What do you think?
Rate this book
Euclidean
A hidden mystery in Jupiter’s second-largest moon holds a power beyond imagining.
Beneath the icy surface of Callisto lies an underground sea. Decades from now, a research base is built to study the strange lifeforms inhabiting this silent world before tragedy struck, killing everyone in it. News of this incident is quickly hushed up, and all access to the Galilean moon restricted.
Kirill Sereda became orphaned when his mother went missing at that very outpost. Now an adult, he gathers together a team of misfits for a clandestine mission: head to Callisto and find out what really happened.
What they uncover is a profound enigma that sheds light on humanity’s true origins, and its revelation could bring about our ultimate extinction.
Beneath the icy surface of Callisto lies an underground sea. Decades from now, a research base is built to study the strange lifeforms inhabiting this silent world before tragedy struck, killing everyone in it. News of this incident is quickly hushed up, and all access to the Galilean moon restricted.
Kirill Sereda became orphaned when his mother went missing at that very outpost. Now an adult, he gathers together a team of misfits for a clandestine mission: head to Callisto and find out what really happened.
What they uncover is a profound enigma that sheds light on humanity’s true origins, and its revelation could bring about our ultimate extinction.
417 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 20, 2022
17 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 20, 2022
Thrilling, fast paced and action full, the storyline is full of suspense and surprising twists. I highly recommend this stand-alone story.
November 9, 2023
This story got off to a good start, with a fun cutaway planet map with some wacky ice shapes and stuff. I enjoy a bit of artwork to open with, although it's not necessarily a must. It shows a certain investment in the worldbuilding that I approve of. The ice shapes didn't seem to come into it, I thought they'd end up being more of a thing regarding the geometry-based through-line of the story. Maybe I missed it? Oh well.
It's the future. Earth is just a huge mess, and humanity has moved out to live on various planets, moons and space stations. This has caused a certain amount of genetic collapse, causing 'native' Martians for example to be nicknamed jellies, and most humans are now raised on stations with proper gravity and such so they can be relatively functional. And also look and act like lithe muscular superfolk in front of the jellies. But I digress.
After a great prologue that would fit right in with every scary pre-credits teaser for Star Trek, Doctor Who, sci-fi movie, you name it ... we cut to a bunch of years later and Kirill, whose character class I would identify as Rogue, is on a quest to find out what happened to his mum who was at the location (Callisto) of the prologue. All his adult life has been leading up to the quest, and he is well prepared and he has a plan.
His plan should have included a helmet, because he gets whanged on the head and passes out a lot. Like, a lot. But I digress again.
From human-wrecked Earth and across the solar system, Kirill and his two comically unsuitable companions - cool and sexy mercenary Virgo, and cool and mean biont[1] Phaedra - take on the vast faceless Firm and the even vaster and more facelesser mysteries of Callisto. Virgo and Phaedra hate each other because Virgo was the one who caught Phaedra which was why they first needed to bust her out of biont jail. And while their animosity was a bit unprofessional and their ideological debates a little too incessant and repeated and childish, they were worthy companions I suppose. Okay, maybe Virgo was a bad mercenary and Kirill shouldn't have hired him, and maybe Phaedra was a Commie[2] mass-murderer, but my point remains. They were going up against (for all we know and I'm not going to spoil it for you) a submarine cthulian monster inside the black depths of a subgalilean ocean. Fair to say this is outside all of their comfort zones and a certain amount of off-scripting and lapsing of professional ethics is to be expected.
Oh, also there was Tessa Bauer, who may or may not have been Jack Bauer's great great great great great granddaughter, a loose cannon space cop with everything to prove. She kind of represents the Firm in this, and is also headed out to Callisto to catch the criminals.
Overall the story had a great structure. The reader knows what's happening the whole time and where it's heading, even if Kirill is a bit roundabout with his plan and doesn't really lay it all out (because why would he). Although he does thought-bubble infodump from time to time, which I thoroughly approve of. And if it all gets a bit metaphysical at the end, well. That's the way it's meant to be.
Sex-o-meter
Sex bot. Ding!
There's not much time for sex otherwise, but frankly once you have sex bots in your story, you can coast on that until "Also by the same author" as far as I'm concerned. An I'm Sorry Jon out of a possible I'm Really Sorry Jon on the sex-o-meter, and I suggest you just go ahead and google that if you don't know what it means. Use your work computer if you can.
Gore-o-meter
Kill bot. Ding!
There's an acceptable amount of gore here, although the eldritch space-horror perhaps didn't quite live up to its full gore-potential it was nice and terrifying. And there was a solid amount of assorted fighting and shooting, cutting and blasting, and random wild-space-west violence to make up the difference. Two bloody flesh-gobbets out of a possible five. It would have been three, but the nano meds fixed one of them. That'll be seven hundred and fifty thousand space bucks.
WTF-o-meter
Strange alien sphere ... bot. Ding!
As the very title of the book suggests, we have a bona fide superdimensional monstrosity here and I was not disappointed by the reveal and conclusion even if, yes, I was expecting a bit more slime and tentacles and Sam Neill cutting out his own eyes than I got. There was a lot of great buildup, the setting was perfect, the science behind the Callisto event was ... if not hard sci-fi, then at least solid (and I don't have the physics degrees to say otherwise so it was just fine with me). The ending was suitably classic-sci-fi-trippy, in the vein of Contact or Interstellar or 2001. A Gramfel out of a possible I'm Sorry Jon on the WTF-o-meter, but as soon as I get a few particles of Garfield in my meters they're pretty much done for the day so take that however you will. And go ahead and google that.
My Final Verdict
The book could have used another editorial run-through, with a bit of clumsy phrasing and some mis-used words, but it was fine. Good plot, well done story and characters, good bit of weird at end, lost me a little but I knew it was all going to be okay because I was in good authorial hands. Three stars! Worth a look.
---
[1] Amusingly, this story is the second in as many weeks in which I came across the very specific term "symbionts" for augmented computer people, when before that point as far as I was concerned a symbiont was a little electric sea cucumber a conjoined Trill had in their pouch.
[2] Or "Roider" as the anti-Capitalist cyborg bread-liners from the asteroid belt colonies are known.
It's the future. Earth is just a huge mess, and humanity has moved out to live on various planets, moons and space stations. This has caused a certain amount of genetic collapse, causing 'native' Martians for example to be nicknamed jellies, and most humans are now raised on stations with proper gravity and such so they can be relatively functional. And also look and act like lithe muscular superfolk in front of the jellies. But I digress.
After a great prologue that would fit right in with every scary pre-credits teaser for Star Trek, Doctor Who, sci-fi movie, you name it ... we cut to a bunch of years later and Kirill, whose character class I would identify as Rogue, is on a quest to find out what happened to his mum who was at the location (Callisto) of the prologue. All his adult life has been leading up to the quest, and he is well prepared and he has a plan.
His plan should have included a helmet, because he gets whanged on the head and passes out a lot. Like, a lot. But I digress again.
From human-wrecked Earth and across the solar system, Kirill and his two comically unsuitable companions - cool and sexy mercenary Virgo, and cool and mean biont[1] Phaedra - take on the vast faceless Firm and the even vaster and more facelesser mysteries of Callisto. Virgo and Phaedra hate each other because Virgo was the one who caught Phaedra which was why they first needed to bust her out of biont jail. And while their animosity was a bit unprofessional and their ideological debates a little too incessant and repeated and childish, they were worthy companions I suppose. Okay, maybe Virgo was a bad mercenary and Kirill shouldn't have hired him, and maybe Phaedra was a Commie[2] mass-murderer, but my point remains. They were going up against (for all we know and I'm not going to spoil it for you) a submarine cthulian monster inside the black depths of a subgalilean ocean. Fair to say this is outside all of their comfort zones and a certain amount of off-scripting and lapsing of professional ethics is to be expected.
Oh, also there was Tessa Bauer, who may or may not have been Jack Bauer's great great great great great granddaughter, a loose cannon space cop with everything to prove. She kind of represents the Firm in this, and is also headed out to Callisto to catch the criminals.
Overall the story had a great structure. The reader knows what's happening the whole time and where it's heading, even if Kirill is a bit roundabout with his plan and doesn't really lay it all out (because why would he). Although he does thought-bubble infodump from time to time, which I thoroughly approve of. And if it all gets a bit metaphysical at the end, well. That's the way it's meant to be.
Sex-o-meter
Sex bot. Ding!
There's not much time for sex otherwise, but frankly once you have sex bots in your story, you can coast on that until "Also by the same author" as far as I'm concerned. An I'm Sorry Jon out of a possible I'm Really Sorry Jon on the sex-o-meter, and I suggest you just go ahead and google that if you don't know what it means. Use your work computer if you can.
Gore-o-meter
Kill bot. Ding!
There's an acceptable amount of gore here, although the eldritch space-horror perhaps didn't quite live up to its full gore-potential it was nice and terrifying. And there was a solid amount of assorted fighting and shooting, cutting and blasting, and random wild-space-west violence to make up the difference. Two bloody flesh-gobbets out of a possible five. It would have been three, but the nano meds fixed one of them. That'll be seven hundred and fifty thousand space bucks.
WTF-o-meter
Strange alien sphere ... bot. Ding!
As the very title of the book suggests, we have a bona fide superdimensional monstrosity here and I was not disappointed by the reveal and conclusion even if, yes, I was expecting a bit more slime and tentacles and Sam Neill cutting out his own eyes than I got. There was a lot of great buildup, the setting was perfect, the science behind the Callisto event was ... if not hard sci-fi, then at least solid (and I don't have the physics degrees to say otherwise so it was just fine with me). The ending was suitably classic-sci-fi-trippy, in the vein of Contact or Interstellar or 2001. A Gramfel out of a possible I'm Sorry Jon on the WTF-o-meter, but as soon as I get a few particles of Garfield in my meters they're pretty much done for the day so take that however you will. And go ahead and google that.
My Final Verdict
The book could have used another editorial run-through, with a bit of clumsy phrasing and some mis-used words, but it was fine. Good plot, well done story and characters, good bit of weird at end, lost me a little but I knew it was all going to be okay because I was in good authorial hands. Three stars! Worth a look.
---
[1] Amusingly, this story is the second in as many weeks in which I came across the very specific term "symbionts" for augmented computer people, when before that point as far as I was concerned a symbiont was a little electric sea cucumber a conjoined Trill had in their pouch.
[2] Or "Roider" as the anti-Capitalist cyborg bread-liners from the asteroid belt colonies are known.
February 6, 2023
Adventure and revelation on Callisto
A stunningly unique story that explicates some current scientific thinking while telling a tale of high adventure against a backdrop of age old human themes like greed and lust for power. The pace of the story keeps you interested and the well realized characters take you along on their journeys of enlightenment. No character comes out of this story unchanged. This is the beginning of a series that promises to be very interesting.
A stunningly unique story that explicates some current scientific thinking while telling a tale of high adventure against a backdrop of age old human themes like greed and lust for power. The pace of the story keeps you interested and the well realized characters take you along on their journeys of enlightenment. No character comes out of this story unchanged. This is the beginning of a series that promises to be very interesting.
January 13, 2024
What a mess
Trope after trope and in no particular order. YA readers may enjoy this but I certainly didn't. An incredibly dull protagonist, terribly written. I won't be reading any more from this author.
Trope after trope and in no particular order. YA readers may enjoy this but I certainly didn't. An incredibly dull protagonist, terribly written. I won't be reading any more from this author.
February 27, 2025
Good idea but seriously in need of an editor.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews