The Second Ship

The Rho Agenda, Book 1

By: Richard Phillips

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews

Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

In 1948, an alien starship crash-landed in the New Mexico desert and brought with it the key to mankind’s future. Code-named the Rho Project, the landing was shrouded in secrecy, and only the highest-ranking US government and military personnel knew it existed. Until now.

The US president is preparing to unveil one of the nation’s greatest secrets when three students stumble across the wreckage of a second ship outside of Los Alamos. With a single touch, the alien technology the government has spent untold resources trying to unlock is uploaded into the minds of three teenagers — teenagers who now know the frightening truth about the Rho Project.The battle for humanity has begun.

©2012 Richard Phillips (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Only Ok

Too long of a setup for too little substance
Nothing overtly surprising or new
Narrator was better than the book but still flat at times

way too tecky

What did you like best about The Second Ship? What did you like least?

It gave me hope that there was a good story woven into the trilogy

Would you ever listen to anything by Richard Phillips again?

no

What three words best describe MacLeod Andrews’s performance?

average, adequate

Could you see The Second Ship being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

no

Terrific story

Being well past what is euphemistically called "middle age" I tend to be suspicious of books with "young adults" as the main protagonists. Clearly not all such books are aimed exclusively at teenagers (see Harry Potter, for one example), but many are written for and aimed at a reading group to which I no longer belong. Had I known that the 3 main characters in this book were teenagers I would probably have passed it by, so I am glad that I did not know.

For a book with young heroes and heroines (I am old enough to still use that term) this book is surprisingly well drawn with an interesting story line, characters with sufficient faults to be believable and enough really bad villains to have caught my attention immediately. Added to that is the fact that the author does not fall into any of the easy clichés, things do not happen as expected and there are enough interesting turns of events to keep things from getting boring. This is a terrific first volume in the series.

By the time I realized that our 3 young characters were the central characters in the book I was far too hooked to stop listening. When I finished listening to the book I decided to buy and download the sequel. The story was great, the narration was superb and I am curious exactly what is going to happen next. I can't ask for much more than that in a work of fiction.

A little Sci Fi fun.

The Second Ship is the first book in The Rho Agenda trilogy with the second being Immune and the third Wormhole. The book starts out in the past in 1948 with alien ships crash landing on our planet and quickly works it's way in to the present day. One of the ships is held by the government in a secret facility and the second ship is found by 3 high school kids. The three high schoolers quickly find that their life's are about to change when they discover they are capable of more, a lot more.

This series was a fun light read that was fun to seat back and see where things lead. I never tried to over analysis things and just let the writer take liberty's for the sake of convenience sometimes. That being said I was always entertained and looked forward to seeing what would happen next. One of the nice things about this series is it has the same narrator MacLeod Andrews throughout.

Nice Surprise...

I was looking for something new to read and purchased this book solely on the reviews. Fun story, great narrator, I plan to purchase the next book in the series.

Good book- no ending

An enjoyable book but there is no conclusion. It just stops. Very disappointing. Feel cheated.

Really Glad I found this book!

Would you consider the audio edition of The Second Ship to be better than the print version?

I am normally not a big young adult literature reader, but I have to say that a friend recommended this book to me without saying the protagonists were teenagers. I have to say by the time I figured it out, I was hooked on the story. It is a great listen.

Keeps you guessing

I love the fact that it keeps you guessing, I mean you can't guess the next move. Some books you just know what is coming next but this book is written so well ,that what you think is coming turns into something unexpected, that is a good book. I'm am looking forward to the next one.

An entertaining sci-fi thriller

The Second Ship is a story about 3 teens who stumble upon a crashed alien ship. This ship gives them enhanced mental abilities. But at the same time, the government also has an alien ship (the first ship), and it would appear that ship's creators had evil intentions in mind. Both ships were battling each other before crashing to earth, so obviously the humans in this story will ultimately be picking sides.

This was a really interesting story with some great twists and plot lines. I enjoyed the unique abilities the teens gained from the second ship, and the abilities/technologies revealed from the first ship. Things like agility, mathematics, photogenic memory, telepathy, and quick healing.

I didn't like was one character who first discovered the second ship (and seemed to be fairly useless to the plot), some of the other bad guys tended to be a bit flat, and some parts of the book were just a bit too slow for me and left me drifting away from the story. Also, despite aliens, I really had to suspend my belief for quite a bit of the book as characters did stupid or impossible things.

Overall, a nice adventure/thrilled/sci fi novel that kept me (mostly) entertained the whole time.

I listened to the Audible version of the book and found the narrator to be excellent...one of the very few I have found no complaints with.

NOTE: I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

A first rate story.

This is an exceptional Sci Fi story worthy of a Hugo award. I plan to nominate this story.