I wasn’t too sure about this book. The cover is starkly plain and doesn’t give any indication of the book’s content. Sometimes that makes me skip books that I don’t think will be interesting. I know, I know, I’m not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I do and so do many of you!
So, should I have passed up this book? Definitely not! This was a very, very good book. The writing is smooth and easy to read. I’m no speed reader by any means, but I got through this book rather quickly because I was really into reading its contents. And this book was really interesting. The author has done a great job of editing his writing, which also makes for a pleasant read.
Now about the book; visualize, if you can a spaceship or call it a starship, 800 miles long by 100 miles wide. The author calls these, “World Ships” and rightly so. There are three of them as explained in a very convenient Introduction at the beginning of the book. Each has captain of sorts, but they are called Tech Directors and their job are to allocate resources, make sure the people on-board is taken care of and accomplish the mission assigned to the World Ship. Most of the ship’s passengers are in cryo-sleep, although there are several thousand people awake and abroad the ship doing whatever is necessary to keep it running smoothly. Each ship can defend itself from any known bad alien of which the Earth has some experience. Let’s say that Earth had a rude awakening when the Andiki arrived and began setting up a colony near where Seattle used to be. These aliens are definitely hostile, but apparently they don’t fight well. Earth has had some tremendous changes which is why the World Ships now exist. Mankind cannot survive on Earth due to the eradication of the Andiki and the nuclear wars of the recent past. So, the World Ships are out to seed humanity on other worlds.
I really like the authors writing. He has a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor throughout the book that fits well. Humanity has managed to tame the AI and that is what actually controls the myriad function of the world ships. The particular AI for the Praxis is called Nina. Humans have also managed to successfully wire themselves up so that learning is now done via a rural neural network. Everybody would probably be considered super-geniuses if they were here now. Additionally, the use of nanite technology has flourished beyond all wonder. Nanite technology has spread throughout the human race. Each human born has an initial injection of nanites that will continue to maintain the human body disease free for an unknown number of years. Tech Director Jack Shadow got the first set of nanite injections in 2018 when he was 55 years old. They reverted his physical age back to 27 and he’s been running around with a smile on his face ever since! It is now 2295 A.D., therefore Jack Sadow, once 55 is now 295 and still looks 27! I want the future here now!
OK, so that’s some of the story. Other than a lot of partying at Starkle’s Hideaway where a great deal of beer is consumed, this is a fantastic science fiction story. We meet aliens, but it doesn’t turn into a blood bath and we learn from our adventures. I hope there are more stories by the author in the future.