The Ancillary

Tales of a Dying Star #2

by David Kristoph

In a dangerously-close orbit around its star floats the Ancillary, a hollowed-out asteroid that harvests energy from the solar ring before relaying it deeper into the Sarian system. It fulfills the entirety of the Melisao Empire's energy needs--a masterful feat of engineering, once.

Now, with the star it orbits dying and the departure of the Exodus Fleet near, the Ancillary's usefulness has come to an end. And so labors Javin, an aging engineer who must dismantle the structure he's spent his entire life maintaining.

But there are those who would take advantage of the Empire's absence. Do they simply want the Ancillary and its precious solar panels, or are their motives more dire?

Genres: Science Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published February 13, 2015

About the author

I live with my wonderful wife and two not-quite German Shepherds. I'm a fantastic reader, great videogamer, good chess player, average cyclist, and mediocre runner. I'm also a member of the Planetary Society, a patron of StarTalk Radio, and an amateur astronomer and general space enthusiast.

Feel free to contact me at David.Kristoph@gmail.com, as long as you're not a spam-robot trying to sell me penis pills.

Reviews

[Aaron Anderson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't really like how the author gives viewpoint characters that are struggling against each other. None of them are very compelling, "good" or "bad". I liked the engineer in this one reasonably well, but the combination of not knowing what the heck was going on, and not caring about the characters just made me not like the book very much.

[Henry Gale · Rating 5 out of 5]

The three parts are more directly related than they were in Siege of Praetar, but in a good way. Wonderfully tragic. It's rare to see sci-fi that's so character driven.

My only complaint was that it was only 250 pages long. Can't wait for the rest of the series.

[Eddie D. Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the time time the second book in a series is not as good as the first. Not this time! You don't have to read the books in order, so, you can start right here and read this one first. It held my attention and I found myself looking for me when I finished. Read it and enjoy my friends.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book through a good reads give-a-way. My understanding is that this book is a sequel to the Tales of a Dying Star. The book is fast paced with lots of surprises. Makes me want to read the first book in the series.

[S. Trust · Rating 5 out of 5]

Follows the same pattern as the first book, so I'd recommend you to read it if you already read the first one. Runs a little slower but picks up at the end, builds the suspense pretty well.

[Charles Nall · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Kristoph did it again! The Ancillary is a worthy followup to the Siege of Praetar. If you liked Siege, you will definitely like Ancillary. I really like how David plots out his stories. There's one main story, but the perspective switches to different characters along the way at well thought-out points.The intense suspense kept building and building; I want to see where the author goes from here.

There's an old "adage" when writing books, or, anything, really. When your characters seem to be victorious, throw a monkey wrench at them and make them deal with an unexpected hiccup. See what your characters do when things get rough. David just doesn't throw a wrench, he throws the whole tool shed at our poor characters! Makes for a good story, though!

-Charles Nall, Author of the Shatterspace series

[Mark Gardner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read book two of TOADS – The Ancillary after the author sent me a copy after my review of book one (TOADS SOP) I hadn’t cared for the ending of book one. While the TOADS series doesn’t end with The Ancillary, I definitely liked the ending better than SOP.

The Ancillary storyline was tighter, and I feel much more interesting than SOP. It been my experience that the sophomore book isn’t as good as the debut, but The Ancillary is a great book and a great story.

I went from reluctantly reading The Ancillary, to looking forward to Sword of Blue. I rated SOP three stars, and I’m gonna bump the rating for The Ancillary to four stars because David Kristoph upped his game.

[Casca Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ancillary is a thrilling, aggressive novella set at a breathless pace, and I loved every second of it. Kristoph does an exceptional job of making every POV character not only believable, but sympathetic and compelling: despite the fact that one of the POV characters is an active antagonist to the other two, by the time I got to his POV chapters, I was rooting for him to win the central conflict. Tales of a Dying Star is a fantastic series, and while I have delayed too long in reading this second book, it was entirely worth the wait, and I eagerly look forward to more work by this author.

[Juan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atmospheric and intense !Mr.Kristoph can sure spin one heck of a tale.

**THank you for my free Goodreads copy**

[Jamielee Prue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to come...