Abandoned Ships, Hijacked Minds

Settler Chronicles #3

by Jeannette Bedard

Against the odds, the Thesan colony—Margo’s new home—is starting to thrive.

However the group wasn't the first colony ship sent through the wormhole to settle a new solar system. Two other ships came before, and repeated efforts to communicate with them only return silence.

Margo wants to remain a recluse hiding in her greenhouse away from the other colonists, especially her husband Gary. She wants to keep the side-effects of her last battle with the megalomaniac leader of The Conglomerate to herself. She certainly doesn't want to go traipsing across the solar system in search of the missing colonists.

But nothing ever goes how she wants it to—especially now that they have a space-worthy, if antiquated, ship to investigate what happened to those other colonies.

Reluctantly, she joins an awkward coalition of colonists and former insurgents on a mission to solve the mystery of what happened to the colonies that came before.

In the end, what Margo finds changes everything.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

352 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 29, 2019

About the author

Always writing, Jeannette has filled hard drives with ones and zeros that occasionally coalesce into books. Her non-linear career path has included both working as both a soldier and a scientist (but not at the same time). Currently, she lives on a non-tropical island in the Pacific with her husband and daughter and she really likes math jokes, especially if there is pi involved.

Reviews

[Peter Schmidt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just WOW!. What a ride. If you weren't convinced that The Conglomerate is a 'black hat', then you were right to be skeptical - The Conglomerate is so far beyond 'black hat' there probably just isn't really a solid real world word to describe it. They are definitely on the way dark end of the 'black hat spectrum'.

Again, it is really hard to review this book without spoilers. There are a several moments in this one that made me uncomfortable and anxious - but I was reading it in the safety of my reading chair. I can only imagine what it would like as one of our intrepid colonists (hopefully not a red-shirt) try to work their way through the macabre machinations of The Conglomerate. Yes, I do think about such things when I read. Yes, I appreciate it is blessing and curse.

The relationship and character development was a little frustrating at times - but so it is in the real world too at times. Our key characters were still enjoyable to watch, follow and cheer for.

This installment softly laid a groundwork for us to follow a boy and his cube - hopefully in the fourth book.

[Slugpuppy3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Just wow! What an exciting ride! Best read in order.

[Lorraine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like the zombie aspect of the story.