Monday, June 20, 2011

Book #20 - Odyssey One

512aCGmYy-L._SL500_AA266_PIkin3,BottomRight,-13,34_AA300_SH20_OU01_I grabbed Odyssey One as a low cost one from the sci-fi Kindle store, and really enjoyed it. The story is one that is in the future, but not so fantastic that we can’t believe it would happen.

The book starts off with the launch of the maiden voyage of the Earth’s first interstellar craft. It’s crewed by military, but it’s purpose is to do some research light years away. The earth isn’t a wonderful place, and it appears that there are still two large superpower groups that are at an uneasy truce after World War III.

The ship begins it’s voyage, using a new tachyon-based  “Transition Drive” that appears to melt the ship from front to back, a disturbing experience for the crew, a percentage of which must be treated medically afterwards. After arriving light years away, the crew finds the wreckage of some space battle and begins to search for survivors, finding one.

She’s human, but speaking a different dialect. This is where the book gets a little strange as a linguistics researcher manages to program his computer to decipher her language in a few days and communicate. The book does a good job of having each side be a little suspicious about the other and not really disclose much information, which as a reader you’d expect them to share.

After tracing the path of the departing ships, the Odyssey transitions to a star system where they find an alien race (non-human) has killed every human on a planet and their spider like drones are dismantling everything humans built. The Odessey engages the alien ship, which in some ways has much more advanced technology, but it’s based on facing the technology that existed in the system, not the humans projectile pulse weapons, which make short work of the alien spaceship.

The book becomes a space warfare book as the Odyssey journeys to the other human homeworld where it becomes involved in their way before returning home. Of course they win (otherwise it wouldn’t have anywhere to go.

It’s a fun read, not wonderful, but it does have me hoping there will be a sequel.

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