Archaea

Archaea #1

by Dain White

She lay abandoned, moored to the south end of Luna Farside, left for scrap. Captain Dak Smith saw in her something special, an opportunity to burn for the far horizon as an independent, free from the gloms that hold known space in thrall – but he had to get her running first.


Armed with a standard-issue captain's eyebrow and an infectious grin, Captain Smith and his hand-picked crew embark on an adventure through deep space filled with scoundrels, pirates, and some incredibly unfortunate peace-loving rocks that happened to be at the wrong place, at the worst time.

Genres: Science Fiction

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 24, 2011

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off, be forewarned that while I don't intend plot spoilers, I might give away parts of the book in this review.

I found Archaea to be a very fun and interesting read. It's a sci-fi spaceship adventure, typical in many ways of the genre, but the author has a well formed world with detailed and technical descriptions for about everything. In some respects it might be too geeky for some readers but I very much enjoyed the technical stuff.

The story is told from a multiple first-person character voice perspective. Meaning, you jump between the crew members on board the ship and see events from each of their internal viewpoints. It's a fun style and I enjoyed it. My only complaint is technical in reference to the section breaks where the book switches character narration, it would have helped the flow of the book greatly to have some kind of section break graphic or little glyph symbol to clearly denote when the viewpoint changed.

The story is very much an allegory for superman or spider-man on a self-discovery journey of their new found powers. In this case it's a spaceship. The crew is varied and interesting but also one-sided in some ways. The computer guy does computers really well and his hobby is programming. The engineer knows engineering and ships and his hobby is tinkering with things. The captain has the charismatic captain-ey top of his class smile and likes coffee and well-timed one-liners. The weapons specialist and soldier live and breath weapons and fighting techniques. Each person is the best of the best at what they do and it's hard to say that's inaccurate to real life, but they almost seem to be part of the ship's hero journey to discover her new super powers. They are almost, but not quite caricatures or perhaps come of this way because all of the plot conflict or danger is external to the ship and crew.

I was hoping to see the story and characters advance through interpersonal or internal struggle or ethical or moral dilemmas with the technology they wield. Even a fear of AI computer control is only mentioned briefly but doesn't materialize. For example in a series like Outlaw Star (which I use as an example because it also has a great crew manning a super ship) the conflict is both internal and external, but the story really shines when the characters are each faced with a personal struggle that helps drive the plot.

So in Archaea, the crew is practically perfect with few known personal failures or conflicts. That isn't to say I don't like the characters and I did very much enjoy the dialogue and jokes exchanged between them. Perhaps as this appears to be the first book in a series, this will act as an introduction and the conflict and more back story will come later.

Lastly, the ending was fun with a nice twist, but it lacked partial believably because of some issues introduced a few scenes before the story ended. I was left pondering if it was possible or not.

Still I plan to read the sequel as I enjoy the writing style, the technical descriptions, the dialogue, and the story was fun and kept my interest throughout.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was recommended to me by the author’s mom. So, I was a little nervous to read it. Of course she loves it, but what if I didn’t? What would I say to her?
But, I ended up really enjoying this book. It was fun and smart. Once it got going, I couldn’t put it down. I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.

[Timothy Trimble · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Dain White via Twitter and Amazon. Archaea is a well written, geeky, space adventure with a rag-tag group of characters thrown together. Kind of Serenity meets Robin Williams. There's a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor without it becoming a full on comedy. The characters come across an alien weapon/computer which has abilities far beyond their expectations. Most of the story deals with them coming to grips with their new found technology and figuring out how to deal with it. I'm expecting the next books in sequence have some great adventures as well.

My only critique is that it's sometimes hard to determine which character is primary in the scene. The scenes change rapidly and I found it tough to figure out who's mind I was in. Once I got comfortable with the characters, it became easier.

[alon steuer · Rating 4 out of 5]

i was totally entertained all the way through this book. Great first novel, Dain!!

[Jim Hynes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I laughed, I drank coffee, I had a blast.

[Dana Slaughter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun Sci fi...lots of action and interesting cast of characters. Made for a movie. Fast read, but rolls right into Janis

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great sci-fi story

This book has some great characters. The story was written from the view of the people in the book. Great action and twists.

[Torfinn Ingolfsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it.

[Stanley · Rating 4 out of 5]

good humor

This book contains some quite good humor, along with enough techno babble to make for good sci-fi. Lots of fun to experience.

[Harold E. Smith]

Really enjoyed this book!

[Callista Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I started this book I had no idea what to expect. I have to say I've been very pleasantly surprised. Only once have I gotten lost in this technically rich, descriptive story. The style of writing is easy to adapt to and the flow of each narrator is unique, yet powerful. I have to say this is a good read and I look forward to finishing it.

Finally finished, sadly I was interrupted for a long time while only half-way through the book. Now that I've finished, I did enjoy the story. The technical richness of the world is wonderful and remains solid throughout. The inter character dialog needs some help to make the story reach the next level. The limited crew has limited interactions and their dialog is also limited. They all function independently as cogs in the machine, but have very little to do with one another. The other short coming is in the story conflict. Things are presented in such a way that there is never any fear of real risk to the crew or the ship. Even in the most aggressive conflict, one character receives a bump on the head that is considered superficial and quickly forgotten. As such you are never worried about the crew. Early fears brought forth in the beginning of the book are abandoned entirely by the end of the book without ever being fully addressed or dealt with, although there is a recognition of the initial fear if AI later in the book.

It sits overall as a good first book. I hope to see some of the threads that were abandoned early on picked back up in the next book.

Update: I've been told by the author's wife, that I'm being much too hard on my amateur author reviews in general and that I should use a different star scale which does not compare them to great authors such as Asimov and Tolkien. Therefore I am increasing the stars for this book from 3 to 4.

[Jesse Deleon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epic adventure series introduction.

A great start to an fun epic adventure series.
From start to finish enjoyable reading experience for me. Thank you Dain White.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read.