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Starcaster  By  cover art

Starcaster

By: Terry Maggert, J. N. Chaney
Narrated by: Tom Taylorson
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Publisher's summary

Magic. Steel. Blood. Victory.

The Earth’s navy is left drifting among the stars as Nyctus ships swarm, their purpose unknown as they continue their advance, burning one system after another. Humanity's extinction seems inevitable. But on one of the forgotten worlds, a boy is left behind, and he holds a talent unlike anything the galaxy has ever known.

Thorn Stellers is a mage, trained to lead and fight. With a renegade division of warriors at his side, and with weapons far different from those of old Earth, Thorn has a chance at standing up to humanity's enemies. For these mage-soldiers, armed with power that had once been thought the stuff of legend, the outcome is no longer certain.

Each Starcaster has a talent - except for Thorn, who has many. With his childhood companion Kira Wixcombe, he’ll confront a threat from beyond the stars, meeting them in the darkness with a light born of magic...and a lust for revenge.

Is his power enough? Or is Earth a forgotten memory, lost forever to history?

©2021 Variant Publications (P)2021 Podium Audio

What listeners say about Starcaster

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Space unknown

tl;dr, devoid of space realism... which you need for space, also devoid of navy realism, which you need in a navy.

I liked the description of this book, but there were so many issues in the first 13 minutes 38 seconds I decided my time is best spent elsewhere. Here we go, a break down of what I recall of the first 13 minutes:
-There is no navy anywhere that has officers that delay every command in a critical situation to argue whatever is on their mind.
-I can think of several examples in other books where rocks or chunks of metal are used as linear projectiles against targets. However, these targets were always static. This is the first time I've seen rocks used to destroy star ships... that can move...
-17th century infantry tactics are not suited to space combat. Or small group RPG combat for that matter. Actually, people need to stop including this in most books.
-You'd never throw a moon at a star ship, it would always be able to evade, and if you could move it with grace enough to make contact.... THEN YOU DIDN'T NEED THE MOON! You could have just destroyed the ships out of hand, really, how much mass and energy we are talking about?
-This is more of a stretch, but if you can see something on sensors than you can shoot at it. If you can point your viewing camera the the thing, then you can point a gun at it. If all you have are homing missiles (which I bet if I kept listening wasn't the case) then shoot them off in some sort of dump fire mode, we are dealing with rocks, PLOT INTERCEPT, LAUNCH.

Maybe it is supposed to be low-tech space, with casual navy social dynamics, but even then the distances and times for things like a rock moving from an asteroid belt or a moon flying, or even moving a space ship are all over the place. It was just silly, trying to see it in my minds eye, it felt like a stage play or a certain light saber duel where the camera is super close to the face so you can't tell what is happening.

Going to be a hard pass for me. But hey, maybe it gets really great later on.



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32 people found this helpful

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Poor writing of a good plot.

The author jumps from point to point with a lack of dialogue. So much happens in such a short book that could have been three times as long with more details being added. All the characters are very 2 dimensional and unrealistic. No military would act like the characters do in this book. Also just giving the main character the ability to do everything is just lazy writing.

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6 people found this helpful

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great book

Terry Maggert and JN Chaney have created a fantastic plot, plenty of action, a little romance, and fully filled out characters with quirks and personalities that make them endearing and memorable. This new series is bound to be a wild and fun ride, so jump aboard now and enjoy. The fusion of Science Fiction and Fantasy is fantastic, well developed and intriguing. Intense mystery with a surprise around each curve. A must read for that problem solving mystery reader. I already want to read book #2!

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6 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

I love the character

The narrator delivers on the action scenes for this one. I loved the development and worldbuilding too. Looking forward to book 2.

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5 people found this helpful

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Surprised me

I wasn't expecting much from this book, but it took me by surprise. The narration fits so well and the story is addictive. I'm now eager for the sequels. Hopefully they don't take too long to come out.

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4 people found this helpful

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Shallow

I keep being drawn to J.N Chaney books as I like the genre and the concepts but have returned the last couple. All of them follow the same playbook. Interesting concept and potential but no character development and plot feels rushed. World building just slightly brushing the surface to push out as many series as possible. I soo want to like this book and others just can't get into them with how shallow and one dimensional the characters are.

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3 people found this helpful

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Really wanted to like this book...

...but pretty much right off the bat, the MC becomes so overpowered as to make everything effortless and godlike. He so special that he immediately goes from a loser civilian to a goofy spin on basic training/technical training, to consulting with Admirals over operations and strategy. Oh...and despite never piloting anything but a helicopter...once, he is immediately thrown in as a small ships co-pilot whilst doing super powerful magical stuff.

I'm rather surprised that he didn't insert as an undercover squid in a completely unknown alien society as a super-duper spec ops mage warrior.

Really. This series had potential with some work on the universe's mechanics and history. But the book is paced so fast and skips over so much that it exceeded my suspension of disbelief capabilities.

The narrator was good to go.

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2 people found this helpful

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Interesting concept, weak execution

This seems like a concept piece. Interesting challenges, and magic, but weak characters and plot full of holes.
Time doesn’t seem to exist in this universe, a raw recruit is leading Admirals mere weeks out of training. He can transition around the galaxy in minutes, pop in, destroy a base and an hour later be attacking the next base in a different star system.
Magical abilities not hinted at become major plot points.
Unassailable enemies turn out to be angry children easily manipulated with new magic, which is conveniently discovered during the battle.

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1 person found this helpful

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Enjoyed this book.

The middle of the story was strung out but the last quarter of the book is Great. I highly recommend this book and author. 5 Star all the way.

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Good story

wish there was more back story and more depth to the characters. overall, good story.

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