Rogue Planet

Flight of the Javelin, Book 3

By: Rachel Aukes

Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller

Space isn't so big after all.

The Black Sheep are ready for a vacation. Instead, they get sucked into a black hole that spits them out into an uncharted system with a single rogue planet that's inhabited by an AI force that's none too fond of humanity.

From there, they find themselves at the front of a deadly military operation to stop the alien threat before it's too late.

The battle against planet rogue has arrived.

Grab the unforgettable, epic finale in the Flight of the Javelin trilogy by Rachel Aukes. This is space opera at it's best.

©2020 Aethon Books (P)2020 Aethon Audio

Tell Me There's Another Book Coming!

Another excellent book in the Javelin series. Now our intrepid heroes are helping fight a swarm of AIs who are intent on the destruction of organic life. And humans were the ones that created the original von Neumann probes that the AIs evolved from. It ends in a cliffhanger. Please tell me there's more coming!

The Culmination of All Their Fears

So the worst has finally happened. Our heroes face a demon of an enemy. It is much stronger than the whole GP force. What will they do?

Well built intrigue

The Javelin crew has ten days off to enjoy after their last mission, but they decide to use this time to go after Punch, who secretly extracted important files about the Atlas network with Sylvain’s help, possibly to sell them. What the crew finds, when the Javelin arrives at the meeting point, is not what they expected, and while giving pursue to a foreign spaceship, they get dragged into a black hole, which takes them to a system unknown to mankind.

This book was a hoot from the start. It was a fast-paced story with several twists. The intrigue was well built, and it kept me hooked for the most part. There were many questions from previous books that were answered in this installment, so overall, it felt quite satisfying. One of the things that made me enjoy the book, apart from the intrigue, was that after some books, I feel I know the characters well, and that helped me relate to them.

The last third of the book was the most difficult part for me, as the tone of the book changed and it was quite different from the first two thirds. There were new characters involved in the action and I missed descriptions and background information. This is something that I experience at the beginning with the Black Sheep crew, but I got to know them after several books. The fact that these characters were completely new to me made me not sympathize with them, and at that point, I stopped caring much about the outcome. I think that last part dragged a bit for me. There were big events happening but somehow they felt a bit flat. I just wanted to care more but I was not able. I think in my mind I created great expectations for the big reveal, and the reality was a different one.

Emily Woo Zeller delivered a great narration. She has a pleasant voice, and her character interpretations and voices were sublime. A minor issue was that some kind of audio artifact was audible at the end of paragraphs and chapters, which was a bit distracting. It was not too evident but noticeable enough when listening with headphones. It was nevertheless a very enjoyable narration.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Must Listen Series for 2020/21

Rogue Planet picks up a few months after the events of Free Station, in which Anna East attacked the Base of Operations of the Peacekeepers and tried to kill not only all the Marshalls, but destroy the Station itself.
As a part of the clean-up operations, the Chief assigned Punch to Throttles crew, so that Punch could learn to be more of a team member, and learn to be more like a proper Marshall, after some of his activities were called into question.
Having completed their latest assignment at the start of book 3, the crew and Punch are given some leave, and Punch is allowed his ship, the High Spirit, back again, under certain constraints.
Punch immediately heads to a rather dodgy part of space, and Throttle and the crew follow him, worried that he is going to do something bad – because they know that during the raid on Free Station, he took a copy of sensitive data, using Sylvain to do it, and they want to know why.
However, all is not as it seems, and when Punch gets into trouble, Throttle and the crew intercede to help him. It is during this engagement, that something very strange happens.
Whilst in an asteroid belt, known for being a bit of a Bermuda Triangle for missing ships, the Javelin is suddenly sucked down a black hole, and after an extended period in black space, they suddenly arrive in an unknown part of space.
Disorientated, and with only the enemy ship on their scopes, they follow it, before discovering a Rogue Planet.
However, this is not like any sort of Rogue Planet that anyone has seen before (If Han was here, he would say ‘I have a bad feeling about this…”, right before Obi-wan says, ‘That’s no Moon…”), because what is before them is a planet that is teeming with Swarm.
This book finally gives us some insight into the Swarm, the dreaded enemy that nearly wiped out humanity over 300yrs earlier, and has become nothing more than a Myth or something to scare children with now.
However, they are very much real, and very much a threat, as the Ross System is about to find out.
Rogue Planet however is not just about the Swarm, for we also get to see another side of Punch, the Marshall who operates differently to how Throttle and her team operate. Even more interesting, is the evolving relationship between Eddy and Rusty, as well as getting to understand Eddy’s character a lot more in this book.
At the start of this book, we learn that Punch has a daughter, who has been kidnapped, and Punch will do just about anything to get her back.
As such, this story has multiple facets, looking at Punch, and his Daughter and her abduction and rescue. However, the much bigger threat, (without giving too much away), are the Swarm.
This book is full on with more action than you know what to do with!! There is some of the best ship to ship combat I have read this year, Aukes does an exceptional job in describing the ships firing on each other, ducking, weaving and in some cases, impacting with each other. She has really thought through to, the outcomes of this in a vacuum, and described it with a clever and creative use of language, giving intricate details of the flash freezing of the vacuum, or the explosive decompression into space. It was so well done.
Something that is really well done in this series is the sheer complexity of the world building (or Universe building in this case), in which Aukes has taken her crew from one Galaxy to another, there are Pirate organisations, Marshall organisations, multiple colonies and planets, an AI enemy, and not to mention, a massive amount of characters and ships etc. All of this has been done with such depth, and intricate detail. Aukes has really made a major effort to make sure that the story is fully supported with some spectacularly intricate multi-faceted, and in some cases, multi-dimensional, information, so that the reader can really immerse themselves into the story and get totally lost in it, and enjoy it completely for what it is – good old fashioned action adventure Space Opera with a twist of Mil Sci-Fi, and then some bits of Galactic Empire, Alien Invasion, Space Exploration and a bit of First Contact. There is also some really good humour in there to keep it real. Aukes is a gifted Author, and has created a magnificent playing field to tell her story.
As with all the other books, the Character writing is exceptional. There is some great Character development, not just of the crew, but surprisingly, from Punch and his Daughter. It made for a really interesting side story.
Overall, this is a fantastic 3rd book in the series – and given that this is probably the best of the 3 books so far, it bodes well for a continuation of the series in the future, especially for the quality of the series.
If you have read the other books in the series, you will love this episode, and it is a must read.
If you haven’t started the series yet, do yourself a favour – get into it!!
Emily Woo Zeller is easily one of the best Female Narrators out there today. She has a stunningly beautiful voice that is just so easy to listen to, you can listen to it for hours. I suffer from a chronic pain injury, and I have found that listening to books by Emily actually really help relax me, as she has such a soothing voice, and she reads so well, so clear.
She is a master at creating different voices, both male and female, and she creates a wonderful range of individual voices as well, so that each character has their own distinctive voice. She is incredibly gifted at being able to provide a variety of voices, allowing you to tell who is talking, without having to be told. When you listen to an audiobook, you want someone who can just tell the story, clearly, concisely, so you can understand it, with good clear character voices. Emily excels at this, and is completely mesmerising with her ability to tell a story. Just as important, she really conveys the emotional state of the character, so you fully understand how the character is feeling.
This is one series in which you want to listen to it, as Emily Woo Zeller’s performance is so good, it is so much better than reading it. Outstanding Job.

Well done in this trilogy ender

The other two entries in this series are good, but this one is superb. There are tons of surprises, and even a few heartbreaks. All out war has a way with that.

Give it a read of you like syfy, futuristic battles, and unique, clever characters.

Black Sheep for Life

The Black Sheep are back. They are told to take some time off. Unfortunately Punch is still with the crew, but he is definitely not trusted and is up to something. Punch gets a private message and is very secretive. Instead of taking their vacation together, they decide to follow Punch.

It is a good thing they do, Punch goes out to meet someone in space and is blasted. His ship is seriously damaged. They rescue the two people and pursue the other ship. Unfortunately they get sucked into a black hole. Rusty is trying to help but keeps going out of commission due to interference from the black hole. The crew finds out the other person was Punch’s daughter and that he traded plans for the Atlas network for her.

The rest of the story is about what/who they find on the other side of the black hole, but let’s just say they are not alone.

Pychopathic murdering police are really good guys.

One of the hero's is a marshal that murders people he doesn't like, to the mild irritation of his boss. He is of course a privileged white man and is apparently a good guy at heart.

I don't know when this was written but it hasn't aged well. If sexism racism and murder are your thing then these are your characters.