I hate short stories that try to be books. This short story is over before it starts. This could have been a great start to a real book, a real saga. Just because you want to publish a book, don’t chop it up by chapters and call each one of them books. That’s not right, of course, in my humble opinion. You science fiction writers can do what you want, but from a reader, this is bad for business.
I didn’t realize how short this “book” was going to be. I make it a habit of not reading anything prior to getting into a book because I don’t want anything to spoil my adventure. If I had know that his “book” was only 76 pages, 76, I would not have bothered reading it. I mean, it’s supposed to be part of a sage. Is the author going to write forty-eight short stories and call them a saga? I hope not. This would have made a good chapter in some of the books I’ve read and it would have made a decent chapter in the next book which appears to only be 177 pages long. Together, they would have made a nice book. Ok, enough of my whining.
This “book” has a new Defense Engineer, Tara Royce, out on her first mission. She’s in a single person defense pod that will be orbiting Earth, defending it from alien attacks. Yes, Earth has been destroyed, but this is now thousands of years in the future and humans are vowing to come back and resettle their home world when it has recovered. In the meantime, they have to defend it or some other civilization will want it’s resources. Earth is currently covered by dense black toxic clouds. What happens to Tara during her first mission since leaving the Academy is the gist of this story. Her career my be over.
This was a nicely written short story that should have been part of a bigger book. I don’t know what’s in book 2, but this should have been the beginning of that book and both together would have made a good novel. I gave this 4 stars because I know the author has to have talent to write stories as good as what this could be, but to publish two books that were no more than short stories, is not the way to gain readers. I’m not all that sure I’m going to read book 2 even though I did pre-order it.