Starship Alchemon
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4.2 • 12 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
From the the award-winning author of the cult-80s classic Liege-Killer and The Paratwa Saga, comes Starship Alchemon – a deep-space action opera combined with a threat to all humanity.
Nine explorers aboard a powerful AI vessel, Alchemon, are sent to investigate an “anomalous biosignature” on a distant planet. But they soon realize their mission has gone to hell as deadly freakish incidents threaten their lives. Are these events caused by the tormented psychic mysteriously put aboard at the last minute? Has the crew been targeted by a vengeful corporate psychopath? Are they part of some cruel experiment by the ship’s ruthless owners? Or do their troubles originate with the strange alien lifeform retrieved from the planet? A creature that might possess an intelligence beyond human understanding or may perhaps be the spawn of some terrifying supernatural force... Either way, as their desperation and panic sets in, one thing becomes clear: they’re fighting not only for their own survival, but for the fate of all humanity.
File Under: Science Fiction [ Deep Space Isolation | Monster on Spaceship | Psychic Powers | All-powerful Sentient AI ]
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hinz (The Paratwa Saga) leans heavily on familiar tropes in this by-the-numbers sci-fi novel. Gifted psionic LeaMarsa de Host is assigned to the crew of the starship Alchemon for an 18-month mission to investigate an "anomalous biosignature" on the planet Sycamore. There, she discovers an odd carbon-based organism which seems to be gestating a fetus. Once brought onboard the Alchemon, the thing, dubbed Bouncy Blue by LeaMarsa, shape-shifts and attacks the crew. This often predictable plot plays out against the backdrop of a universe in which planets are named after contemporary brands, among them Buick Skylark and Pepsi One, and celebrities are cloned with lowered mental capacity so they can be kept as pets by the wealthy. These nods towards a fully realized future with a complex relationship to the present go frustratingly unexplored in favor of archetypical characters advancing through a formulaic plot. Science fiction fans will find little to keep them invested in this competent but unoriginal space opera.
