Customer Reviews

The Trilisk Ruins (Parker Interstellar Travels #1)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As the believable situation unfolded it kept drawing you in with action ... Telisa, a xenoarchelogist is recruited by a group to retrieve alien artefacts from a newly discovered planet. Only problem is that the government has a shoot to kill policy on smugglers to keep the wraps on the alien artefacts. They are discovered and a chase continues but they end up finding a live alien and have to co-operate to escape out of a situation caused by an even older extinct race. Whilst perhaps a familiar story line for a sci fi addict there where nice twists and this story also nicely captured the essence of alienness.

A great balance of a well-paced adventure plot with a well thought-through alien - and a very alien one at that. And not too many of those jarring moments when late 20th Century presupposition destroys the illusion of far future. I'm looking forward to the next one and hoping that the logic of a millipedal, multibrained alien will be developed further.

Got this and had it finished in a couple of days, could not put it down....looking forward to more in this series!

This is another of those cheap n cheerful books by an unknown author that the Kindle is so good for. It, like most of the author's other books, appears to be only available as an e-book.

As is typical of books like this, the writing is not of the best. Dialogue is wooden, there are a few minor inconsistencies in the plot, and characters are very flat. But, as is also typical of these cheap self-published (I assume) e-book only stories, it's a decent enough piece of light entertainment, and so gets three stars. It would get less if it had all the extra costs of "proper" publishing, but as it is you can still just sit back and enjoy the story.

Oh, and there's an obvious setup for a sequel, which I look forward to reading.

Loved this story. It is reasonably paced, has some well thought out aliens in it and characters you can sympathise with, although they are a little shallow. Distant planets, aliens in other alien environments, ancient ruins and technology, black market pillagers and smugglers and a gung-ho military policing the region - all the elements needed to cook up a cracking tale. Some of the human technology was, although not original, well thought out and explained and used in the story in suitable doses - never over-whelming the story with "black magic" tech. The shifting office space was a great touch if not disconcertingly more than a little like a nightmare I have had........
Can't wait to get my hands on the follow up.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and cannot wait to read more from this author. It contained all the right elements - a distant planet, space travel, archaeology, first contact with an alien species, a fight for escape and survival. A great read!

While not quite on the par of Iain M Banks or the "classics" like Azimov or Clarke, it's still a decent read. Not novel length but certainly entertaining enough that I finished in a couple of sessions. There is room in the story for a chase/evade sequence which could have made the navy thread stronger. The ending resolution is a little weak and obviously left open for a sequel - which on the strength of this, I'd get without thinking if priced as fairly as this one is (72p)

Not a bad opener for a series, enough in there to keep the brain engaged.
Story line seems to start a bit further in than maybe it should. A bit more os a background would have helped to fill it out a great deal.

I saw this advertised on, of all places, a political bloggers website and was intrigued by the artwork. I know, it's never usually a good way of judging anything but I like a bit of space opera so I gave it a go. The writing is a little simplistic and sometimes lacks the kind of depth that you get from more established writers but the story itself moves along at a good pace and doesn't drag on too long. It's basically an alien encounter story, the alien being a kind of armoured earwig thingy and set, for the most part, in the ruins of another, older, alien civilisation. There are some interesting idea's and one or two good action sequences so, all in all, for less than a couple of pounds, it's worth giving it a punt.

The story itself is probably worth 5 stars; it's engaging, fairly original, and occasionally thought provoking. The writing, on the other hand, is closer to 3. There is nothing unclear, confusing, or particularly badly written, but there are plenty of slightly jarring sections where the meaning is clear, but the choice or arrangement of words pulls you out of the story momentarily.

I'd recommend this to anyone who appreciates sci-fi, likes a good story, and doesn't mind if it flows a little lumpily at times. I'll definitely be getting book 2 of this series.