and taught and well written - the author has given the science element as much thought as the fiction and though I had a very few minor niggles, I loved the whole book.

I received a copy of this book on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

4 3/4 stars

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 2.25 of 5

Every once in a while I come across a book that I feel is well written and with an interesting set of characters in an interesting story, and yet it doesn't click with me. This is one of those books.

Given the number of books I read in a year, and with many of them being by authors who are new to me, I shouldn't be surprised that I run into this, and yet each time it happens, it surprises me none-the-less.

A team of explorers are on an intelligent space ship, Alchemon. They are sent to investigate some unusual signals from a distant area, but everything possible seems to go wrong and soon they begin to distrust one-another ... a dangerous thing to do when you need to rely on everyone for day-to-day survival. In time, they realize that this fight for survival is also a fight to save the human race.

Mostly I just found this book rather dull. The suspense didn't built up enough for me. Only one moment stands out in which I wondered how one person was going to react and if another would manage to survive the encounter. Otherwise I thought the book was so evenly paced that you could pick up reading the book at any page and it would feel the same from that point on.

The characters never grabbed my attention and so when they started to fear one another I never knew who I was supposed to root for and who I was supposed to worry about.

The "something is out there" story also never caught on for me. I've read this sort of space opera fairly recently, and done quite well (The Expanse series comes first to mind) so this turned out to be quite a disappointment. There are differences, of course, but it just wasn't enough to excite me into reading more.

Looking for a good book? Starship Alchemon by Christopher Hinz is a space opera story that hits all the right marks for clever characters and story, but does so in such a methodical and evenly paced way that the book is really quite dull.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgally, in exchange for an honest review.

[Alex (Spells & Spaceships) · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

Much appreciation to Angry Robot for the review copy.

I really wanted to like this, and I'm sure many people will. I just found it a bit flat - I didn't care about any of the characters and I wasn't gripped by the story.

I found the first 10-20% really promising with a foreboding set up that felt like it could be the alien-type space horror I was expecting. In the end it felt like a B movie. Not a bad B movie, certainly watchable; it's well written, and there are some good ideas. It's just got a hard to explain uninspiring vibe. If you have a lot of spare time to read different books then you might want to give it a go and find some aspects are to your liking. In the end I got up to 80% and just gave up as I didn't care what happened after that. I don't agree with rating books as a rule if you haven't read it all but when you DNF near the end, the rating would have stayed the same regardless.

I'm not ruling out a re-read in future coming from a different angle. If I find I enjoy it more I'll update the rating.

Ultimately, if you read a lot of sci-fi and want to give different things a go, you could find you like it so don't rule it out based on my opinion. If you're pushed for time and you only want to pick up a handful of the best books available, I'd personally try something else.

[John Purvis · Rating 4 out of 5]

(See all my Book Reviews) – Author Christopher Hinz (http://christopherhinz.com/) published the novel “Starship Alchemon” in 2019. This is his first published novel.

I received an ARC of this novel through https://www.netgalley.com in return for a fair and honest review. I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains Violence and mature Language. The story is set in the far future. A deep space mission is assigned to the starship Alchemon with its crew of 9. They are to investigate the odd biosignature on a distant planet.

Lea Marsa is a last-minute addition to the crew. She has been certified with strong psychic abilities. The story is split between Marsa and the Captain of the vessel, Ericho Solorzano. Masa’s psychic abilities begin to affect the crew. This, along with the life-form they encounter, creates life and death situations for them.

I enjoyed the 8+ hours I spent reading this 377-page science fiction novel. I have to say that something about the novel felt ‘off’ to me. Some of it almost had a ‘tongue-in-cheek’ atmosphere, but it was written as a serious story. The chosen cover art seems appropriate for the novel. I give this novel a 4 out of 5.

You can access more of my book reviews on my Blog ( https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/).

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starship Alchemon is a story about the explorers who undertake long-distance space flight under directives from corporations.

There was something quire self-indulgent about this from the beginning - a rewrite of an earlier novel by the author to bring it inline with their standards. However, putting that aside and looking at the story itself - for the most part it was an enjoying story with a richly detailed world.

This novel fell into a pet peeve of mine - choosing odd names to stand in for what names will be in the future. I find the practice makes it difficult to relate to or remember characters. However, I will say that the details surrounding the naming practice for Jonomy was interesting and unique. Parts of the story felt a little ham-fisted, relying on neat Deus ex machina solutions to overcome the big bad that has been lurking.

Although this story had its flaws, they were by no means enough to stop me from reading, and on the whole I enjoyed the book for filling an afternoon. I would recommend this to fans of the genre.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

TPB/ARC/Science Fiction: Well, this was a strange book. It just came out, so no spoilers, but it was strange.

What I liked was the “science fiction”. The author’s thought process in the devices that the ship’s crew used. I liked the pups and the Sentinel. The author used a lot of detail in what the limitations were. I would have liked was more of how humans became so mentally psy. Either I skipped it or I missed if this realm was always like this or did the psy start when the DNA modifications started. The ending was pretty abrupt after being pretty steady with narrative and action.

I want to thank Amazon for letting me have and advanced copy. There were some new ideas that I had not seen in SF before.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hinz, Christopher. Starship Alchemon. Angry Robot, 2019.
If you like first contact science fiction with extremely dangerous, creepy aliens, Starship Alchemon will fill the bill. Our heroine has been genetically engineered to have exceptional psi abilities. She and her crewmates are sent to a planet to investigate reports of what may be a new sentient species. It turns out, of course, that the reports are true, and that it is capable of shape changing, mental invasion and, worse yet, interfering with their ship’s AI and basic subsystems. In the aggregate, none of this is really new, but the individual pieces, starship design, the characterization of the crew, and the modulation of action versus exposition are all handled well.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

This, unfortunately, was like reading a bad novelization of the film "Event Horizon." It seemed at first to be a reasonably subversive work. There was a bit of commentary on consumer society mixed with a story that was kind of a pastiche of "Alien," right up until the point where the alien got loose and started psychically taking over the ship. Then one of the characters levels up to god mode, beats the bad guy, and the book more or less ends with the good guy taking the bad guy back to prison and the rest of the crew time-traveling 800 years into the future, where everything's fine and they're all heroes. The end.

Supremely unsatisfying.

[Annarella · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sci-fi book according to my heart. It's entertaining, it makes you think and it keeps you hooked till the end.
I loved the well thought world building, the fleshed out cast of characters and the well crafted plot that kept me hooked till the end.
It's the first book I read by this author and won't surely be the last.
It was an excellent read, strongly recommended.
Many thanks to Angry Robots and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent story in outline, but falls apart completely at the end with this bizarro centuries-in-the-future switcheroo. Also, the characters never came to life for me—they all seemed standard issue, without distinguishing quirks or traits. I was able to predict pretty much where the plot was going, too, which is never a good sign because I’m terrible at that sort of thing.

[Bac1012 · Rating 2 out of 5]

It had a lot of potential but just felt like it lacked any excitement or shock or much of anything. It never got to the point I was expecting and sort of just bored me throughout the entire story minus the ending, which was still kind of underwhelming.

The writing was good and some people may enjoy the story, it just wasn't for me.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let's call it a solid 3.5. I think it would honestly make a pretty engaging movie, maybe directed by Ridley Scott? Nice to read a stand alone Sci-Fi book that doesn't feel the need to have 1000+pages over 3+ books to tell a story with a legit ending. I may check out others by the author as this was my first by him.

[Marge · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a 70+ yr. old Sci Fi fan this was a no brainer for me to purchase. What a great roller coaster ride through space ! Loved it. Great writing, got pulled into the lives of the folks in it and couldn't wait to read the next chapter when I finished the last one. My first venture into the works of Chris Hinz, but not my last.

[Robert Rapplean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starship Alchemon is a fun variation on the "spaceship crew picks up alien on remote planet, and it tries to kill them" trope. The characters are creative and believable, and the monster isn't your standard xeno. I found it to be light and entertaining.

[Melissa Gritton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't sure if this book at first but I am glad I continued now. It was so well written his world-building skills are amazing. One of the best books I have ever read I'm starting to love the sci-fi genre.

[RG · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda dissapointed. Liege killer is one of my fave scifi novels of all time. This just had simple old school scifi written all over it but never really engaged with the characters.

[TC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommended with reservations.

Review posted at Tzer Island book blog:

https://www.tzerisland.com/bookblog/2...

[Zac Gordon-Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A curious story, possibly a little bit slow to start, and quick to end, but overall a fun and engaging book.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

The characters are too blocky and simplistic

[S · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was a wild ride. It took a little bit to get into the story, but once there it was hard to put down.

[Moonshadow · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very satisfying book! With an equally satisfying end. I recommend to hard syfy fans.

First book I e read by this
Author I will certainly read more!