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Tandemstar: The Outcast Cycle #1
Two Suns at Sunset
Welcome to Dib!
Dib is an Earthlike planet, only slightly smaller, with shorter days and longer years, in orbit around twin suns.
On the continent of Geo, in the city of Velon in the nation of Inimata, a man lies dead in his study.
The Murdered Monk
In life, Professor Orno Linus was a world-class scholar: an astrophysicist, a dead-language linguist, and an expert in (and apparent true believer of) the religious concept of the Cull, i.e., the end of the world. Widely respected, nothing about Linus’s expertise suggests somebody might want him dead.
Professor Linus is also Brother Linus, a high-ranking member of an ancient, powerful religious organization known as the House. This makes his murder much more complicated, but no more explicable, because murder on House grounds just doesn’t happen. Not even when one of the last things the victim did was steal something important from the House vault.
Finally, Orno is also the younger brother of Calcut Linus, one of the most powerful and criminally dangerous people on the planet. Killing any Linus means incurring the wrath of a man for whom laws very rarely apply.
In short, Professor Orno Linus is a highly unlikely murder victim.
And yet, somebody killed him.
The Cursed Detective
Detective Makk Stidgeon already knows he’s unlucky. He’s a cholem: an outcast. A bad-luck charm. He was born this way, and has the brand on his wrist to prove it.
But in terms of bad luck, the gods have really gone overboard by sticking him with the Linus case.
Between a House leadership that seems more interested in retrieving their stolen artifact than in solving the murder of one of their own, the demands of the murderous Calcut Linus, a new partner who seems to know more than she’s telling, and an omnipresent news media constantly looking for an angle on the biggest story of the year, Makk barely has time to just follow the clues.
And that’s before an impossible video surfaces that purports to reveal the killer’s identity. What makes it impossible? The person in the video couldn’t have possibly done it.
To get to the bottom of the Orno’s murder, Makk will have to navigate between the House and the Linus family, find the source of the video, and figure out what’s missing from the House vault. Even if he can pull all that off, he may discover he’s not at the end of a mystery at all, but at the beginning of a much larger one.
Tandemstar: The Outcast Cycle. The journey begins here.
Dib is an Earthlike planet, only slightly smaller, with shorter days and longer years, in orbit around twin suns.
On the continent of Geo, in the city of Velon in the nation of Inimata, a man lies dead in his study.
The Murdered Monk
In life, Professor Orno Linus was a world-class scholar: an astrophysicist, a dead-language linguist, and an expert in (and apparent true believer of) the religious concept of the Cull, i.e., the end of the world. Widely respected, nothing about Linus’s expertise suggests somebody might want him dead.
Professor Linus is also Brother Linus, a high-ranking member of an ancient, powerful religious organization known as the House. This makes his murder much more complicated, but no more explicable, because murder on House grounds just doesn’t happen. Not even when one of the last things the victim did was steal something important from the House vault.
Finally, Orno is also the younger brother of Calcut Linus, one of the most powerful and criminally dangerous people on the planet. Killing any Linus means incurring the wrath of a man for whom laws very rarely apply.
In short, Professor Orno Linus is a highly unlikely murder victim.
And yet, somebody killed him.
The Cursed Detective
Detective Makk Stidgeon already knows he’s unlucky. He’s a cholem: an outcast. A bad-luck charm. He was born this way, and has the brand on his wrist to prove it.
But in terms of bad luck, the gods have really gone overboard by sticking him with the Linus case.
Between a House leadership that seems more interested in retrieving their stolen artifact than in solving the murder of one of their own, the demands of the murderous Calcut Linus, a new partner who seems to know more than she’s telling, and an omnipresent news media constantly looking for an angle on the biggest story of the year, Makk barely has time to just follow the clues.
And that’s before an impossible video surfaces that purports to reveal the killer’s identity. What makes it impossible? The person in the video couldn’t have possibly done it.
To get to the bottom of the Orno’s murder, Makk will have to navigate between the House and the Linus family, find the source of the video, and figure out what’s missing from the House vault. Even if he can pull all that off, he may discover he’s not at the end of a mystery at all, but at the beginning of a much larger one.
Tandemstar: The Outcast Cycle. The journey begins here.
368 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 8, 2020
27 people are currently reading
83 people want to read
About the author
Gene Doucette
43 books435 followersGene Doucette is a hybrid author, albeit in a somewhat roundabout way. From 2010 through 2014, Gene published four full-length novels (Immortal, Hellenic Immortal, Fixer, and Immortal at the Edge of the World) with a small indie publisher. Then, in 2014, Gene started self-publishing novellas that were set in the same universe as the Immortal series, at which point he was a hybrid.
When the novellas proved more lucrative than the novels, Gene tried self-publishing a full novel, The Spaceship Next Door, in 2015. This went well. So well, that in 2016, Gene reacquired the rights to the earlier four novels from the publisher, and re-released them, at which point he wasn’t a hybrid any longer.
Additional self-published novels followed: Immortal and the Island of Impossible Things (2016); Unfiction (2017); and The Frequency of Aliens (2017).
In 2018, John Joseph Adams Books (an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) acquired the rights to The Spaceship Next Door. The reprint was published in September of that year, at which point Gene was once again a hybrid author.
Since then, a number of things have happened. Gene published two more novels—Immortal From Hell at the end of 2018, and Fixer Redux in 2019—and wrote a new novel called The Apocalypse Seven that he did not self-publish; it was acquired by JJA/HMH in September of 2019. Publication date is May 25, 2021.
Gene plans to continue writing novels for both markets (traditional and self-published) as long as that continues to make sense. His most recent self-published novel is Immortal: Last Call (2020). He is currently at work on a large science fiction world-building project taking place on his Patreon site, the result of which will be a multi-novel series.
When the novellas proved more lucrative than the novels, Gene tried self-publishing a full novel, The Spaceship Next Door, in 2015. This went well. So well, that in 2016, Gene reacquired the rights to the earlier four novels from the publisher, and re-released them, at which point he wasn’t a hybrid any longer.
Additional self-published novels followed: Immortal and the Island of Impossible Things (2016); Unfiction (2017); and The Frequency of Aliens (2017).
In 2018, John Joseph Adams Books (an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) acquired the rights to The Spaceship Next Door. The reprint was published in September of that year, at which point Gene was once again a hybrid author.
Since then, a number of things have happened. Gene published two more novels—Immortal From Hell at the end of 2018, and Fixer Redux in 2019—and wrote a new novel called The Apocalypse Seven that he did not self-publish; it was acquired by JJA/HMH in September of 2019. Publication date is May 25, 2021.
Gene plans to continue writing novels for both markets (traditional and self-published) as long as that continues to make sense. His most recent self-published novel is Immortal: Last Call (2020). He is currently at work on a large science fiction world-building project taking place on his Patreon site, the result of which will be a multi-novel series.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
September 18, 2020
This story can be enjoyed on more than one level... first of all, it is a first rate mystery full of murders, clues, suspicious characters, and a tough detective named Makk.
If you think his name is strange, that brings us to the second level... the story takes place on another world so everything is a little bit skewed from our normal expectations. I’ll admit, at first the weird names and odd slang phrases threw me off as I was reading. However, the author is so thorough with his world building that it soon starts to make sense. In fact, by the end of the book I was really appreciating his creative story telling.
In comparison, other mysteries seem almost lazy. I mean, here I got a great who-done-it AND a piece of speculative fiction all in one surprising package. It was a really engaging book & I recommend it to anyone who likes mysteries and doesn’t mind being surprised.
By the way, this is book one of a series but I’m glad to say that the ending is satisfying in itself, while leaving a few questions to be solved in later books.
If you think his name is strange, that brings us to the second level... the story takes place on another world so everything is a little bit skewed from our normal expectations. I’ll admit, at first the weird names and odd slang phrases threw me off as I was reading. However, the author is so thorough with his world building that it soon starts to make sense. In fact, by the end of the book I was really appreciating his creative story telling.
In comparison, other mysteries seem almost lazy. I mean, here I got a great who-done-it AND a piece of speculative fiction all in one surprising package. It was a really engaging book & I recommend it to anyone who likes mysteries and doesn’t mind being surprised.
By the way, this is book one of a series but I’m glad to say that the ending is satisfying in itself, while leaving a few questions to be solved in later books.
September 18, 2020
It is common to want to describe everything in terms of mashing together something familiar. If I had to do this here, it would be Blade Runner meets The Maltese Falcon. But that isn’t adequate. For one it is not dark – there is a bit of humor in it, and the world itself does not seem like that bad a place to live.
So what is this book? At it’s heart it is a murder mystery. But it is also science fiction – set on a completely different world. But all the characters are human, and even though this world has two suns, it is still oddly familiar. Things are just different enough so that you know it takes place somewhere else, but not so much that it feels confusing or alien.
The world building here is fantastic. There are so many things that are simply mentioned in the way you would if you were familiar with them, though of course they are all new to the reader. It makes me want to know more about this world.
The technology is not far advanced from where we are – it feels like 50 to 100 years in the future (like Blade Runner, which was set 37 years in the future (in 2019 as it turns out)) – with just a few things that we don’t quite have yet (flying cars are exist, but are very new. There is a space platform, but it does not appear any further space travel. They have lasers, but they aren’t efficient)).
Like any good story, the core are the characters, and these are developed quite well. Detective Makk Stidgeon is the hard boilded detective – a loner, with a tough exterior, but a heart that is in the right place. He finds himself getting deeper and deeper into a mystery, not only of the murder, but of the inevitable mcguffin behind it as well.
Obvious, this is the first of a series (it even has book one in the sub-sub title), and it ends with a not quite cliffhanger, but a giant hook for the next book, which I’m already anxious to read.
There were many parts of this book that stuck with me, but one particular line was over an above.
Makk and young podcaster have returned to his apartment late at night after he rescued her.
… “Just lie down next to me on the fold-out, and stop being stupid about it.” So they did that, and of course nothing happened, because she was recovering from a near-death experience and he was a giant bruise. And also, they were adults
I so enjoyed throwing the old trope that a man and a woman cannot share a bed without sex (I like to make the joke EVERY time I a couple can’t share a bed that the writer must obviously never have been married 😊 ). It is just really nice to see that childish concept finally thrown under the bus where it belongs.
I have really enjoyed Doucette’s other books, but this one may actually be my favorite (which doesn’t take away from any of the others, it just shows how good this one actually is). The next on in the series can’t come soon enough.
So what is this book? At it’s heart it is a murder mystery. But it is also science fiction – set on a completely different world. But all the characters are human, and even though this world has two suns, it is still oddly familiar. Things are just different enough so that you know it takes place somewhere else, but not so much that it feels confusing or alien.
The world building here is fantastic. There are so many things that are simply mentioned in the way you would if you were familiar with them, though of course they are all new to the reader. It makes me want to know more about this world.
The technology is not far advanced from where we are – it feels like 50 to 100 years in the future (like Blade Runner, which was set 37 years in the future (in 2019 as it turns out)) – with just a few things that we don’t quite have yet (flying cars are exist, but are very new. There is a space platform, but it does not appear any further space travel. They have lasers, but they aren’t efficient)).
Like any good story, the core are the characters, and these are developed quite well. Detective Makk Stidgeon is the hard boilded detective – a loner, with a tough exterior, but a heart that is in the right place. He finds himself getting deeper and deeper into a mystery, not only of the murder, but of the inevitable mcguffin behind it as well.
Obvious, this is the first of a series (it even has book one in the sub-sub title), and it ends with a not quite cliffhanger, but a giant hook for the next book, which I’m already anxious to read.
There were many parts of this book that stuck with me, but one particular line was over an above.
Makk and young podcaster have returned to his apartment late at night after he rescued her.
… “Just lie down next to me on the fold-out, and stop being stupid about it.” So they did that, and of course nothing happened, because she was recovering from a near-death experience and he was a giant bruise. And also, they were adults
I so enjoyed throwing the old trope that a man and a woman cannot share a bed without sex (I like to make the joke EVERY time I a couple can’t share a bed that the writer must obviously never have been married 😊 ). It is just really nice to see that childish concept finally thrown under the bus where it belongs.
I have really enjoyed Doucette’s other books, but this one may actually be my favorite (which doesn’t take away from any of the others, it just shows how good this one actually is). The next on in the series can’t come soon enough.
March 20, 2021
Overall, I enjoyed this story. The mystery was interesting, the future tech fascinating, and the answer completely surprised me.
But I have to take a star off because of two things: First "geosynchronous orbit" doesn't mean Doucette seems to think it means. It means the station orbits the planet in the same time the planet takes to turn, so it maintains position over a fixed position on the planet's surface. From the surface, it would appear to hang motionless in the sky, neither rising nor setting. Doucette constantly describes it as holding a fixed position on the "dark side" of the planet (the night side), which isn't a geosynchronous orbit. It's not any kind of orbit of the planet at all, and without something holding it in place, it would fall to the planet's surface. (Doucette specifically stated it predated antigravity, so how did it stay up?)
The second thing was describing the station as large enough to display legible ads and to block out a significant portion of the sky. Assuming it appears 10° wide (about the size of your fist at arm's length — large enough to display a simple ad, and large enough to block a small part of the sky) at a height of 30,000 "kilomaders" as stated in the story, it would be over 5,000 "kilomaders" wide. Assuming a kilomade is roughly equal to a kilometer, that makes it bigger than the continental USA.
Both of those are big enough errors that they broke my immersion every time I encountered one of them, but I'm still giving the book three stars because I liked it in spite of them.
Doucette: put the station in an actual orbit around the planet, maintaining a fixed position relative to the planet's surface. Heck, put it at the top of the Tether. It's natural for a station to grow from the top of a space elevator, and you can still have the elevator take six hours to make the trip. Put the station in orbit near the top of the Tether, if you want, to prolong the trip. As to the station displaying legible ads; sorry, I just can't buy a continent-sized station.
Everyone else: if those kinds of errors don't bother you, I recommend this book. It was a good murder mystery with some very plausible extrapolation of where video streaming is going. I liked the characters, and as long as I ignore the flaws, I enjoyed it.
But I have to take a star off because of two things: First "geosynchronous orbit" doesn't mean Doucette seems to think it means. It means the station orbits the planet in the same time the planet takes to turn, so it maintains position over a fixed position on the planet's surface. From the surface, it would appear to hang motionless in the sky, neither rising nor setting. Doucette constantly describes it as holding a fixed position on the "dark side" of the planet (the night side), which isn't a geosynchronous orbit. It's not any kind of orbit of the planet at all, and without something holding it in place, it would fall to the planet's surface. (Doucette specifically stated it predated antigravity, so how did it stay up?)
The second thing was describing the station as large enough to display legible ads and to block out a significant portion of the sky. Assuming it appears 10° wide (about the size of your fist at arm's length — large enough to display a simple ad, and large enough to block a small part of the sky) at a height of 30,000 "kilomaders" as stated in the story, it would be over 5,000 "kilomaders" wide. Assuming a kilomade is roughly equal to a kilometer, that makes it bigger than the continental USA.
Both of those are big enough errors that they broke my immersion every time I encountered one of them, but I'm still giving the book three stars because I liked it in spite of them.
Doucette: put the station in an actual orbit around the planet, maintaining a fixed position relative to the planet's surface. Heck, put it at the top of the Tether. It's natural for a station to grow from the top of a space elevator, and you can still have the elevator take six hours to make the trip. Put the station in orbit near the top of the Tether, if you want, to prolong the trip. As to the station displaying legible ads; sorry, I just can't buy a continent-sized station.
Everyone else: if those kinds of errors don't bother you, I recommend this book. It was a good murder mystery with some very plausible extrapolation of where video streaming is going. I liked the characters, and as long as I ignore the flaws, I enjoyed it.
April 16, 2021
I read this based on a recommendation from the chat of Ian W Sainsbury's weekly live-stream. This is somewhat appropriate given the prominence of Streams in the book. While it is a bit more SF than I've tended to read of late, it was a good story with humour that I enjoyed. The pace really picked up nicely in the latter half and left plenty of questions to tempt me into reading the next book.
November 15, 2021
A pretty solid (and unremarkable) murder mystery in a scifi setting. Copaganda isn't really my thing these days so you probably shouldn't read much into my rating or review.
September 17, 2020
I am a big fan of Gene Doucette, but I think he was trying way too hard here. The murder mystery/detective story part was good and worthy of a three star rating. But there were at least two sections of the book where I really struggled not to quit. One was when they were discussing the streaming/video tech and another was surprisingly the epilogue. The first was way too much detail about alien tech that was convoluted, and the second seemed like it was supposed to be a surprise moment, but I was really struggling to pay attention. Parts of the story could have made it a four star book, but in essence, it is a three star book that stuggles hard in parts.
January 15, 2022
Good world building but holy cow it was too tedious to finish.
May 20, 2021
3.0 out of 5 stars
Strong Start, Tapers Off, Requires Sequel
May 20, 2021
The first chapter of Gene Doucette's 2020 novel [[ASIN:B08BRFXWN5 "Tandemstar: Outcast Cycle, Book 1: Two Suns at Sunset"]] is an excellent introduction to the protagonist. So, I had high hopes for the book as a whole. Unfortunately, the rest of the story just couldn't maintain that level. It's not bad or anything like that. But, it's sort of plodding in what it does. I do have several issues with the book, though:
- The book is much more of a Murder Mystery/Crime Drama that happens to be set on another planet than it is a Science Fiction book.
- There are a cluster of murders involved that are obviously related, yet the police don't make that association.
- One person, who ought to realize that murderers might want to cover up what they're doing, inserts herself into the in-the-know-and-still-alive camp.
- Even though the words in the novel have been "translated" from whatever the native language is into English, Doucette insists on "cleverly" using silly, semi-made-up, not-quite-what-they-should-be units for things like time and distance.
- At the very end, Doucette talks about a satellite and its orbit and, as far as I can see, gets it wrong. It's apparently an absolutely huge thing that he claims is geosynchronous, but actually appears to be stationary in a Trojan point. And, too boot, there's no way it could have been built or supplied when it first came about.
- As a very minor thing, Doucette mentions an electric vehicle that uses an ignition system. What an electric vehicle would be igniting, I don't know.
- And finally, even though the immediate issues in this book get nicely tied up, he introduces something at the end that requires the reading of later books. Plus, what he does tie up really isn't going to stick. So, that's a bit upsetting.
Again, it's not a bad book. But, it certainly doesn't compare well to his "Immortal" or "Sorrow Falls" books. I'm rating it at an OK 3 stars out of 5.
Strong Start, Tapers Off, Requires Sequel
May 20, 2021
The first chapter of Gene Doucette's 2020 novel [[ASIN:B08BRFXWN5 "Tandemstar: Outcast Cycle, Book 1: Two Suns at Sunset"]] is an excellent introduction to the protagonist. So, I had high hopes for the book as a whole. Unfortunately, the rest of the story just couldn't maintain that level. It's not bad or anything like that. But, it's sort of plodding in what it does. I do have several issues with the book, though:
- The book is much more of a Murder Mystery/Crime Drama that happens to be set on another planet than it is a Science Fiction book.
- There are a cluster of murders involved that are obviously related, yet the police don't make that association.
- One person, who ought to realize that murderers might want to cover up what they're doing, inserts herself into the in-the-know-and-still-alive camp.
- Even though the words in the novel have been "translated" from whatever the native language is into English, Doucette insists on "cleverly" using silly, semi-made-up, not-quite-what-they-should-be units for things like time and distance.
- At the very end, Doucette talks about a satellite and its orbit and, as far as I can see, gets it wrong. It's apparently an absolutely huge thing that he claims is geosynchronous, but actually appears to be stationary in a Trojan point. And, too boot, there's no way it could have been built or supplied when it first came about.
- As a very minor thing, Doucette mentions an electric vehicle that uses an ignition system. What an electric vehicle would be igniting, I don't know.
- And finally, even though the immediate issues in this book get nicely tied up, he introduces something at the end that requires the reading of later books. Plus, what he does tie up really isn't going to stick. So, that's a bit upsetting.
Again, it's not a bad book. But, it certainly doesn't compare well to his "Immortal" or "Sorrow Falls" books. I'm rating it at an OK 3 stars out of 5.
June 20, 2024
I'm a fan of Doucette's writing but not of police procedural mysteries. This first book in the series could largely be translated to modern-day Earth without dramatically altering the plot. That's not to say that's true of the entire series.
On the plus side, I found the protagonist relatable and likable. The pace was fast without being frenetic, and the setting seemed believable. I could see myself completing the series just to revisit Detective Makk... but not anytime soon.
Note: The author needs to look up the true meaning of Geosynchronous Orbit. While a space station in this position might wobble a little north to south, it wouldn't traverse every country along the equator. And even if it did have a standard equatorial orbit, how could it connect to a space elevator? This bit of science was badly mangled. I'd think, for a space-to-ground tether to work, the station would have to be in a Geostationary orbit.
On the plus side, I found the protagonist relatable and likable. The pace was fast without being frenetic, and the setting seemed believable. I could see myself completing the series just to revisit Detective Makk... but not anytime soon.
Note: The author needs to look up the true meaning of Geosynchronous Orbit. While a space station in this position might wobble a little north to south, it wouldn't traverse every country along the equator. And even if it did have a standard equatorial orbit, how could it connect to a space elevator? This bit of science was badly mangled. I'd think, for a space-to-ground tether to work, the station would have to be in a Geostationary orbit.
April 4, 2025
3.75 stars
I didn't really care for Makk, which makes a difficult read as he is the protagonist. I cared less for his partner
What kept me going was the world building. It's a world familiar to our own, parallel enough to recognize the symbolism. Yet, technologically further along than we are (so far).
Cultish vibes, political machinations. I'm interested to see where the next book goes.
I didn't really care for Makk, which makes a difficult read as he is the protagonist. I cared less for his partner
What kept me going was the world building. It's a world familiar to our own, parallel enough to recognize the symbolism. Yet, technologically further along than we are (so far).
Cultish vibes, political machinations. I'm interested to see where the next book goes.
September 25, 2020
A smart detective
For once, a book where ou read detective uses his brains to find out who killed who instead of falling into things (well, sometimes). The end feels like a detective Columbus episode.
Plenty of mysterious things left to discover in the next book, and it feels it is working up to something big that will affect the whole planet...
For once, a book where ou read detective uses his brains to find out who killed who instead of falling into things (well, sometimes). The end feels like a detective Columbus episode.
Plenty of mysterious things left to discover in the next book, and it feels it is working up to something big that will affect the whole planet...
May 4, 2024
2 Whist the science part of the story was probably a little too complicated for me to understand, it didn’t create insurmountable hurdles to the plotting. A great main character and a passable whodunit. Overall, I enjoyed it but could have done without the breakdown of the time and seasons etc at the end of the book.
October 2, 2020
A great new series!
This was an enthralling murder mystery set on a world called Dib(or Dibble). It's inhabitants are human with a mostly equivalent level 9f technology.
The characters were interesting, the mystery kept me guessing, and I can't wait for more!
This was an enthralling murder mystery set on a world called Dib(or Dibble). It's inhabitants are human with a mostly equivalent level 9f technology.
The characters were interesting, the mystery kept me guessing, and I can't wait for more!
October 10, 2020
I wasn’t sure how I’d like this one because I sometimes find it hard to get in to science fiction stuff set on other worlds. But it’s Gene Doucette so of course it was brilliant and I loved it. I love his style of writing whatever kind of story it is. Looking forward to the rest of the series!
January 23, 2022
I listened to the audio book version of this. It was excellent. The perfect blend of scifi and detective story. It was filled with likable yet human characters, and a greater overarching mystery of the still mysterious planet where the book is set.
February 21, 2025
Good character- and world-building. I look forward to the next book in the series.
September 26, 2025
Reasonably good sci-fi noir mystery, though it does end on some rather sharp cliffhangers.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews