This is kind of a weird story, but it’s weird in a very good way. We’re reading about a semi-transformer kind of book in that the hero, Dash Sawyer, is the pilot of a huge spacefaring electro-mechanical robot, called the Archetype. How he was “chosen” to be the pilot of this space-born weapons platform is all contained in the first book.
This book is about “the Forge”. As you’ll recall, the Archetype needs power cores to fulfill it full potential. And, up to now, that’s what Dash and his companions aboard his ship the Slipwing have been trying to find. Yet, with the last installation of the most recently found power core, Dash and the Archetype now have knowledge of something called “the Forge”. They have it’s coordinates in space, but now have a decision to make. Should they continue to search for power cores for the Archetype or now head directly to the Forge and find out what it is all about. Surely, it must be important for the Unseen (creators of the Archetype and the Forge) to have built the thing and now telling them about it.
So, after some discussion, they all agree to head for the Forge. While the Archetype can self-repair a lot of it’s systems, it needs time to do so. They believe the Forge may contain some repair capabilities for the Archetype and could also do some much needed work on the Slipwing.
The do stop at an intermediate destination to make some emergency repairs which can be done by Leira’s cousin, Amy. She’s a born engineer and mechanic and fix just about anything. She’s been living all her life on a space-station called the Passage, but feels it’s time to leave. So, Dash picks up another member of his crew. And then they head for the Forge.
What they find at the Forge actually leads them to searching for another power core, a level two power core which could turn on all the offensive and defensive weaponry of the Forge. Without that level two power core, the Forge is just a floating hunk of space junk, a very, very large chunk of space junk.
Fortunately, their search does result in aquiring some new allies. Dash is building quite a following and he’s going to need it easpecially when the Golden send their own version of the Archetype to the Forge. It’s called the Guardian and while smaller than the Archetype, it is faster and just as powerful with the capability to cloak. So, how does Dash and the Archetype fight something they can’t see?
This book, while kind of outlandish with the Archetype flying around in space fighting by punching and boxing is still very intense. The story moves right along and before you know it, you’re almost to the end. Still, there’s more to come and I’m sure they’ll be just as exciting as this book.