Spsfc 3 Book review- The Hollow Sun by Jake Theriault
The Hollow Sun is a fast paced fun filled sci-fi adventure that reminded me a lot of the Star Wars Legends books.
The Blurb
A routine resupply, a space station under siege, a crew stranded 18 million light years from Earth - the only thing that can get them back home is the truth.
Ariel Anderson is Captain of private cargo vessel The Hollow Sun. While docked on the far side of an interstellar gateway at the distant Achilles Two transfer station, she and her crew become trapped when Achilles is boarded by a rogue paramilitary faction known as The Coalition. It is soon discovered that The Coalition is hunting through the station for somebody... somebody the crew of The Hollow Sun know all too well.
The Review
I went into the Hollow Sun not knowing what to expect. What I got was a fast paced and fun sci-fi adventure akin to series like Firefly, The Expanse and the writing style reminded me a lot of authors like Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston.
The story kicks off with a action packed introduction of the titular frigate The Hollow Sun and its crew. The characters are your typical sci-fi cast of super smart and sassy female captain, gruff engineer and a tough weapons officer. As the story progresses we learn some more about their backgrounds and their histories with the ship and with each other. I have to say there were none that were unlikable but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’ve similar characters many times before in other sci-fi adventure novels.
The writing is good and I didn’t spot any blatant errors which is a rarity when it comes to indie books so kudos to the editor who did a great job.
As for the plot it’s your typical sci-fi adventure stuff with some good and fast paced action scenes that at times put me on the edge of my seat. The villains were notably villainous but not in the moustaches twirling villain way, they had genuine reasons to do the things they were doing that were believable.
Overall I did enjoy my time with The Hollow Sun and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s after a shorter action packed sci-fi adventure. However, due to the strength of the books entered into our batch of the SPSFC 3 I can’t put this through to the next round as I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’ve read books similar to it before and whilst well written and a fun ride it didn’t really stand out compared to some of the others in our group. I do hope the author keeps going with this concept as he has genuine talent and more books and time with The Hollow Sun crew could definitely kick off a strong sci-fi series.
