Aurora: CV-01: Frontiers Saga, Book 1

I bought Aurora CV-01 back in almost 15 years ago and recently came across it again. I hadn't realized that in the intervening years Ryk had become and incredibly prolific author. I was almost disappointed when I saw the entire length of the series. Although I am a voracious reader of scifi, consuming 2-3 books a week, I have difficulty with book series that run long. I always get bored, or the story isn't enough to keep me moving. That's not the case here. Ryk keeps the action moving forward, adding new characters while allowing growth in the series lead characters. I never know what to expect with the direction or status of the characters, which is great. Now I find myself about to start the 22nd book in the series and I missed my subway stop this morning and wound up in Brooklyn I was so engrossed in the end of book 21. If you like Aurora at all, you are going to enjoy this ride.

Ep.#1 - "Aurora: CV-01" (The Frontiers Saga) by Ryk Brown, the first in a series called "The Frontiers Saga", is one of those hidden gems that in the days before the Kindle you'd never have found. Though brief, it's a rousing good example of Space Opera with heroic good guys and dastardly bag guys, and a few guys (and a beautiful woman) who have not yet been categorized. The hero (far more fitting here than "protagonist") is a dashing, Captain James T. Kirk-type, a young hot-shot, good-looking, aggressive, cocksure, and a ladies man - also a helluva starship captain and driver. His name is Nathan Scott and his father is Dayton Scott, a senator on Earth. Nathan and his father don't get along. Earth is recovering from a vaguely described "bio-digital" plague that set humanity back on its heels and from which Earth is only now recovering, thanks to another vaguely described thing called the "data ark" which apparently preserved a bunch of science and technology from the pre-plague years. But it was only recently discovered and humankind has only been out among the stars again for a few decades. During the plague dark age, Earth lost contact not only with the frontiers of human space but with the other core worlds. Meanwhile, a group called the Jung, human but nasty, have moved in and are now threatening earth. For that reason, some humans feel it's important to get back into space and build up the Navy as fast as possible, including FTL drives. Others, like Nathan's father, believe that will only antagonize the Jung. Now that Nathan has joined the Navy, their relationship is more brittle than ever. Nathan finds himself on a top-secret mission which leads him into adventures he could never have imagined. I don't want to offer up any spoilers here, but suffice it to say the story really takes off with Nathan's departure from Earth to begin his naval career. The story is chock-full of interesting characters, including a woman Nathan "bumped into" at his father's big party, class-mates from the academy, and some very interesting folks he meets along the way. Instead of a stereotypical Scot as engineer he has a stereotypical Russian, but it's fun and it works. I agree with the reviewers who have said Ryk Brown is a natural story teller. I think this is obvious from the beginning. The science is more than a little vague, as are Earth politics, and various other things that pop up along the way. But this is all right. One thing you will not have inflicted upon you here is info-dumps. There is nothing to slow the story down. If you just surrender to this and go along with it, you'll be all right. Accept the story for what it is and have fun with it. You can have fun because the story is well-told, internally consistent and fast-paced. The dialogue is choppy in parts and naval personnel say some silly, rather unmilitary things you hear only on Star Trek or Babylon 5 (never in the Honorverse), but such descriptions as exist are easy to follow and you'll find many familiar sci-fi tropes here like FTL and railgun and jump drive and so forth. Other fairly common items like "decoys" and "shields" are missing (at least for Earth technology) but there is enough to make the world easy to understand without a lot of background and detail. It's a fun read, as I said, though short, but it's one of those books that's easy to pick up and continue reading and I look forward to continuing Nathan's saga in episode 2, The Rings of Haven. Highly recommended for any fans of sci-fi and military sci-fi in particular. As an added bonus, the Kindle version seems well edited and is free of the formatting issues bedeviling many Kindle books.

I am an avid reader and I usually limit myself to bestsellers and classics. I rarely feel compelled to write a review because authors in those catagories don't really need my reviews, or are long dead. I have tried a handfull of indie-authored books in the past but have been largely unimpressed. I decided to read this one because of a blog post, and was handsomely rewarded. So I figure that if the author is willing to let me read his book for free, I should give him a review. This book is somewhat formulaic, but there is a reason that so much of science fiction is, and that is that if it is well written, it usually works well. And this is a well written book. It is also well edited with good grammer, puctuation, and formatting. Nothing glaring jumped out at me while reading it. The plot and pacing are both good. It follows a fairly standard story arc. It has been a long time since I have read a book in one day, but this one I did. One reviewer complained about changing POV. I did not notice this but I will pay closer attention in the next book of the series. I had the impression that the author stayed consistently in the third-person subjective POV, meaning that the narrator is not a participant but he is able to "get into the heads" of a few of the key characters. I suspected that what the reviewer meant was that the locus of narration skips around quite a lot. I think that this is a reasonable style choice for the author to make, especially when considering that during the battle scenes, many important events are happening simultaneously in different parts of the ship. I really thought it enhanced the pace of the story rather than detracting from it. Bottom line...If you enjoy science fiction, you should give this book a try. Now I know that a lot of shenanigans go on with reviews from friends and families or even competitors of (especially) indie authors. I don't know this guy from Adam. Never even heard his name till I saw the blog review. The only thing that I owe him is this honest review in return for me letting him try the first title in this series for free. Now he starts getting some of my money.

To tell the truth, I was rather hesitant to start this series - I've read the Honor Harrington series by David Weber and although I enjoyed the books I was burned out on space battles. After a rather slow start, I really enjoyed the rest of the book and am looking forward to reading the next episode. Although the book echos the last "Star Trek" movie (new academy recruit forced to take command in the midst of battle), the characters are interesting and the new worlds they are introduced to make the story move well. I really like the backstory - the Earth colonized other planets but was then devastated by a plague. One thousand years later, just as the planet is returning to the technological age, they find a Data Ark that leaps them into the FTL space age. So they have more technology than most people really understand. This also explains how they run into humans from distant planets who speak Angla (English)and have legends of the home planet, Earth. I agree with another reviewer that the gender conflicts seem somewhat forced, and the anonymous sexual encounter between two main characters in the beginning seems rather pointless (of course, I don't know what is going to happen in future episodes). I know the beginning of the story is meant to give some insight into the main character, Nathan, but as I said, it is rather slow and could be handled as flashbacks more effectively. I also like that the story is not overly descriptive of the technology (as Weber's books are). The reader gets enough to understand what is going on but not so much that they could build a spaceship in the back yard. It is/was smart marketing on the author's part to offer the first episode free - now I have to buy the rest of the books to find out what happens. This is something many authors do and I almost always get suckered in . . . (sigh!). NOTE: I am usually very critical of authors spelling and grammar skills, fortunately this book is well-written (and/or proofed). My only complaint is that the author should learn the difference between taught/taut.

Would I buy it again? Yes (as a prime member I got it for free and then bought it to support the author) Would I recommend it to a friend? Yes Would I buy more from this author? Yes Do I know the author? No We start out with a young man trying to prove himself and escape his father's (political) shadow; on the maiden voyage of the UES's newest ship. All the trite comments about a tried and true sci-fi cookie cutter formula evaporated after the 10% mark. Mr. Brown has managed to, in my opinion "nail it." As a first story in a series it has lots of introductions and personality building. Very quickly I stopped thinking characters, and instead used people to describe the crew; as they come alive in a vivid beautiful detail. While there is always more to know I never felt like a scene had cardboard cutouts tossed in as filler. On the world building we get some flash in the pan broad strokes, enough to infer what has gone on and set a stage for our adventure. On the technical level the author does not bog us down with the how's and why's and just gives us "Push Button To Operate" so no hard corps science; but still a fun story. Perhaps as the series progresses things will flesh out a tad in that department. Truth be told I would rather have PBTO than ill informed or downright BS science that clutters so many stories. I can 'assume' some egghead in the fictional universe could explain it and that is enough for me. Seriously, does not understanding exactly how that iPhone works detract from your satisfaction using it? You touch the screen and it works... why expect the people in a book to be able to explain every item they use as if they were a part of the engineering design team? (and if we really knew how a quantum warp wiz bangie worked would we be.. never mind..) Like any adventure there are a few times you chuckle and say "yeah and the chances of that are?" But it is just that, a sci-fi adventure STORY.. and if you can't accept that that type of thing (avoiding a spoiler) happens than I suggest you look up some historical long shots.. the battle of Midway comes to mind, as well as a few others. The only downside is it is short.. I hope Mr. Brown keeps it up... and up's the word count. Other than that a truly great start to what I hope will become a great series.

I read up through 15 so far, mostly due to lack of better options. This review is more for the series as a whole, some of the books are better than others during the trip through the "episodes". The decade or so I spent in the military and the combat experienced sets what may be a higher bar than most have when it comes to military science fiction. That being said, this series is fairly reasonable in its portrayal of warfare and technologies involved therein. The resultant technology and methods fit with the story, areas where it doesn't feel like a reasonable future tech wise fits well with the dark ages / recovery back story. I mean, seriously, we likely won't have human pilots in atmospheric flight for more than a decade or two, let alone in some far future where we have travel outside of the solar system. I also question the physics when presented with battles spanning light minutes and unguided kinetic weapons or point targeted energy weapon systems. It just seems highly unlikely to be as effective as the author posits. On the plus side, the conveyance of reality when discussing light in relation to the idea of "jumping" is entertaining and well presented. But the real downside of the books isn't the plot, world building, or technological explanations. It's the fairly underdeveloped characters and the fact that over half the prose describes space combat in a fairly repetitive fashion. A more character driven story with some of the generic battles rolled up and presented post-fact may have made for a more engaging read. But in the end, I did read them all. And I only skipped through some of the chapters.

Imaginative space opera with a great cast of characters. Really good storytelling and solid writing. Highly recommended. Reveals a lot about humanity, not just a tech fest.

I'm going to start with the cons, mostly because I want any prospective readers to come away with a positive impression of the book/s. Firstly, too much happens too fast. I understand the author's need to keep a frantic pace to keep the tension up, but it can come off as unrealistic. Secondly, (trying to avoid spoilers here) I don't feel like the inexperience of the characters would allow for some of their decisions. Again, I understand what the author is going for here, and I can appreciate how he is setting them up for growth... it just comes off as slightly unrealistic. Now, with the cons out of the way, here are the pros: Each main character is distinctive and fully fleshed out. You get a strong idea of the personality of each character quickly and none of them come off as "cookie-cutter" characters. IMO, well thought out characters are a larger factor in making a story good than the overall plot. The "universe" created by the author is both familiar and fresh, taking a futuristic setting and presenting it in a way I've never seen before. The battle scenes are filled with tension and a sense of real consequence. The technology is not so far beyond current theoretical possibilities as to require a bunch of Star Trekish technobabble, which keeps the pace of the book from getting bogged down in details that don't really add anything to the story. I'm currently working on book 6 of the series, and the author is definitely getting better at presenting the story in a realistic way. The first couple books can be a bit rough at times, but I firmly believe that this series will continue to get better as it goes. In conclusion, if you like your Sci-fi with a militaristic focus and enough action to keep things interesting, this series is genuinely worth a read. Compelling characters, a real sense of urgency and importance to the mission, a setting that is at once both familiar and fresh, and a clear and concise writing style (that gets better with each book) has made this a series that I am truly enjoying. Even if you have a hard time getting through the first book, keep reading. By the end of the third book I was completely hooked. Ok, now stop reading this review and go buy the book.

While this started a touch slowly, it soon exploded into action. Good characters and believable tech, this book was a pleasure to read. Definitely a page turner!

After a slowish start, this book rocks into tense, exciting non-stop action with likeable characters braving dangers on every side to try to forestall the final destruction of humanity. A real page-turner and a great read!

A very enjoyable read, great characters, story, and worldbuilding. Only criticism is the characters feeling like they should be split up more. Some were at less a few that were two or three combined. Characters 5/5 Story 5/5 Worldbuilding 5/5

Well crafted characters and an interesting world. I really enjoyed this and can't wait for the next installment of the series

I was really pleased to find this series extremely readable. The writing is good, the plot moves along at a cracking pace, and you do feel something for the characters. Perhaps what makes this series stand out is that both the good guys and the bad guys are human. We don't have to have the whole alien species thing, although "human" in this case does encompass a pretty broad spectrum. You do need to read them in sequence, but as someone else says, at this price, they are pretty good value for money. It might also be helpful for new readers to have a bit of an intro that can be skipped to recap the plot. I read the first four one after another so not an issue, but by the time 5,6 and 7 come out there might be a bit of a pause. I wish for them to be a tad longer because I read fast, but am sure that most readers who like space opera will find them very satisfying and a great holiday read. Keep em coming!!!!