S.H. JuchaCritiques

be warned.....it's a huge HUGE series......

and darn it I fell in love. My TBR is toast

DNF at 80%

Gave up with just 2 hours left on audible book. All talk, talk, talk and nothing happening. Main character could do no wrong. All the good guys were tall and beautiful. Aliens that attacked ship have not been seen or heard in 70 years, so our heroes slowly and I do mean slowly prepare for the next encounter. Really tried to finish this and wish I'd given up a lot earlier.

Din pacate omul asta scrie foarte plat, oricat de interesant parea sa fie subiectul la inceput.

DNF at 25%

I tried. I really tried. I almost never DNF a book this early--and I rarely DNF books at all--but this one was only getting more and more frustrating. Unfortunately, this book suffers from many first-novel mistakes, but to an Nth degree. The hero is flawless, and everybody loves him--though we can't quite tell why, because he's so perfectly heroic and flawless that, as readers, we want him to be knocked off his pedestal. There's a lack of action and conflict, the characters are unfailingly polite to each other, and clear questions related to plot/motivation go entirely ignored. As frustratingly, so much is told vs. shown, with the really interesting moments being summarized rather than explored, that it feels like we're getting the cliffnotes of what might have been an interesting story, vs. being allowed to engage with it.

Most of the issues here are common enough first-novel issues, but when piled together into one book that suffers some from some serious flaws in plotting and characterization, they make for an incredibly difficult read. I hope that the writer employed a developmental editor and worked on improving his craft in future books, but I'm afraid I won't be trying another book by the author.

I liked these whole series but sometimes the plot is too naive. An example is this book where humans are being used as drones to do mining. A civilization that can built starships and artificial intelligence entities wouldn’t care for fragile humans and the entire expense for them so the human do the mining and refining. 😬

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

Alex has been moving asteroids with his space ship for some time when he finds an alien craft in distress and decides to make contact with it.

This was an interesting space opera, mostly in the first half though. I enjoyed the part were Alex and the AI from the other craft are together the best. Once the rest of the surviving crew was revived the story became a lot more generic. However, it did have some interesting themes. In the novel two different civilization have arisen from different space ships that fled the earth. In the time that has passed, they grown into quite distinct civilizations, making the others feel 'alien' even though they are actually human.

The silver ships referenced in the title most likely refer to some actual non-human aliens, which we'll probably encounter in the next book. While this book was far from perfect and ended exactly like one would expect, I am curious enough to read at least the second book in the series as well.

The Silver Ships is the first book in the Silver Ships series. The second book Libre has just been released!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Alex Racine operates an asteroid tug boat, Outward Bound, in the asteroid belt of human colony system of New Terra. It's been over seven hundred years since their ancestors arrived fleeing a badly damaged Earth, and had a rough arrival that cost them many of their original colonists. It's been a hundred years since they recovered enough technology to get back into space. They've colonized another world in their system, and are exploiting the asteroid belt.

What they haven't had is any contact with Earth or anyone else since they arrived. It's quite a surprise when Racine sees an unfamiliar ship coming from, apparently, outside the system. This strange ship is badly damaged and doesn't respond to his radio calls, so he captures it with the tools he uses to capture asteroids, and investigates.

The Reveur is from Meridien, a human colony founded at about the same time as New Terra, but they didn't have the rough arrival of the New Terrans, and retained their technology, which has since advanced. They have, for instance, FTL drive, highly developed nanite technology, and real artificial intelligence. They have thriving colony worlds of their own.

The bad news is, the Reveur was attacked, at one of their colonies, by a completely unfamiliar ship, a sliver ovoid that didn't respond to any attempts at contact and did major damage with energy weapons unlike anything either Meridien or New Terra has. They were able to escape into FTL, but in an arbitrary direction and with major crew casualties. All the survivors are in stasis, while Juilien, the ship's SADE (Self Actualizing Digital Entity) controls the ship.

The New Terrans and the Meridiens, with very different cultures separated by seven centuries, face a major threat and need to come together to protect the only parts of the human race they can be sure still exist.

The first few pages aren't too compelling, as our introduction to Alex Racine is more than a bit Mary Sue-ish. He's really smart, he's really handsome, he invented an amazing new technique for getting asteroids to where they're needed while he was barely more than a kid. But then the story really starts, and things move along nicely. I very much liked the fact that neither New Terra nor Meridien is portrayed as a utopia or as obviously superior to the other. They both have real strengths and real weaknesses, and confronting the common enemy is going to depend on blending their resources, technology, and abilities together. The characters are individuals, too, good and bad, weak and strong, and there's a basic assumption that gender is just one more personal characteristic.

Overall, this is a well-written, enjoyable story. It is the first of a series, so there's more to come. While Hugo eligible for 2016, I wouldn't say it's award worthy--but I do hope to see more from Jucha. It's a promising start, and we can hope to see even better in the future.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

The Méridiens of the ship Rêveur have returned to Confederation space with their new allies, the New Terrans, expecting to be welcomed delightedly after their long absence and presumed loss. Instead, they find that the same silver ships that nearly destroyed Rêveur have destroyed half the Confederation, and the surviving Méridiens have no plan except to flee, abandoning their long-settled worlds.

This plan does not sit well with the crew of Rêveur, neither her surviving Méridien crew nor her new captain, Alex Racine, and his fellow New Terrans. Having proven the silver ships can be fought, they want to take the fight to the enemy. To do that, though, they need help, resources and volunteers who will have to come from the Méridiens, who for the most part don't believe either that fighting can be effective, or that killing is ever justified.

But Confederation society has a dark secret--a whole prison colony of "independents," people unwilling to conform to peaceful, prosperous, but mostly quiescent Confederation society.

A whole planet of independent free thinkers.

This is good, old-fashioned, space adventure, with battles with aliens, ingenuity, derring-do, and culture clashes among the different societies--the Confederation culture of most Méridiens; the "independents" of Libre, and the new society that's forming on Rêveur, blending the customs and viewpoints of both New Terrans and Méridiens, constructing a new culture capable of fighting the threat to all humanity that the silver ships represent. There's lots of danger, challenges, on-the-fly can-do engineering...

What's different from "the good old stuff" is that Jucha is writing from the social assumptions and dynamics of the 2010s, not the 1950s. Or 1930s. Both smart characters and stupid ones, good and bad, come in both male and female, as well as the range of ethnic options represented in the populations of New Terra and the Confederation. in a way that feels natural and realistic.

It's just a good, solid, enjoyable story, with pretty good characters and world-building. Both have gotten stronger since the first book, The Silver Ships, although Alex Racine is still improbably capable. Overall, this is a lot of what I want when I wish for some of "the good old stuff," without the baggage that makes me hesitate to pick up a Golden Age old favorite for fear it won't be as good as remembered.

Recommended.

I bought this book.

Din pacate omul asta scrie foarte plat, oricat de interesant parea sa fie subiectul la inceput.

My fourth book by this author and the fourth book in this series.

It’s . . um . . six to nine years after the end of the previous book and a new batch of problems have strolled in. They are in a heavily weaponized ship, claim to be from a ‘United Earth’ and would kindly like everyone to join them. Since they arrived in Méridien space first, and Méridien are Méridiens, their attempts to convey this information, and any and all communication are answered with . . . . silence. The Méridiens work on their own time and not even the entrance into their system of a spaceship that looks built for war will change their stance. Heck, they let half their civilization be destroyed the last time their confederation was invaded, why would they change now?

Well, one of the Méridien house leaders is unhappy with how things are playing out and heads off to ask help from someone who has shown that they can handle themselves and threats. Namely Racine, President of Haraken. President Racine proceeds to examine the situation.

The book is a good and interesting continuation of the series. Mostly quite fun and exciting. Just one specific thing that has been a relatively reoccurring issue keeps popping up to annoy the hell out of me – the author likes taking time, and pages and pages of text to give backstories for every little itty bitty character he comes across (well, not really, but he likes suddenly thrusting readers into unimportant characters backstories; the not really has to do with he doesn’t actually give everyone’s backstory). It slows everything down and, quite frankly, I don’t need to know, deeply know, a character that will never again be seen by the reader. Either because they, right after that, die, or because . . . they just disappear from the active story-line.

Otherwise, as I noted, a good continuation to the series. I look forward to the next book.

March 18 2016

My third read by this author and third in this series.

First up: This is one of those books that even half stars wouldn’t help me ‘place it’. It is probably more of a 3.8 than 3.5 or 4, so I round up to 4.

Two major problems encountered – the somewhat repetitious manner of the book (some is just catching people up to date with the series, some are the same things being said more than once a few paragraphs apart) plus the almost overwhelming amount of ‘stuff’ that was examined and talked about. Sure, setting up a new society and stuff, but some of it got a little too ‘who cares-ish’.

There were two ‘best parts’ sections. The first involved the fight between the silver ships and Alex’s people when they returned to Libre. The second was the first time the point of view shifted to the crab/scorpion people. Both sections were quite interesting/thrilling/exciting.

And . . . um. I suppose the only other thing that I can think of to note is that I kind of got tired of Alex. I mean, he’s happy something went correctly so he kisses his subordinate full on the mouth? To the point that she mentions, later, that he is a good kisser? What the fuck is that about? So yeah, I was kind of losing my ability to like Alex there.

Mmph. I kept trying to come up with things to put here but I can’t really think of anything else. Oh, the only other thing I could think of is that I kept mentally seeing the people from Libre as being Librarians. I’m not sure why. I don’t mean, work in a library, I mean, I saw their collective name as being Librarians. It amused me.

I liked the first book in this series and wished to immediately continue. But, alas, second book wasn't out yet. It actually was released August 1st, but I only noticed it being out when I looked early October. When I did my normal little 'let's run through every author I've read to see if anything new is out' thingie I sometimes do. And spotted the new book.

I almost didn't begin reading. Why? Because I did what I sometimes do. Even though I knew I wanted to read this book, I glanced at the reviews. They almost scared me away, they did. But I ignored them and dove in. And am quite glad I did.

This book was a quite enjoyable natural continuation of the series. There were some certain issues that I had with it that weren't that major. Like how Alex is this super good Admiral that everyone loves. And . . . keeps secrets from (people keeping secrets from the Admiral). That was vaguely strange, though I understood why. I had other 'issues' that I can't specifically recall at the moment, but do recall one specific one. I disliked how the book ended. Another little cliff-hanger. Another little - 'must wait for next book to be released' I've put myself into.

Hmm. Apparently I didn't have a whole hell of a lot to say. The combined New Terrans and Meridiens arrive at Libre. They intermingle (Alex's gang and the Librans). Alien spaceships might be heading to Libre. They, Librans, are attempting to flee. Alex and his gang help while also building some weapons. Stuff happens.

This is probably a solid 4 star book as opposed to some I've rated 4 stars and wished I had other levels I could use, like 1/2 stars.

(oh, one final thought, doesn't mean anything really, but every time I thought of the Librans I thought of them as being the Librarians. That's just me messing up words).

The Silver Ships
By S.H. Jucha
Published by S.H. Jucha, U.S.; 2015

A stunning new sci-fi novel “The Silver Ships” will quickly grab you - and hold you close until the very end!
Outward Bound, an explorer tug in space, captained by Alex Racine and his high end bridge computer Tara come across an odd object in the distance. After 700 years without human - or any other contact, this strange vessel is a huge surprise!
Alex quickly learns that this alien ship is built of bigger, better technology - and he has to wonder - is this a rescue? Or is he about to become alien food?
“The Silver Ships” by S.H. Jucha is a fantastic read that I will both quickly share - and recommend! Jucha takes you along on this incredible adventure - and you won’t be disappointed.

I received this book for free to review. I am a member of GoodReads, LibraryThing, NetGalley and maintain a book blog at http://dbettenson.wordpress.com .

Back story: Earth dying, colony ships sent out in various directions, fewer than planned. Book opens roughly 732 years later.

A single system ... um, country? Whatever the entity should be called, the single system entity has a ice tug captain floating around in space gathering ice asteroids. He spots a drifting spaceship of unknown design and investigates. And thus begins the reuniting of humanity. At least the descendents of two separate colony ships.

The book had an intriguing concept, an interesting concept. Progressed logically. Book ended somewhat abruptly though. The assumption is that this is a start to a series. Which it is, though only the first book has so far been released.