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The Messenger #3
Star Forged
The Forge is coming back online, weapons hot and searching known space for signs of the Golden.
When Dash and Leira repair a powerful scanner, it finds something unusual in a distant system—the remains of an ancient battlefield. Custodian tells of a fight lost long ago, leaving drifting debris around the faraway star.
But the battlefield isn’t forgotten. A human colony has taken hold nearby, and on their world, a single, massive ship has crashed.
And it is sending out a signal.
In a race against the enemy, Dash and his team will try to salvage the secrets of a Golden ship, warn the colony of the oncoming war, and brace for impact as more enemies streak across the stars to hunt down the one person who can stop them.
The Messenger.
When Dash and Leira repair a powerful scanner, it finds something unusual in a distant system—the remains of an ancient battlefield. Custodian tells of a fight lost long ago, leaving drifting debris around the faraway star.
But the battlefield isn’t forgotten. A human colony has taken hold nearby, and on their world, a single, massive ship has crashed.
And it is sending out a signal.
In a race against the enemy, Dash and his team will try to salvage the secrets of a Golden ship, warn the colony of the oncoming war, and brace for impact as more enemies streak across the stars to hunt down the one person who can stop them.
The Messenger.
- GenresScience Fiction
350 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 14, 2019
504 people are currently reading
128 people want to read
About the author
J.N. Chaney
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
November 18, 2019
-Book #3.
“Welcome aboard Team Humanity.”
Discovery is the name of the game here, and in searching for a distant signal of Golden origins. Tense and revealing moments, exciting events to deal with, life decisions to make, a posture nobody would desire to have to decide. Gripping and terrifying, the story had me enraptured till the end. Heart pounding scenes, so realistic I kept holding my breath with the characters. A truly immersive premise. It hits all the things that I love about Sci-fi. I highly recommend this series!
“Welcome aboard Team Humanity.”
Discovery is the name of the game here, and in searching for a distant signal of Golden origins. Tense and revealing moments, exciting events to deal with, life decisions to make, a posture nobody would desire to have to decide. Gripping and terrifying, the story had me enraptured till the end. Heart pounding scenes, so realistic I kept holding my breath with the characters. A truly immersive premise. It hits all the things that I love about Sci-fi. I highly recommend this series!
January 9, 2020
The struggle to find more power cores. In addition several attacks on the Forge are fended off. Close buy is debris from a great battle and a signal from a crashed Golden spaceship on a nearby planet with a population of 10,000. Soon Dash is fighting off the Golden ship as it reboots as well as trying to fend off any attach on the locals.
Another great adventure in what I thought was a trilogy but the 4th book in the series has just been released.
GREAT series
Another great adventure in what I thought was a trilogy but the 4th book in the series has just been released.
GREAT series
March 26, 2020
Although this book is like a Transformer movie, it’s still pretty good, not that Transformer movies were bad, just a little excessive, in my opinion! Newton “Dash” Sawyer is still flying around in a gigant mech built by the Unseen. These were a race of technologically advanced people who built a civilization of artificial entities that eventually called the “Golden”. The Golden then decided they didn’t need the Unseen and went to war with them. They succeeded in wiping the Unseen completely from the universe and now have decided that all biological entities must be eradicated.
Dash kind of crashed into an asteroid that held the Archetype (gigant mech). The mech came equipped with an almost sentient AI who needed a human interface to operate the Archetype, so Dash fell into that role and became the Messenger. Now he has to find power cores to enable the full function of the Archetype. He’s also found the “Forge” which was the floating factory that built the Archetype. It also needed power cores to fully function so Dash and his crew have been searching for such with some luck.
Now that the Forge and the Archetype are almost fully functional, they want to build more Archetypes if possible. The Forge says it can be done, but only if they have enough Dark Metal. And it just so happens that a distant signal has been received that might prove to be a source of Dark Metal.
So, this book describes the efforts of Dash, Leira, Amy, Conover, Viktor, and a group of Monks from the Order of the Unseen acquire some Dark Metal and being preparing for another war against the Golden. It’s a pretty exciting story, but there’s actually very little use of the Archetype in this book. It’s kind of a secondary character to what happens since it can’t fit in the places Dash has to go. It also can’t protect Dash and his associates so they are going to have to fight their battles alone and against some Golden creations! Could be that someone dies!
Dash kind of crashed into an asteroid that held the Archetype (gigant mech). The mech came equipped with an almost sentient AI who needed a human interface to operate the Archetype, so Dash fell into that role and became the Messenger. Now he has to find power cores to enable the full function of the Archetype. He’s also found the “Forge” which was the floating factory that built the Archetype. It also needed power cores to fully function so Dash and his crew have been searching for such with some luck.
Now that the Forge and the Archetype are almost fully functional, they want to build more Archetypes if possible. The Forge says it can be done, but only if they have enough Dark Metal. And it just so happens that a distant signal has been received that might prove to be a source of Dark Metal.
So, this book describes the efforts of Dash, Leira, Amy, Conover, Viktor, and a group of Monks from the Order of the Unseen acquire some Dark Metal and being preparing for another war against the Golden. It’s a pretty exciting story, but there’s actually very little use of the Archetype in this book. It’s kind of a secondary character to what happens since it can’t fit in the places Dash has to go. It also can’t protect Dash and his associates so they are going to have to fight their battles alone and against some Golden creations! Could be that someone dies!
December 21, 2021
The third book of authors J.N. Chaney and Terry Maggert’s The Messenger series opens with the crew of the Slipwing traversing a jungle on the planet Gulch en route to an Unseen outpost where they can supposedly find a power core for the Archetype, although natives of the planet briefly capture them. A woman known as Freya receives her introduction, as does Ragsdale, who serves as Chief of Security and advisor to Governor Khyber Wallis. Most of the book’s action occurs in the wreckage of a ship from the hostile alien race, the Golden.
However, creatures known as the Dreadfoot pose a threat while Dash and company scour the crashed vessel for information, with the ship showing signs of being self-aware, and Dash finds himself able to sync with the starship through a process known as the Meld. When they find a corpse of one of the Golden, they seek to bring it with them, although the vessel gradually comes online, and Golden bots impede their progress. One of the crewmembers of the Slipwing becomes grievously injured, with the ship’s medical system necessary for healing, the action concluding at a hospital.
Overall, the third book of the science-fiction series is enjoyable like its predecessors, given plenty of sci-fi action and elaborated mythos on the antagonistic Golden, with the authors doing a nice job as well of having a good percentage of the action occurring on the wreckage of one of the alien vessels. However, there are a few issues such as inconsistent capitalization of things such as the word “the” before terms such as “the Forge” (alternatively called “The Forge”), and there are a few minor errors such as a misuse of “it’s” when “its” would have been appropriate. Regardless, the good outweighs the bad, and I would recommend this story to those who enjoyed its precursors.
However, creatures known as the Dreadfoot pose a threat while Dash and company scour the crashed vessel for information, with the ship showing signs of being self-aware, and Dash finds himself able to sync with the starship through a process known as the Meld. When they find a corpse of one of the Golden, they seek to bring it with them, although the vessel gradually comes online, and Golden bots impede their progress. One of the crewmembers of the Slipwing becomes grievously injured, with the ship’s medical system necessary for healing, the action concluding at a hospital.
Overall, the third book of the science-fiction series is enjoyable like its predecessors, given plenty of sci-fi action and elaborated mythos on the antagonistic Golden, with the authors doing a nice job as well of having a good percentage of the action occurring on the wreckage of one of the alien vessels. However, there are a few issues such as inconsistent capitalization of things such as the word “the” before terms such as “the Forge” (alternatively called “The Forge”), and there are a few minor errors such as a misuse of “it’s” when “its” would have been appropriate. Regardless, the good outweighs the bad, and I would recommend this story to those who enjoyed its precursors.
November 30, 2021
Illogical Battles Befuddle
Right from the beginning this episode's storyline made no sense at all. First, Dash and company fly from The Forge to a distant star system from which a Golden signal is being transmitted. On arrival they the signal is coming from a huge Golden space ship that has crashed on a planet called Gulch, which is home to a prosperous human colony. Do our heroes inform the locals that they may be targeted by a race of murderous aliens just because they are sentient? Nope. The coming interstellar war is kept a deep dark secret from those who may feel its fury. Do they fly the Archetype, their huge robot , over to the crash site to stomp the signal out of the alien spacecraft? Nope. They rent vehicles and hire local guides to drive our heroes through a landscape right out of hell. The author should be ashamed of the mess he made of this book.
Right from the beginning this episode's storyline made no sense at all. First, Dash and company fly from The Forge to a distant star system from which a Golden signal is being transmitted. On arrival they the signal is coming from a huge Golden space ship that has crashed on a planet called Gulch, which is home to a prosperous human colony. Do our heroes inform the locals that they may be targeted by a race of murderous aliens just because they are sentient? Nope. The coming interstellar war is kept a deep dark secret from those who may feel its fury. Do they fly the Archetype, their huge robot , over to the crash site to stomp the signal out of the alien spacecraft? Nope. They rent vehicles and hire local guides to drive our heroes through a landscape right out of hell. The author should be ashamed of the mess he made of this book.
December 8, 2019
A good book, if you like Indiana Jones style of action.
This was a well executed book if you like Indiana Jones type action and adventure. This book primarily took place on a planet. With a lot of running around shooting aliens and questing for objects. No space battles with the archetype took place. I believe the main protagonist needs to grow into his position a bit more. He seems to be not as resolute as he could be. This was not my favorite book of the series because there was no Increase in the archetypes abilities. Others may enjoy this book better than I did.
This was a well executed book if you like Indiana Jones type action and adventure. This book primarily took place on a planet. With a lot of running around shooting aliens and questing for objects. No space battles with the archetype took place. I believe the main protagonist needs to grow into his position a bit more. He seems to be not as resolute as he could be. This was not my favorite book of the series because there was no Increase in the archetypes abilities. Others may enjoy this book better than I did.
December 17, 2019
I rated the first two books three stars - they don't have there and half stars so I went with four :-). This was a little better in that you get into more details about the Golden race (bad guys) - but the book still drags a bit as the main characters keep getting into trouble as they attempt to hunt down the Unseen (good guys) technology piece a little bit at a time (its kind of like three steps forward, two steps back). It appears book four is not out yet so I'll have to wait to see if the story gets any better.
November 7, 2020
Star forged. J.N. Chaney
A Golden space ship has crash landed on a planet a long time ago. Its human inhabitants are unaware of its presence. It's technology does not register its presence. Actually one of the planet's inhabitants is aware it's there but is unaware of the danger it presents. Dash and his team with their new technology go to the planet to obtain the secrets of this ship. Then Pandoras box is opened and they are in a fight for this planet's survival as well as their own. An excellent read!!! Enjoyed immensely!!
A Golden space ship has crash landed on a planet a long time ago. Its human inhabitants are unaware of its presence. It's technology does not register its presence. Actually one of the planet's inhabitants is aware it's there but is unaware of the danger it presents. Dash and his team with their new technology go to the planet to obtain the secrets of this ship. Then Pandoras box is opened and they are in a fight for this planet's survival as well as their own. An excellent read!!! Enjoyed immensely!!
September 7, 2021
I am really loving this series. "The Messenger", this one keeps building more support for Dash as the messenger. Dash together with Leira and gang are now making huge inroads into making the Forge a real base for Dash and Sentinel to work from. As they all discover the needs of the Forge they search for Dark Metal and discover a system where a large battle took place and a crashed Golden ship. They will go after it to salvage and learn about the Golden. This turns out to be a major adventure and one that leads them to new allies.
November 22, 2019
A Golden ship
Dash and co. pick up a signal from a colony planet that, unknowingly, sits in the midst of the detritus from a long, long ago war. But this signal is coming from the planet itself and the only solution is to go there. The colonists are suspicious at first but help regardless. Thereafter there are trials and tribulations aplenty for the Messenger and his crew.
I don’t find this series as gripping as some others but it’s a good, fun read for sci-fi fans.
Dash and co. pick up a signal from a colony planet that, unknowingly, sits in the midst of the detritus from a long, long ago war. But this signal is coming from the planet itself and the only solution is to go there. The colonists are suspicious at first but help regardless. Thereafter there are trials and tribulations aplenty for the Messenger and his crew.
I don’t find this series as gripping as some others but it’s a good, fun read for sci-fi fans.
March 12, 2020
I wonder where is this series going? Dash is not witty or smart or serious about the war. He has this big Mech and thinks that is enough to impress anybody into being on his side. The universe (or galactic arm) where the story is set is full of holes, gaps in government, organization, even trade and commerce.
The action, when we finally get to it is good enough, but I am already into the 4th book, and loosing interest fast.
The action, when we finally get to it is good enough, but I am already into the 4th book, and loosing interest fast.
November 23, 2019
Fantastic
Wow another great storyline. I am guessing Mowbray Amy has some dark metal in her system she maybe a bit more than just a very good mechanic. Looking forward to the fourth book The Silent Fleet. Dash being the messenger needs more help needs to get his message out there and get some marines involved. One or two people does not make a army lol
Wow another great storyline. I am guessing Mowbray Amy has some dark metal in her system she maybe a bit more than just a very good mechanic. Looking forward to the fourth book The Silent Fleet. Dash being the messenger needs more help needs to get his message out there and get some marines involved. One or two people does not make a army lol
February 4, 2020
Great book
The third entry into this series was great.
The MC and his cast still continue to entertain.
The exposure and showing of Golden tech and culture was great.
The one thing I had trouble was picturing the battles and locations in this book.
Will go on to read the next book.
The third entry into this series was great.
The MC and his cast still continue to entertain.
The exposure and showing of Golden tech and culture was great.
The one thing I had trouble was picturing the battles and locations in this book.
Will go on to read the next book.
February 6, 2024
So Good!
Full of more Chaney/Maggert goodness,
This book really ramps up the tension with ground level exploration of ancient ruins. There is a little bit of the giant mech combat, but the focus on this book is really on developing characters and the story. Great addition to the series.
Full of more Chaney/Maggert goodness,
This book really ramps up the tension with ground level exploration of ancient ruins. There is a little bit of the giant mech combat, but the focus on this book is really on developing characters and the story. Great addition to the series.
November 21, 2019
Robert's Review and Comments
Excellent, good crew and they are starting to gel. I really enjoyed the trip to the crashed ship and the experience Dash gained was awesome. Looking forward to the next engagement. Thanks for a GoodRead.
Excellent, good crew and they are starting to gel. I really enjoyed the trip to the crashed ship and the experience Dash gained was awesome. Looking forward to the next engagement. Thanks for a GoodRead.
November 22, 2019
Ship
Well, that was exciting. The story focused almost entirely on the ship. True, Dash gained more insight and knowledge regarding the Golden. And he more or less knows their language. It will be interesting to see what is discovered whilst exploring the Golden body.
Well, that was exciting. The story focused almost entirely on the ship. True, Dash gained more insight and knowledge regarding the Golden. And he more or less knows their language. It will be interesting to see what is discovered whilst exploring the Golden body.
November 27, 2019
Good read
Very enjoyable series that holds your attention and entertains you. I believe we will be seeing and hearing more from one of the supporting characters after their brush with Dark Metal. Just my take.
Very enjoyable series that holds your attention and entertains you. I believe we will be seeing and hearing more from one of the supporting characters after their brush with Dark Metal. Just my take.
December 28, 2019
This was a decent series
This was a decent series. Interesting characters and the plot line is well developed. At times the plot is lacking in details. But other that, the series is good.
This was a decent series. Interesting characters and the plot line is well developed. At times the plot is lacking in details. But other that, the series is good.
December 28, 2019
I really like this series because each book seems to progress the story in a meaningful way. This time Dash and the gang are investigating a crashed Golden ship on a distant planet and end up in a huge ordeal.
August 28, 2020
Exciting book 3 in the series
Dash and his companions travel 43 light years to a small planets to harvest dark metal from a crashed ship with the help of local personnel. Most of the excitement takes place inside a golden ship that is starting to awaken.
Dash and his companions travel 43 light years to a small planets to harvest dark metal from a crashed ship with the help of local personnel. Most of the excitement takes place inside a golden ship that is starting to awaken.
July 15, 2022
Quality writing that keeps you reading
The third book keeps the overall story going well. Onto book 4.
The only thing stopping me going to five stars is the humour level being below the Backyard Starship series, but humour is still here.
The third book keeps the overall story going well. Onto book 4.
The only thing stopping me going to five stars is the humour level being below the Backyard Starship series, but humour is still here.
February 22, 2025
Jn Chaney and Terry Maggert continue to entertain
Amazing book, great forward progression and some unique turns. Not your average sci-fi, a step beyond. Highly recommend for any sci-fi lovers.
Amazing book, great forward progression and some unique turns. Not your average sci-fi, a step beyond. Highly recommend for any sci-fi lovers.
November 19, 2019
Loved it...
Messrs. Chaney and Maggert are a formidable team and present an enthralling tale. This is a fun series and very much worth reading!
Messrs. Chaney and Maggert are a formidable team and present an enthralling tale. This is a fun series and very much worth reading!
December 4, 2019
Great story
I love the way you introduce new characters. Can't wait to see what new things you will bring to the story in the future. Great job guys.
I love the way you introduce new characters. Can't wait to see what new things you will bring to the story in the future. Great job guys.
December 12, 2019
The Messenger is great
Great series....very worth your time to read this series. I love the characters and how they are like family...can't wait until the next book
Great series....very worth your time to read this series. I love the characters and how they are like family...can't wait until the next book
January 12, 2020
A great read
A great collection for sci-fi readers this series has the makings of a great sci-fi . It was great to read such a interesting series
A great collection for sci-fi readers this series has the makings of a great sci-fi . It was great to read such a interesting series
February 27, 2020
He'll of a read
Hell of a read it took me 2 evenings and I was left wanting the next one which I am sure I will start soon. Read and enjoy the messengers abventures
Hell of a read it took me 2 evenings and I was left wanting the next one which I am sure I will start soon. Read and enjoy the messengers abventures
May 10, 2020
Intense
The series continues with new technologies, new allies and, unfortunately, new enemies, too. Good character development and well paced action sequences keep things interesting. Ends with a positive pause in the saga.
The series continues with new technologies, new allies and, unfortunately, new enemies, too. Good character development and well paced action sequences keep things interesting. Ends with a positive pause in the saga.
September 28, 2020
It has been awhile since I started on this series, it was good to get back to it. Really enjoyed the story line. Looking forward to reading the next installment.
June 25, 2021
Enjoyable entry in the series, the character of the A.I. Forge is reminiscent of Ann McCaffrey's ship series although her characters in the ships are not actual A.I.'s.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews