Jointly credited to the SFF-industrial complex that is Michael Anderle, this 2022 space opera aims high. It makes it into orbit, but just barely.
The background is fairly standard stuff: mankind has fled a dying Earth, but has learned nothing and immediately sets about repeating a whole series of mistakes. Sarah Jaeger, the central figure and hero, rebels against the space-faring dictatorship and steals mankind’s most-advanced ship. Following a mind-bending series of twists, she finds a planet where she and her crew can settle. Peace is short-live, and she has to deal with various alien species and the unwelcome arrival of the rest of the “Tribe” from whom she’d fled, who are not happy.
I originally filed this under “never going to be finished” after a few hundred very mixed pages, but decided to come back and give it another shot. Vance (who I assume did most of the writing) creates an interesting world, which is vividly-drawn but a bit over the top at times. If there’s a popular SF trope, it’s probably in here somewhere. As with most Anderle-branded output, there’s good quality control. The product is reliably consistent if maybe slightly bland, but nothing’s particularly innovative. It’s the reading version of a McDonald’s hamburger.
The writing is decent and the characters evolve nicely against the background of an ambitious and mostly well-thought out plot. The execution is okay, although I thought a less ambitious plot might have led to a more engaging read -- this is all over the place, literally and otherwise. The loudest discordant note was the ending, which had a whiff of deus ex machina to it–I found myself wondering if the series had hit a page cap and had to be truncated. Fun but solidly average.
I have read a lot of sci-fi in my life, a whole heck of a lot. But none of it affected me in the way this series did.
The series begins with Sarah Jaeger, who steals a star ship and wakes up with amnesia, along with her ships computer. Slowly Sarah, who knows nothing about who she is, or where she came from, starts to work out who she is but still has no memory of where she actually is, how she got there, or why her computers AI is acting so moody.
The books just get better and better from then onwards.
I think any sci-fi buff would really enjoy this series which is thrilling, exciting, terrifying, and emotive by turns, and is definitely worth getting.
An absolutely amazing saga, well written with great characters. It is a huge work, a lot of effort and imagination has gone into this.
A well planned story and plot with enough twists and turns to keep you interested throughout. Each book in the series held more surprises, leading to the final book that has you rooting for the good ones even more.
With a good rounded, satisfying ending. Well done. I would recommend this book to sci fi enthusiasts.
Living creatures with character and well thought out story lines. These memorable people living their lives to entertain you with plans that succeed, fail or develop in interesting ways ,without confusion. Offer stories that expand while keeping your attention to ensure you will return to read the continuation of unexpected storylines in each book of the series. To satisfactory endings.
Good sci-fi series. Space travel, amnesia, aliens, humans, lab-processed beings; all trying to locate a life for their worlds on an inhabited planet. Ramy has a way of entwining the good and bad of all species for intertaining reading. Looking forward to reading several more of Ramy's series I have in my library.
Alien creatures, humans, genetically engineered humans/creatures, earths microscopic insect that now weighs tons. All these living entities have character and lives of there own. Story starts leaving a damaged earth and passing through a mind wiping worm hole, this includes the confused AI, all encountering many problems. Great fun read, book after book.
Space travel, erased memories and evil leaders! Building a safe future requires uniting with aliens not conquering them. Exceptional storytelling! A Sci-fi series not to be missed!