Alliance

Silver Ships #14

by S.H. Jucha, Grover Gardner (Reading)

Olawale Wombo and a small contingent of Omnians are sent to assist Earth to uplift its technological prowess. With the aid of the incomparable SADEs, advanced tech is transferred to the Sol Enclave, the system's governing body.

After Sol's construction of Tridents--Omnian-designed warships--Earthers possess the ability to transit quickly among the stars. The desire to know what happened to Earth's colony ship, the Honora Belle, sent to the stars a millennium ago is resurrected. An Omnian Trident and the vessel Rêveur accompany three Sol Enclave Tridents in search of the Belle's colonists.

Swiftly, the Omnians and the Earthers become enmeshed in a centuries-old conflict enveloping a vast area of space inhabited by alliance races. The enemy is the Colony: a giant insectoid species that has arrivied in force to overtake an alliance home world.

Olawale Wombo must decide whether to abide by the expedition's original purpose or help the embattled alliance races. He asks himself one question: What would Omnian leader Alex Racine do? He knows the answer to that question. Every Omnian knows the answer.

Genres: Science Fiction, Audiobook, Fiction, Space Opera, Aliens, Space, Science Fiction Fantasy

1 pages, MP3 CD

First published September 29, 2019

About the author

From my early years to the present, books have been a refuge. They’ve fueled my imagination. I’ve traveled to faraway places and met aliens with Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Herbert, and Le Guin. I’ve explored historical events with Michener and Clavell, and I played spy with Ludlum and Fleming.

There’s no doubt that the early sci-fi masters influenced the writing of my first two series, The Silver Ships and Pyreans. I crafted my stories to give readers intimate views of my characters, who wrestle with the challenges of living in space and inhabiting alien worlds.

Life is rarely easy for these characters, who encounter aliens and calamities, but they persist and flourish. I revel in examining humankind’s will to survive. Not everyone plays fair or exhibits concern for other beings, but that’s another aspect of humans and aliens that I investigate.

My stories offer hope for humans today about what they might accomplish tomorrow far from our home world. Throughout my books, humans exhibit a will to persevere, without detriment to the vast majority of others.

Readers have been generous with their comments, which they’ve left on Amazon and Goodreads for others to review. I truly enjoy what I do, and I’m pleased to read how my stories have positively affected many readers’ lives.

If you’ve read my books, please consider posting a review on Amazon and Goodreads for every book, even a short one. Reviews attract other readers and are a great help to indie authors, such as me.

The Silver Ships novels have reached Amazon’s coveted #1 and #2 Best-Selling Sci-Fi book, multiple times, in the science fiction categories of first contact, space opera, and alien invasion.

Reviews

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been a fan of the Silver Ship Series. This is book fourteen of the series. It turns out to be a bit different than the other books in the series as our protagonist, Alex Racine, does not appear anywhere in this book. This story is primarily about the Alliance that emerged in the last two books. Captain Cinders is taking a big role as the Assault Commander. There are a lot of new characters in this story. It appears Jucha works into this book the characters from his other series called “The Pyreans”. I am not sure how I feel about this. On one hand it is interesting; but, on the other hand, if I wanted to read about Pyreans, I would buy the books in that series. I want to read about the Silver Ships. I am glad the SADE’S are still in the story; they are my favorite characters.

Of course, the book is well written. I will be continue reading the Silver Ship Series. I am not sure if I will add the other series, “The Pyreans” to my long reading list. I hope the next book gets back to the original Silver Ship story.

I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is thirteen hours and thirty-six minutes. Grover Gardner does an excellent job narrating the book. He has narrated the entire series. Gardner is a well-known award-winning audiobook narrator. He has won the Audi Award, 18 Golden EarPhone Awards and was Publisher’s Weekly’s Audio book “Narrator of the Year” for 2018. He also received AudioFile Magazine’s “Best Voices of the Century” Award.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite good!

[Akshay · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was disappointing. Even after finishing Pyreans series I felt no connection to the descendants of the Pyreans. Romantic relationship between the lead characters seems way too forced, it was cringy. Jess character seemed way too arrogant. I wanted to give 1 star but it was very well written and there were some good moments in the alien stories.

[The Legend · Rating 1 out of 5]

Teenage Angst Romance Story featuring Adults


So Discount Alex was pretty cocky, brash , entitled and whiny. Jesse was the one to agree to go on the mission and follow orders but then throws hissy fits every time the Commandant gave him orders, calling rude and making her apologize. Does he not realize he's the one freaking asking for help and for them to risk their lives for strangers and yet acts entitled?

They don't NEED the star map, it's just a faster way to find their goal, but they can easily just keep checking local stars until they find another race and dome to get a star map. No they chose to risk lives and help these people and yet they are treated like it's expected of them and that the Expedition should treat them as if they are doing the favor for them, not the other way around.

What also is with Jucha always making his female characters weak willed women? Like every time he has a strong female character, she gets all weak and follow the command of the first guy to pay them a compliment. In the main characters all the females become supporting characters for Alex who opinions don't matter because he always follows his own gut, even his mate doesn't really get a say and depends on him. Here thought you'd have a strong female leader but the instant a boy gets mad at her, she starts apologize for giving him orders even though shes in command and starts to follow his lead instead.

If the natives are so great that they follow their lead, why is the expedition even needed? There was no reason for them to risk their lives for the first dome. They literally only did two things the natives couldn't do, shoot down the engines of the shuttle and take them to the dome fast. A taxi service really. They could have loaded up on natives and set them in waves of hundreds to the dome to take it, not risked their own lives. They did but still great treated like it was no big deal. Because they got a 'staaaar map' which they could have literally gotten from any other nearby system after a month or two of searching.

So you got this discount Alex acting all entitled and telling others what to do while being all 'protective' of women not letting them into danger even though this is a fight with guns and has nothing to do with physical strength, so literally the women are just as capable as him and comes off as sexist, not gentleman.

Also the Security commander first sounds super well trained and confidence, then the minute Jesse is in command he starts acting like a new recruit all shaken and not sure what to do , asking stupid questions and making horrible choices. 'Should we clear every room down here?' What the hell is this commander some green meridian recruit? Yes you should clear every room where alien insects were hiding...do you even know how to shoot!?! The switches in their personalities and abilities is mind blowingly bad.

Next, these people knows the Colony is taking over domes and chasing them but they have no guards on at times and no fail safes? If you know you might have to run, why don't you have bombs set up in these domes so when you abandon them that they will blow up after and close the way to chase you back to your homeworld. SIMPLE precautions? The Colony can remote access? Why aren't they sending in bombs to the Domes to kill people through the teleporter then? Or get on it in a large shielded turtle dome to hold off shots then charge out of it. There are so many ways to attack a platform that is just ignored.

Honestly this books scheme makes little sense, the characters are flat and seem poor copies of other characters and it feels cheap.

What would Alex do? Well he wouldn't let people shoot the incapacitated sentient creatures who are stunned thats for sure. Like they let happen. Alex freaking let a genocidal AI that killed multiple species live, he certainly wouldn't let people shoot stunned insects sentients. These people are not Omnians

Not that I agree with Alex, I'd totally say kill them all just like I think Artifice deserved death but it's not true to the characters personality or their culture.

[tony braddon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not worth the effort

I have not enjoyed the last three books they have I my opinion become boring .all there about killing and war etc and now the author is joining two different but thr same series together why ..I shall not be reading anymore the author missed a trick when he didnt expand the flower people story still to late now

[Peter Jorgensen]

A wonderful return to the main series

I was so excited to see this book pop up yesterday, I just had to get started right away! Now I'm only sad that I will have to wait again for the next one. This is a great return to the series, with a powerful set of new characters and watching them react to the SADEs is great fun!

[Releanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

it had too many detailed fightings for my taste, but otherwise I really liked it

[Vincent van den Braken · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the Pyreans series, I also enjoyed the Silver Ships. But this combination of both didn't do it for me. I think my biggest issue is the way in which the Pyreans in this book are centuries apart from the original series, but somehow the new characters are just to much like the old characters.

[Craig Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the Silver Ships journey to the Pyrean homeworld, we're treated to a solid merging of the series. At times it felt a bit rushed, but as an attempt to align two, somewhat distinct, styles, it is more than passable and remains entirely enjoyable.

[Robert Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun read

This book was simply a fun read. Jucha has a way of writing that holds your interest. I really appreciate the way he has his characters interact with each other with out over the top and lude writing.

[Bob Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fantastic book (Pyrean and Silver Ships merge)

This book represents the merging of the Pyrean series and Silver Ships series.

I thoroughly enjoyed both sets of characters learning of each others amazing and unique worlds and experiences.

[CdnBookLover]

I read some of these books out of order and that's cause this book to be very confusing. I'm going to wait several months, go back several books in the series and try again. Until then I can't give an honest review. :(

[Ken]

This book leaves the characters from the previous books in the past. Their children are now the main characters. I enjoyed this book.

[Bill Barnes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Extremely Disappointing

To have jumped a few centuries and not have a meeting between Jesse, Harbor, Alex and Renee was a big let down

[Kirsten Osa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this series

[Shelby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know how Jucha keeps creating amazing stories set in fully fleshed out worlds, . This is one of the best Science Fiction series I’ve read.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Duration: 13:36

[Zeet Sidhu · Rating 2 out of 5]

all the books in series after artifice feel out of place, badly or ghost written. I really with it was not streched out like this.

[Mike Abston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great series.

I like this series a lot. This book was very good. I am looking forward to reading the next book.

[Matthew Sawyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love The Silver Ships saga.
But this book just has so many problems that I just couldn't understand. You have all these Technologically advanced Races at war with in Insectoid race that uses primitive guns and Giant Mouth Pinchers to fight and NONE of these races even the SADES think "Hey why don't we use your tech to create Armor that will resist this stuff. They already have evidence with the Big Reptilian Race the Chroshins that have natural armor then fend off attacks why has no one thought hey why dont we do that?
I mean The SADES avatars are powerful and fast you mean to tell me they couldn't make like Power Armor/Mech Suits that will protect the wearer from the bites of these insects and there poison? People die in ways that make you think are they just walking around in plain cloths? Also None of these races have any real kind of Military? That's just way to hard to believe. I can understand why they are behind on Ship tech because of the domes why do they need great ships.

Also setting this 400 years after the Pyeans Books was kind of a mistake in my eyes I have no love for any of these new characters at all I don't know them like I got to know the Others in the other book series would have made far more since to set it for like 50 years after since they take whats essentially a life extending procedure which could have had the same characters but older and introduce there children.

Don't get me wrong I love this series but this book had quite a few missteps in it. Characters I couldn't care less about Relationship development between Characters I don't care about. Not focusing on Characters I do care about. Bad Military decisions. Unrealistic Military actions (200 Troops taking back a Whole Planet with no other support?) No Armor of really anykind?

[Brook · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent entry into the series, but I would like to have seen more resolution.

I really only have 3 complaints about this book.
1) there was progress on the conflict, but things are far from resolved. Meaning instead of a complete story in the silver ships saga, it is only a portion and a other book will be required to complete the story.
2) during the messants series, empaths were the central characters. Humans and aliens were fascinated with empaths. Now, they are barely a party trick and offer no value to the story, so far.
3)almost all mentioned Pyrenes are descendants of prominent characters from the other series. Where as if you look at real life, apart of dictators and monarchs, blood lines mean little, especially in a democracy.

While I liked the book, I was overall disappointed with how the Pyrenes series was incorporated into the silver ships. The spinoffs feel marginalized, like why find out how Pyre's colony came to be, if ultimately it's barely a footnote in the Silver ships series.

Other than that, great story, excellent voice acting, highly enjoyable. Can't wait for the next book.

[Patrick M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good blending of the Silver Ships series and the Pyreans series

This book carries on the Silver Ships series but merges it with the Pyreans series and adjust the time line so it resides in the Silver Ships time frame. Good to have a continuation of the style of the Silver Ships series that has made it so enjoyable since the start. I would recommend reading the Pyreans series before tackling this book, other wise many of the references to the Alliance and the races that make it up will be very confusing. Only problem with this entry is how little progress the technology and capability of the Alliance has made in the several centuries from the Pyreans series. Having had several centuries of need and military contact I would have expected better technological advancement and military development, especially after having introduced Humans to the advanced technology of the Alliance, just the historical record (movie archives) on the colony ship would have been a source of development concepts. The book does focus on the interaction between characters and character development rather then the heavy action of combat. Over all an enjoyable addition to the series, just ignore the quirks necessary to prevent Godzillia vs Bambi situation and enjoy the story, it's a Great read on a cold set day and it keeps the reader engaged and wondering what comes next.

[Ed Tinkertoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good installment of the Silver Ships story. But I had one big problem with it. The story began with characters whose names I did not recognize from the previous episode. And the Omniam ships were at a planet that was not mentioned in the last episode. It was about half way through the story when we learn this this episode takes place about 200 to 300 years after the last one. So we never know (thus far) what happened to Jessie Cinders and Harbour and all of the empaths that were a prominent part of the story.

So the story was good but it left a lot of questions about what happened to the previous characters, who became the president of the new Pyre, how the reclaiming of the planet went, etc, etc. And I still want to know how some women came to be empaths. And then the question arises how long did it take the Omniam ships to reach Sylian space, a year or more time. So the stories merge but the time frames do not.

Then the book ends with a plan to take another planet from the colony. So the story in my opinion does not end at the end. But, I eagerly await the next book

[christopher kishel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unnecessary, but still 5 stars for the series

When taken as a whole, this series gets 5 stars and I refuse to harm the author with what I consider a bad chapter. Most boring book in the series. The first 46% of this book should have taken 2 chapters. Completely unnecessary chapters abound. I skipped a good 70% of this book, just to get the general idea and characters. Conquering planets with 200 individuals? Relying on a giant alligator to repulse a battleship fleet? These races sound completely pathetic. How could there be no troops or infrastructure anywhere? This book only serves to introduce a few characters and a completely unnecessary book to solve completely unnecessary problems. Why not just use plasma rifles or traveler beam weapons? This whole book makes absolutely zero sense. The only reason I finished this book is because I absolutely love the author and will continue this series. I wanted to know the major plot points, but I did not enjoy them or agree with them. I fail to understand how nobody has heard of the concept of an automated turret...

[Tony Hisgett · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this book the author has joined the Pyreans books into the Silver Ships series. I was a bit surprised at the timeline as I never realised the Pyreans books were so far behind the Silver Ships series.

The whole book was basically a ground war against the Colony and incidently, although Alex is mentioned he isn’t part of this story.

There is an interesting start to the book, but it soon started to drag and the annoying relationship between Jess and Lucia just made it worse.
Eventual there is a plan to start recapturing the domes, this results in quite a lot of action, but I it didn’t really grab me. All the way through I couldn’t help thinking, these are Omnians and SADE what are they playing at?

I’m afraid I found quite a bit of the book fairly boring. It probably didn’t help that I’d gone off the main character Jess, quite early in the book and it took me until the end to decide he wasn’t that bad. I also wasn’t too happy with the non-ending.

[Jendr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alliance re-read already

Note you need to read the both series before reading this.

I was wondering how the merge of the two story lines would go and I can say I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have now reread the book to make sure I haven’t missed any details.

The book covers a fairly short but packed time frame and is a bit bloody in parts, and you are certainly left wanting more - can’t wait for the next one.

Some of the characters weren’t as fleshed out as some of his past books ie Jess and Tacnock’s back story? But you don’t realise while reading so much. Is there a reason for hiding this? We will find out more soon I hope.

[David Kidd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read all The Silver Ship.and Empath series first

This series has been my favorite from number 1. With Alliance it brings all human worlds together. While I wish there was more about Harbor and Jessie's adventure to straighten out Pyre's world this has been a great book with new descendants. Someone made the comment there were too many new characters. This is the perfect time to go back and read the first books in both series so you will understand it all. I can hardly wait for the next book!

[Giuseppe Turitto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alliance is the first book where the two lines merge.

While I really enjoyed this book and the adventures presented, I am not sure in the turn of having the Omnians with Alwex Racine join the Alliance. I kind got tired of the romance aspect and I was expecting more space naval action. This was merely a book of a lot on the land battle style and is not a real forte for Mr. Jucha, but I am looking forward for the next book on this series.

[Roy B. Worthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent addition to the series

Really enjoyed this momentous book. This book is where the two series become one. I love the authors say of storytelling. The way the characters live and l o be each other is a joy. I truly recommend this book and this series. It has affected my life in that I try to love my family and friends in the manner of the Silver Ships people. It is lovely.

[Kristoffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book did not feature Alex, but it was still great. I am excited for the next book in the series. This book ended before I felt it should, but that was because I enjoyed the story so much that I wanted it to keep going. I highly recommend this book and the series. Also, it is a good idea to read the four books in the Pyreans series before this book. That series is really enjoyable to read too.