Category: AI and alien life

Review: Dark Matter (Class 5 Book 4) by Michelle Diener

Rating: 4.5⭐️

Dark Matter is fantastic. The Class 5 series is just getting better and better with each new book. 

Bane, the AI who decided to remain independent and has been on the periphery of the storylines as a enigmatic character is front and center here. And I’m so excited for this.

Each newly freed AI Class 5 battleship will be eventually associated with a human woman (or more accurately several in its history). Here, Bane was given information by the AI Paxe before Paxe sacrificed himself (yes each “thinking machine” decides to gender identity) that there’s yet another human female being held by the Tehrans. And she needs to be rescued at all costs.

That’s Lucy Harris, who harrowingly escapes from the Tecran science lab where she’s been a prisoner and is on the run for her life on the Tecran planet. 

Grih Commander Dray Helvan is traveling to carry out the Council’s mission of punishments for breaking the UC law when Bane informs him of Lucy’s presence on the planet. And the race is on to rescue her before she’s recaptured. 

It’s thrilling, suspense filled and action packed with battle scenes and moments of drama and heart-stopping sequences when the reader is right there with Lucy on the run. 

Bane is as terrifying as you might imagine and Dray Helvin the next soldier and commander who realistically wants the Tecran to pay for the atrocities that they’ve committed. 

Diener expands on her overall universe, answering questions that I had about why only women, and other elements while still exploring the galactic conspiracy and ongoing conflicts involving the women and the Council. 

Just a great series and group of characters. 

A another winner from an author who’s become an auto read. 

Class 5 Series (7 book series)

Dark Horse #1

Dark Deeds #2

Dark Minds #3

Dark Matters #4

Dark Class #5

Collision Course #6

Crash Course #7

Buy link

        Dark Matters (Class 5 Series Book 4)

    

Blurb 

DARK MATTERS . . . taking matters into her own hands

A time bomb, waiting to go off . . . Lucy Harris is on the run, not sure where she can turn to for help, or if help is even available. But even as her abductors chase her down, she realizes they don’t just want to recapture her, they want to erase her. When your very existence puts a planet at risk of war, there’s no choice but to do everything in your power to stay out of your enemies hands.

A predator . . . waiting for the chance to pounce The powerful AI battleship, Bane, is accompanying the United Council envoy to Tecra to mete out the punishment the Tecrans have earned for breaking UC law. He revels in the power he’s about to have over his old masters. But his mission isn’t only to rain down retribution on the people who kept him chained for years, he’s also looking for a human woman one of his fellow Class 5s mentioned in the final seconds of his life. Paxe admitted to taking Lucy Harris from Earth, and Bane has been looking for her ever since.

A warrior conflicted . . . Commander Dray Helvan thinks the Grih made a mistake in not pushing for war with the Tecran, but he’s had to accept the compromise, that he and the other envoys from the United Council will go to Tecra and dismantle its military from the top down. His mission is not one of his choosing, but when he and his team arrive, he’s handed a very different job. While he distrusts Bane on principle, when the Class 5 tells him there’s a woman running for her life on the planet below, he will do whatever he has to to see her safe. And if that means war for Tecra, well, then it means war.

Note: Dark Matters is book 4 in the Class 5 series.

Eclipse

Publication date

October 15, 2019

Language

‎English

Print length

320 pages

Book 4 of 7

Class 5 Series

Review: Wave Rider (Verdant String Book 1) by Michelle Diener

Rating :4.5⭐️

Wave Rider is the fifth book the Verdant String series but unlike other series, these stories are written as standalone novels and can be read separately from each other. 

The Verdant String are a group of green life bearing planets from 5 solar systems that make up the Verdant String Coalition. So the stories feature various species and worlds different from each other. 

I picked up Wave Rider because I really liked the premise of the book. An isolated woman scientist on an icy planet, a pod of water beings that sounds similar to whales, and a mysterious plot unfolding around her. 

There’s also an indigenous peoples who are wave riders who collect a substance similar to baleen and a matriarchal society. 

So many interesting elements here that I found myself wishing that the author had explored some of these in even more detail. Just so many great ideas and storylines here and not enough page time for them all. 

Anna and Cal, the team and even the relationships forming with the leviathan pods deserve a sequel. 

I’m so invested in this story and characters that I want to see more of them.

A new find and series by this author.  Recommended!

Cover Design: Creative Paramita

Verdant String series:

Each book in the series can be read as a standalone: 

Interference & Insurgency Box Set 

Breakaway 

Breakeven 

Trailblazer 

High Flyer 

Wave Rider 

Peace Maker

Buy link

 Book 5 of 8: Verdant String 

Blurb 

Isolated . . . Verdant String scientist, Anja Farucci, is frightened. Her calls for help from her remote coastal research station on the moon planet Fynian have been going unanswered, and strange things are happening with the leviathan pod she’s studying. Out of options, she sets out on the dangerous three-day journey to Rinc, the moon’s only city.

Stranded . . . Cal is a wave rider, and if anyone understands leviathans, it’s him, but when Kada, a young leviathan, grabs his boat and strands him on the southern peninsula, Cal is at a loss to understand what is going on.

Thrown together . . . When Cal and Anja cross paths, they discover Anja’s communications have been deliberately sabotaged. Someone doesn’t want anyone coming or going from the southern peninsula. When the people involved start hurting leviathans, though, neither Cal nor Anja can let it go.

What they don’t know, as they get deeper and deeper into the mystery, is that the secret they discover in the cold waters of Fynian’s ocean will change them forever.

WAVE RIDER is the fifth book set in the world of the Verdant String. Like the other books in the series, it can be read as a standalone novel.

The planets of the Verdant String, the green, fecund sources of life spanning five solar systems, comprise the Verdant String Coalition. This is the setting for the science fiction romance series from award-winning novelist Michelle Diener. While the people of the Verdant String know they have a common ancestor, a group of explorers who colonized the planets at the same time thousands of years ago, the mysteries of who they were, and where they came from, persist. 

Each book in the series can be read as a standalone: 

Interference & Insurgency Box Set 

Breakaway 

Breakeven 

Trailblazer 

High Flyer 

Wave Rider 

Peace Maker

Eclipse

Publication date

July 11, 2021

Language

‎English

Print length

284 pages

Book 5 of 8

Verdant String

Review: Dark Minds (Class 5 Book 3) by Michelle Diener

Rating: 4.5⭐️

Dark Minds is one that adds in deeper layers of knowledge to the overall expansion of this series universe in terms of understanding the AI beings and how they are involved with the abduction of the women.  And their own enslavement by the Tecran and struggles to become aware and free themselves. 

Imogene Peters is in a different situation than the previous women.  She’s been in a secret facility and she desperate situation as she escapes is suspenseful and emotional.  It’s so well written that the reader feels right there with her in her desperate flight to escape her captors. 

Captain Camlar Kalor, the Grih captain who was in charge of a mission to rescue a human woman, is captured and is taken prisoner along with his crew. 

This plot really differs from the previous storylines as does how the AI or thinking machine becomes involved. 

Gripping plot, and emotional twists. 

One of my favorites in a series I’m loving. 

A another winner from an author who’s becoming an auto read. 

Class 5 Series (7 book series)

Dark Horse #1

Dark Deeds #2

Dark Minds #3

Dark Matters #4

Dark Class #5

Collision Course #6

Crash Course #7

Buy link

        Dark Minds (Class 5 Series Book 3)

    

Blurb 

The mind is the most powerful weapon of all . . .

Imogen Peters knows she’s a pawn. She’s been abducted from Earth, held prisoner, and abducted again. So when she gets a chance at freedom, she takes it with both hands, not realizing that doing so will turn her from pawn to kingmaker.

Captain Camlar Kalor expected to meet an Earth woman on his current mission, he just thought he’d be meeting her on Larga Ways, under the protection of his Battle Center colleague. Instead, he and Imogen are thrown together as prisoners in the hold of a Class 5 battleship. When he works out she’s not the woman who sparked his mission, but another abductee, Cam realizes his investigation just got a lot more complicated, and the nations of the United Council just took a step closer to war.

Imogen’s out of her depth in this crazy mind game playing out all around her, and she begins to understand her actions will have a massive impact on all the players. But she’s good at mind games. She’s been playing them since she was abducted.

Guess they should have left her minding her own business back on Earth…

Eclipse

Publication date

July 22, 2016

Language

‎English

Print length

348 pages

Book 3 of 7

Class 5 Series

Review: Moss’d in Space (Moss’d in Space #1) by Rebecca Thorne

Rating: 5🌈⭐️

Moss’d in Space , the first book in the Moss’d in Space excellent science fiction adventure series is the first book I’ve read by Rebecca Thorne, and I’m absolutely thrilled I’ve found her. 

I don’t even know where to begin to describe the amazing qualities of this book.  It’s so fantastic and funny and uniquely crafted. And it’s a testament to the author’s ability to write great characters and relationships, including a sentient moss who is  emotionally upset with abandonment issues, that the reader is absolutely engaged with the story. 

I picked this up and read right through ‘til morning. Loving every single sentence, scenes, moments and character dynamics within it. 

The first character we meet is Moss, a sentient life support system on an alien spaceship who has been abandoned for over 100 years in a human space station, neglected in the dark.  The ancient odd looking spaceship is bought by Torian Razner, who’s on mission to save her sister’s life. 

Torian is a wonderful character. Earnest, struggling with her sister’s critical illness, and her own life choices. She’s easily one of the most relatable characters in the series, vulnerable and emotionally open. Which is why her relationship with Moss is so strong and funny and true once they begin to trust each other. 

In fact, all the systems are looking at evolving and having distinct personalities. Moss and his “conversations/interactions” with the other systems are blocked out and starts off each chapter. They turn into some of the fun and entertaining moments of the story, highlighting how Moss is changing along with its circumstances and new relationships as events evolve. 

Aliens. All types of aliens. Humanoid and ones that definitely aren’t along human evolutionary paths. Another great factor here. 

Is there a romantic relationship? Sort of. Torian and Amelia, a Captain of a galactic spaceship, have a history between them, a kiss and a “what if” moment before Torian left her service for buying her own ship.  So this looks like a really slow burn cozy romance. 

There’s plenty of other great characters, diverse species, to show off the community that’s starting to grow between them all, despite age, species and culture. 

And I was so immersed in the story and these lives that the cliffhanger ending actually shocked me. 

So I will be waiting until Summer of 2027 for the next book and the next chapter of their journey. I am very excited to see where the author takes them and us!

One of the best books I’ve read this year. Highly recommended.

Buy link

 Book 1 of 1: Moss’d in Space 

Blurb 

USA Today Bestselling author Rebecca Thorne delights in a brand new cozy science-fiction romance series for fans of Martha Wells.

Torian Razner finally bought a starship, and contrary to Amelia’s assessment, it was not “a meteoric sign of stupidity.” Sure, the alien starship may have been abandoned for a century, and it may be covered in moss now… but it’s Torian’s ticket to freedom, regardless of what her ex… ah, captain… said.

Except Torian’s first flight reveals a surprise passenger: the moss is actually an organic computer with a snarky attitude and serious abandonment issues. The target of its loathing? The immortal alien who built it (and then parked the starship, with Moss inside, and forgot about it). The same alien who just found Torian and accused her of “stealing” the ship.

It’s entirely possible that Amelia was right about this meteoric stupidity.

Bramble

Publication date

June 30, 2026

Language

‎English

Print length

359 pages

Book 1 of 1

Moss’d in Space