CENTAURI: A New Threat for Earth. Pray They Never Come

by Ken Bush

After four US astronauts; Captain Daniel Hills, Lt. Robert Sears, Lt. Dana Stevens and Lt. Jason Peters peruse the surface of Mars for gold, they find themselves thrusted into the middle of an intergalactic battle between the Centaurians and the Zendorans of the Phaedran galaxy. When Sears' star ship, the Mayflower is destroyed, during the conflict on Mars and Hills is severely injured, Drayden, a Centaurian and sole survivor of the war on the Martian surface, lures them to his world and persuades Sears and his crew to avenge Hills and help them destroy the rest of the Zendorans once and for all. Sears' crusades with Drayden leads him into an array of wars with killer androids, creatures and star ship battles with sophisticated weaponry. But after Sears stumbles onto a disturbing truth, and his other crew members begin to disappear one after another, he learns that planet Earth is in danger. It becomes high suspense for Sears when he has to choose sides between Drayden and his master race, the Centaurians and the Zendorans, a beast like civilization and arch enemy to Planet Centauri. Readers are entranced by the reality woven by author Ken Bush in this tale of betrayal, redemption, and deceit, saying, “wow, what a read!” and “I lost track of time, I couldn’t put it down!” “A real page turner!” -Kathryn “This is a great story!” -Loki “Awesome!” -Ken “I typically don’t go for sci-fi but this was cool!” -Nannette “Cool! ”-Sam On the surface, Hills and the others heard the sounds of soft explosions coming from the sky which grew louder every second. They looked at each other with odd expressions. “What is that?” Dana asked. They looked up to the sky in confusion. The sounds of explosions grew louder and were accompanied with engines and other strange noises. All the starships descended and drew near to the surface. It was still in full motion. The silver starships fired away at the rusty ones constantly without pause. Another rusty starship exploded and then another. A large fireball erupted just above the surface. Fiery parts of star craft flew to the surface and recklessly rolled in all directions. The battle was now an imminent threat to Hills and his crew. “Back to the Mayflower, now!” Hills commanded. Peters jumped on Hill’s Crawler with him. Sears and Dana powered up the other two and hauled ass toward the Mayflower at maximum power leaving the Jackman behind. The air battle continued just over their heads. Explosions erupted and more pieces of burning starship flew down from above nearly hitting them. A large piece of smoking, burning wing crashed down in front of Dana. It was dingy gray, full of grooves and crevices with sparking wires. It exploded sending flaming pieces in all directions. She was caught off-guard and collided into one of the pieces that were on fire. The impact knocked her from the Crawler and violently to the ground. The Crawler crashed into more burning pieces of smoking destroyed starship; an arm-wing of a tatty ship made with peculiar metal and laden with cracks and fissures. The Crawler tipped over and was consumed in the flames. “Dana!” Sears hollered. He looked back and watched her tumble and roll in the dirt. Sears eyes filled with terror as he and the others slammed on their brakes. “Head to the Mayflower, I got her!” Sears yelled. He quickly turned around and drove towards Dana. She got up and ran towards Sears with a limp as fast as she could. Hills and Peters drove to the Mayflower as fast as their Crawlers would take them.

Genres: Science Fiction

246 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 23, 2014

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting plot, let down by some really sloppy writing.
When your descriptions of fights go along the lines of "they did some more martial arts fighting for a bit" it really distracts and feels like he's just not trying.

Also, the brotherly motivations at the start of the book are then mostly discarded and never mentioned again leaving you wondering why it was such a big deal at the start.

Finally, we're to believe that a NASA astronaut from 2025 can design and build robots capable of being almost undetected in an advanced society, or that a mission commander can redesign and remake a wiring run mid-mission, because mass=fuel, and a society trying to gold-hunt on mars (again, mass for return) ain't gonna happen. Or the short transit time to Mars (thus high speed, thus more fuel, thus more mass, thus more fuel, etc)

With these flaws fixed, it could indeed be a very good book.

[Tim Seyfried · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty good

I enjoyed this space opera like book. Lots of twists ending was a little predictable. I enjoyed it a lot.

[Lindsey Brooks · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry. There might be the germ of a good idea here but the writing style is so juvenile I couldn't get past chapter three. I skimmed through the rest but it didn't improve. It was free on Amazon.