Forbidden the Stars

The Interstellar Age #1

by Valmore Daniels

An accident in the asteroid belt has left two surveyors dead, the asteroid completely missing. Their son survives, but develops alarming side-effects. The first mission to Pluto, led by the youngest female astronaut in NASA history, discovers an alien marker. We are not alone! From a criminal base on Luna, an expatriate launches an offensive. The race for interstellar space is on!

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Ebooks, Fantasy, Young Adult, Amazon, Space Opera

277 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 28, 2010

About the author

In true nomadic spirit, Valmore Daniels has lived on the coasts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans, and dozens of points in between.

An insatiable thirst for new experiences has led him to work in several fields, including legal research, elderly care, oil & gas administration, web design, government service, human resources, and retail business management.

His enthusiasm for travel is only surpassed by his passion for telling tall tales.

Reviews

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Muchas ganas, muchos temas, mucha dispersión.-

Género. Ciencia-Ficción.

Lo que nos cuenta. Las leyendas mayas continúan presentes entre algunos de sus descendientes. En el cinturón de asteroides, una pareja de trabajadores cumple sus funciones en uno de los cuerpos más grandes mientras su hijo Alex se educa mediante sistemas informáticos. A Plutón acaba de llegar la primera expedición humana al mando de la capitana Justine Turner. Las diferentes historias se acabarán encontrando. Primer volumen de la serie The Interstellar Age.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Ron · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel fares better measured against young readers than adults. There are many factual errors which might toss the discerning adult out of the story, which younger readers might--but only might--pass by. The young fan of science fiction will probably be even more offended by the errors than a longtime reader of SF. (Writers sometimes think that, because they may have less factual knowledge, young readers are sometimes impaired reasoning. No true.)

Without picking apart all the errors it's hard to explain why this book just didn't resonate with me. It didn't. The world--natural and human--just doesn't work the way Daniels projected it. Yes, this is fiction but the key to verisimilitude is the willing suspension of unbelief. Too many errors destroy the magical spell of the story.

Not a bad read, just not a good one.

[Derek · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd like to be able to give this book a better review — I enjoyed the story, but it's tagged as "hard SF" and it's not only not "hard" but it's scientifically very weak.

We're told "Scientists had estimated that the asteroid belt itself held hundreds of undiscovered new elements with attributes that could improve the quality of life for everyone on Earth." Why? There's a really good reason why scientists don't expect to ever find any new elements in our solar system: it's simply too old for trans-Uranic elements to have not decayed. The prediction of new elements would require a complete change in our understanding of physics.

On Pluto, the scientists are measuring temperatures in °C (e.g., "Minus 210.8°C" when they'd be using K [Kelvin]: - 210.8°C = 62.35K).

Then, it just goes right downhill to fantasy land with "cosmic lightning"; a boy exposed to the mysterious Element X, who somehow controls the effects of the element; and outrageous coincidence (how is it that the first people to discover "Element X" do so precisely at the same time that the first expedition to Pluto discovers evidence of alien life?).

Ironically, the actual structure of Element X—admitted to be "impossible" but given a plausible hypothesis—is more believable than the science that's supposedly possible.

I don't require my SF to be scientifically valid, but don't pretend it is, and don't have scientists act out of character, and don't invent unnecessary complications (really, drop the paragraph mentioning the predicted hundreds of new elements & the cosmic lightning and nothing would be lost.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another self-published book I tested with my one-chapter rule. Read the prologues (both of them) and the first two chapters before deciding not to continue.

The writing is not terrible and the adventure is promising, as is the cover, which seems to capture the intended spirit of a Heinlein juvenile. The prologue is a Mayan grandfather warning his child about the end of the "Fourth Age." Then some scientific infodumps about Pluto. Then an entire chapter with ten-year-old boy stuck on an asteroid with his parents, and how bored he is. He is bored. It's very boring. This is repeated several times. Along with a lot of infodumping about the technology. Also, the chapter starts with the now-tired cliche of a space battle involving pirates which turns out to be the kid playing a virtual reality game before his mom calls him.

Chapter two shifts to a pretty young female captain Mary Sue, who spares a thought for how the greatest regret in her life is putting her career first and not having children, before she and her crew get out of their ship to explore Pluto. The chapter ends with them finding an alien artifact.

Despite the cliffhanger and the interesting premise, the writing and characterization was just not strong enough to motivate me to continue, and it seems like a very juvenile sort of book (the chapter with the kid literally had nothing happening except an introduction to him and his parents on their asteroid).

Valmore Daniels apparently is an industrious self-published author with some professionally-packaged books, this one being the first in a series. While it should have been up my alley, I did not get to the 50-page mark. I might read it some other time when I feel like some light SF, and it was free, but there are too many better books on my TBR list.

[Brian Manville · Rating 2 out of 5]

A story about the first mission to Pluto would be expected to have a sense of wonder, a dose of mystery and perhaps some alien contact. In this case, Forbidden the Stars proves conclusively that Valmore Daniels has enough flexibility to reach into his posterior clear up to his elbow. Allow me to explain...

We begin with the ramblings of an old man in BF Mexico talking about how the Mayan gods punished them for their arrogance and disobedience and put the white man in charge of earth. However, one day the Mayans will return to their place of prominence. I'm not an expert in Mayan culture, but I'm not buying this. That was the introduction and sort of sets the tone for the bovine scatology that follows.

Late 21st century earth sees the major powers of the world creating corporations for the benefit of space exploration. Personally, I thought that Kim Stanley Robinson's idea of transnational corporations as de facto nations in Red Mars was a better idea. Canada has been mining asteroids for the minerals earth needs to keep on keeping on. The Manez family - Gabriel, Margaret and their 10 year old Alex work on Macklin's Rock. Meanwhile, Captain Justine Turner is on her way to Pluto in Orcus 1 with her multi-national crew.

Once on Pluto, the crew of Orcus 1 comes across an alien artifact that has engravings of many languages on it, one of which turns out to be Mayan. The crew, in a fit of unoriginality, calls it Dis Pater (after the Roman god of the underworld - later changed to Pluto). While understandably a great discovery, back in the asteroid belt a tragic accident causes Macklin's Rock to accelerate on its way out of the solar system, killing Alex's parents. The asteroid eventually comes to a stop in Plutonian orbit.

The explosion reveals the existence of Element X which may hold the key to interstellar travel. Thus, the world powers and a bitter Chinese man by the name of Chow Yin seek to find out what connection there is between the young Alex and Element X. Forced to abandon Pluto, Orcus 1 leaves to rescue Alex and bring him home. Unfortunately, the ship is intercepted by pirates (yes, I said pirates). Turner panics and jettisons the contents of her cargo bay which just so happens to contain Alex and his rescue pod from the asteroid. Somehow, in Daniels' universe, this earns Turner not one, but two more flights to Pluto. In the world you and I live in, she would've been booted out of NASA and been relegated to flying tourist helicopters like TC in Magnum PI.

Having been exposed to Element X has made Alex a very special boy indeed. Chow Yin's efforts to capitalize on his capture are thwarted and once science has seemingly unlocked the tools to Element X (now called Kinemet), Alex is a mere afterthought. Four years later, earth's first interstellar ship, the Quanta, is ready for testing. Alex, hearing voices in his head, manages to sneak aboard Quanta and convinces the head of NASA to let him fly the ship, replacing the original pilot.

(Of note, the book has a mistake concerning this pilot. Page 204 says, "Capt. Kincardine, father of two, has been a pilot for CSE." Yet, after commandeering the ship, Alex says on page 212, "Your pilot has a family, Mr. Sanderson. I know he does not have a wife or children..." If Alex is perceptive enough to know what he needs to know by reading everything, he should know Kincardine indeed has two children. Oof.)

But it's in the last 4-6 chapters where the book really starts clipping the trees on its way to a crash landing. Alex's flight on Quanta ends up taking him past Pluto and into the next galaxy, Dis Pater not stopping him as originally thought. While seeing the ship streak by, Captain Turner is blinded. Why? Who knows? As time goes by, Alex is presumed lost. Eight years later, he mysteriously reappears. How? We're not told. And yet the book ends up with him in Mexico talking to the old man from the preface. Alex is now the Mayan Sky god and they're going to decipher the ancient scroll the grandfather has been keeping all his life.

Why would the Mayans gods seek to dethrone the white man from his place of prominence? Why do we have a bitter Chinese man living in microgravity skimming money from tariffs and duties living in opulent wealth instead of squalor? Why do we have three missions to Pluto when the second one is glossed over as "nothing new was found, but we had a good time"? Just how much space travel is taking place that has pirates flying around? Why doesn't Captain Turner need a guide dog after she's blinded?

The whole idea of Alex mysteriously reappearing on earth without explaining why - and then having him revealed to now be a Mayan god would cause a reader to throw his book against the wall. This book would've worked a whole lot better without the Mayan angle. In fact, it may have been better had it developed into a first contact story.

Beyond that, there is a certain level of flat-out technobabble that doesn't really connect to reality. As an engineer, the science in science has to be realistic for me to buy in. I couldn't buy in to Element X; as an element, it sits so far outside the periodic table that it needs its own sheet of paper.

The author thought it best to have the exact same crew for all three Pluto missions (save one). Why? He did this to avoid having to create any new characters - it was simply easier to recycle the existing ones. And Chow Yin? After the PRC section on Luna is taken over, he disappears from the book. Surely he could've provided some additional tension - perhaps he knows more about Element X, perhaps he has a something up his sleeve that could cause harm if he doesn't get his way. But no, we gets pages of Mayan goofiness.

BOTTOM LINE: Read this with a can of Febreeze handy to ward off the smell of bulls***.

[Chiyaa Pasal · Rating 2 out of 5]

The storyline started off interestingly but just degraded over time. There was attempt to make this « hard » science fiction but simply dropping scientific references (correctly or incorrectly) here and there doesn’t make it hard sci-fi. Overall, the writing was just too simplistic to make it enjoyable. As with the miscellaneous science references, there was an attempt to add simple, everyday references to « round out » the story (« he had orange juice and xxx for breakfast »). This just served to emphasize the simplistic writing. I’m all for supporting new, emerging or self published authors but I also want higher quality writing. I could not become lost in the story because the writing was just bland and not immersive. Nice attempt but I won’t pick up anything else by this author.

[Arielle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sometimes you get free books and they are good. Other times you get free books and they suck so hard you can't even make it to the 10% mark. This is one of the latter ones.

[Bee Meserole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a 3.5-star for me. I was very caught up in the plot and the themes of the story, but it felt a little clumsy in execution. Most of the challenge, I think, lies in the span of years the story covers. Interstellar travel and multiple POVs from across the solar system are tough nuts to crack. It's hard to know exactly what to include and what to skip. I felt some characters were fleshed out more than they should have been for how they were treated in the story; it was a little annoying to have access to someone's inner thoughts and motivations and then for them to suddenly disappear from the story (except to be mentioned briefly in the tying off of their thread). It's certainly possible to include brief POVs of less-important characters who only appear briefly, but it wasn't pulled off very well in this case.

The various POVs and methods of delivering information worked out well, although some of it was a little too technical for me and I admit to skimming some sections while the more scientific details were being discussed at length. I think a touch less of that in the novel itself would make it more accessible; I wanted to be able to at least have a rudimentary grasp on everything I read but some of it was just too irrelevant or complicated for me to care.

To end on a more positive note, the book has a lot of promise and was interesting enough to keep me from getting too frustrated with inconsistent character development and excessive science talk.

[Bruce Butler · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, this one was a stinker. The premise was interesting - an asteroid disappears from the asteroid belt under mysterious circumstances, having been somehow accelerated to the speed of light, then reappears above an alien artifact on Pluto. Then the author started writing and it went downhill from there.

The character development was terrible - I never did develop an image of what any of the characters were supposed to look like.

The author appears to be someone who has little or no science background but thought they'd try their hand at sci-fi. For example, at one point a group of astronauts on Pluto detect the incoming asteroid, which is traveling at the speed of light. Nope. Physics doesn't work that way. Even the way the scientists unravel the mystery of Element X doesn't jive with the scientific method (or physics, for that matter).

The writing was disjointed to the point where I never did understand the supposed relationship between the artifact and the asteroid. To top off the silliness, the lone occupant of the asteroid somehow survives the lightspeed jump then manifests strange superpowers. Everything about this book screams "juvenile" as if it was written for young teenagers.

I got this book for free on BookBub and it wasn't worth the price.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I only read this book because it was free, and hence already on my Kindle, and I was on holiday.

And I thought the story showed promise. The discovery of a new element involved in light speed travel would indeed change everything.

But it didn't leave me wanting more, the story had too much teasing (I know something but I won't tell you what yet), too little involvement in the characters.

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a science fiction story by someone who knows very little about science. It is also a story by someone who thinks giving existing technology a different name makes it new. I have news: it doesn't, it just makes you look like a rank amateur.

In summary, this story didn't cost me anything and I still think it was overpriced.

[Jim McGowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

If some of the 'science' is ignored, this is a good, old fashioned sci fi story. Old fashioned in the sense that the style was reminiscent of sci fi from the 60s or so. The author definitely shows good potential, I will be interested in any future novels he writes.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I kept choking on "jargon" and acronyms, I gave up, utterly bored, at 10%

[Rich · Rating 1 out of 5]

Managed about 60% and gave up , maybe suited more for younger readers .

[Flavio Zanchi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worth what I paid for it

That is, not a penny. I thank the author for writing crap from the very beginning, saving me some time.

[J.L. Dobias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forbidden The Stars(The interstellar Age Book 1)by Valmore Daniel

This is one of those stories that has to grow on you slowly.

It might often be abandoned before it ripens enough for the impatient. I know I almost let this one go. It took me a while to get into it. There was a lot of extra building going on in the first several chapters that was rather drawn out. I'm glad I persevered because this was a very good story- in the long run.

There were several elements that were annoying to frustrating about some of the names of things and acronyms and such.

At the beginning of the story there are some oddities mentioned that have me baffled. Probably because I've not been keeping up with modern terminologies.

One of these is the Septaphonic ear-mask::(sounds cool but what is it?)

Now I know that pink floyd had contemplated something they started calling hyperbole coordinator and they wanted to use eight speakers but finally decided on seven. They would put two in front of the audience two behind one above and one below- they never did come up with a place for the seventh. Anyhow this was the ideal for the Septaphonic sound system and if this is what is being nodded to in this story then the ear mask would have to be something that would shroud the head and ears like a sort of helmet enclosing the head in the experience. In the story its tossed around like we toss the word headphones around these days. I suppose that it may just be quadraphonic speakers but then why not say quadraphonic speakers. Sometimes I wonder about putting words together just because they sound cool.

Last I knew Septaphonics fell flat on its ear-face so I'm not sure what this is and it's not really explained- once again I might have missed something in the etymology of this word and some few other seeming inventions of language in this book.

After all of this and much further into the book the story starts to take off and all that hand-waving goes away for a while.

This is largely the story of Alex Manez- with a supporting cast of thousands- well not that many but a few extra hands.

Alex is a ten year old who is in space with his prospecting parent who are about to make the big score for the company they work for. What really happens is his parents die and he's left an orphan. He also goes on a trip that rivals what happens in Carl Sagan's Contact.

While this is going on a mission to Pluto uncovers an artifact that is reminiscent of Arthur Clark's 2001 Space Odyssey. Captain Justine Turner, a woman pilot and commander of the Pluto flight is in charge of the mission that makes this great discovery.

Michael Sanderson is on earth doing the political and fundraising thing for the company that is funding Alex's parents.

All these elements are going to come together to begin to unravel the great mystery of anchient Mayan history slash myth.

Alex is propelled from the asteroid belt to the location of the artifact on Pluto in a matter of hours. Going close to the speed of light and riding in a habitat on a meteor he survives but he's been greatly affected.

The independent (secret) lunar government finds out about this and kidnaps Alex in order to gain control of space travel which they control minimally already by controlling the moon base. Near Speed of Light travel could ruin them if they don't control it themselves.

What no one has figured in this is what has happened to Alex and what he might want to do about all of this.

This story has a lot of Science like stuff that sometimes sounds like hand-waving and it contains enough fantasy elements to qualify as SFF or Sci-Fi Fantasy.

Anyone who like Science Fiction and who enjoys a lot of technical jargon will enjoy this one once they hack through the first bit of world building.

Those Septaphonic ear-mask seem very important because they sure are mentioned a lot. Maybe the next book has an in-depth explanation of how they work and whether they are four seven or more speakers.

I really did enjoy this novel despite my confusion and look forward to checking the rest of the story in Music of the Spheres.

J.L. Dobias

[Kamas Kirian · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were elements of the story that I loved. There were also elements that I disliked. At times the pacing was slow, and there were some errors that just dropped me out of the story.

The concept was very interesting. It just didn't get pulled off well enough to truly enjoy the book. I enjoyed the parts of the astronauts at Pluto and the discovery of Dis Pater. I also enjoyed bringing in a bit of Mayan myth. December 2012 was the end of the 13th bʼakʼtun, so I would have thought that the beginning of the new age at that time would have made a better setting for the transition to the return of the "gods," referred to as the start of a new age, rather than the end of the 21st/beginning of the 22nd centuries.

There were issues with the actual physics at times as well, though some of it might be the author's misnaming of things such as a jet-rocket. Jet engines are airbreathing engines, requiring atmospheric oxygen for combustion. Rockets use onboard oxygen (either liquid or solid fuel) to provide the combustion/thrust. The use of Celsius instead of Kelvin for space temperatures may have been intentional to make it more relatable to readers. There were other things as well, these were just the two most obvious to me.

The biggest issues I had were 1) just how whiny "Alex's" voice came across, 2) the suspension of disbelief needed for kinemet to only be found in the asteroid belt. 3) the artificial computer sounds added for effect in certain scenes. 4) the idea of using a laser rather than broader spectrum radio waves, to keep communications from being intercepted, as if whatever receiver/transmitter orbiting earth wasn't already hacked.

I like Justine and her crew. I liked Michael and his friends/coworkers. Alex was a caricature of a spoiled, whiny kid. The pirates and the rest were very flat characters, basically just placeholders like the Orcus crew. The world building in which countries are just corporations was nothing new, and not really believable either. It was also evident that this story was written before 2016, and definitely before 2020, with one of the characters commenting he only reads real news sources like the Washington Post. I don't think I'll be continuing with this series.

The audioBook was formatted adequately. The narrator's voice was fine for adult voices, but Alex's voice grated on me, as did the use of various electronic sounds used for computer interactions.

[Angus Mcfarlane · Rating 3 out of 5]

How will humanity get to the stars? There are different speculations on this, the approaches which take existing physics somewhat boring, or difficult to spin into a story. So this one picks up something of a Clarkian approach, with humanity taking up alien planted technology...at least I assume this is similar to SO2001 since I haven't read that one. This story came up on bookbub I think, seemed interesting and it was certainly entertaining enough. There is a solar system politics which is intriguing but a little simplistic and contrived in its vision of capitalism. While elements of physics are preserved - speed of light as a constraint for example - but some of the other inventions have a ring of magic about them. If I can get the next edition for low cost it could be fun to see where this goes....

[Mokolon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good sci-fi right up to the point where the author comitted a cardinal sin, skipping over years of the main characters life between chapters, summing up several years worth of story line in the form of news burbs, then abruptly ending the book without even giving us a satisfying answer as to what happened.

The negative having been said, I did enjoy the story up to that point well enough that I'd read the next book if it came my way cheaply or lent from the library/friend. It was enjoyable enough to be worth a second chance.

[Karl Schaeffer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A trilogy. Another e-read book bub special. The Moon and Mars are colonized. So is the belt. the first manned expedition to Pluto has discovered an extra solar artifact. The artifact "wakes-up" and stuff happens, including the destruction of a belter family's ship. The survivor, a young boy named Alex Manez, exhibits some strange powers after the incident. Intrigue follows as various governmental and criminal elements try to figure out what is going on.

[Michael D. O'Daly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Real SciFi

This the first real science fiction I’ve read in years. I know I’ve read others since reading Heinlein & Asimov and other early masters of the genre, but it’s been years.

A good story, but bounces around a bit too much. As a result there is not as much character development as those great story tellers mentioned above were able weave into their yarns, and at the end you are left with the feeling that this could have been much more.

[C.A. Knutsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An entertaining and rewarding book

Well-developed, engaging characters and an entertaining story. The author sprinkled bits of known science in the story to form the basis for the step into the unknown. Mysteries remain but hopefully some light will be shed upon them in the next book.

[Mark J. McArthur · Rating 4 out of 5]

science fiction space adventure!

A young boy becomes a star traveler through many trials and tribulations. The author pens a fast-paced and interesting adventure tale with excellent insight into the human condition.

I received a no cost copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving this review.

[Sarah Hopkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a lot of excitement for this book when I discovered it. So much so that I bumped it to the top of my to-read list and read it next. While the story had potential, the writing style was not my favorite. I felt as though the plot was "explained" to the reader rather than allowing the reader to be "inserted" into the story. My quest for the best space sci-fi dystopian book continues.

[Steven Wade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interstellar excitement

I enjoy the idea of humanity reaching our potential in exploring our solar system. I’m not sure we would accidentally stumble upon the ability to travel at light speed, but the entire story excites my imagination.

[Georgia Woods · Rating 3 out of 5]

Look forward to the next

Liked fantastic approach to surprise access to light speed
Didn't like the lack of tie-in to Maya
Felt disjointed about what happened to Alex throughout.
Cliffhangers work well in television, not so much in sci-fi

[Noodle The Naughty Night Owl · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10: Good light-weight read, well done.

What he had said was, “I have to find out what they are saying.” “What who are saying?” He turned to me and said, “The planets.”

I enjoyed this book enough to finish it, but not quite enough to make me read the rest in the series.

[Lynn Saad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great ideas

Well paced, kept me engrossed. The idea of the object was taken from 2001, but for me it added to the depth of the story, as clearly something/someone was hovering in the background of what was happening. The short chapters kept me reading. I liked the link to the pre Aztec Latin American Mayan culture.

[thomas roberson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of Forbidden The Stars

This was Actually Books 1-4 . This was a new twist in sci-fi for me. Normally in most the books I've read were was past Pluto, but not this time. Anyway you should enjoy the reading☺

[Dusty Pruitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wowser Startrek Move Out of the way.

This book was a very interesting read. It takes people in ordinary lives and puts them in extreme circumstances. Like space travel by light. Plus ties Mayan culture into it. Very interesting read. Big D