A Shield Against the Darkness

Airship Daedalus, Book 1

By: Todd Downing

Narrated by: Cory Fox

April, 1925 finds ace pilot Jack McGraw fleeing hostile fighter planes and a mysterious zeppelin over the skies of New Jersey. Then a woman from his past invites him to dinner at Thomas Edison’s home and drafts him into the A.E.G.I.S. foundation.

And that’s just Monday.

Jack’s mission is to fly an experimental aircraft and lead a crew consisting of his comrades from the Great War against a well-funded secret society bent on pillaging history’s great treasures and amassing dangerous power.

Together with their crewmates, Jack McGraw and Dorothy “Doc” Starr encounter sky pirates, Haitian voodoo, terrifying creatures of the deep, an Amazon tree-city, rocket zombies, and an ancient temple where Aleister Crowley attempts to open a dimensional portal and summon a bloodthirsty demon!

Based on the Airship Daedalus comic strip by Todd Downing and Brian Beardsley, A Shield Against the Darkness is the origin story of the Daedalus crew and a prequel to Assassins of the Lost Kingdom by E.J. Blaine.

It’s a retro-pulp action yarn in which mages, mad science, secret societies, occult threats, and lost worlds meet globe-trotting, sky-high aerial action and two-fisted heroism, like the pulp novels of old!

©2017 Deep7 Press (P)2019 LinguaDisco Publishing

Pulp isn’t usually my flavor, but...

...there’s just enough other stuff between character descriptions and development that I found myself an hour in and loving it. I’ll be on the look out for another book in this format!

excellent adventure

very enjoyable listening and entertaining story line. the narrator was excellent. I would highly recommend it to others seeking adventure.

Colorful writing and deeply engaging characters.

I am hooked on Daedalus! The characters jump to life and you can smell the history and research the author took in to write the scenes and details. The details I think are what really stick out to me. The little things that make me understand the characters a little more. Just a fun start to this series. I am sure I am going to be buying and savoring all of the Airship Daedalus series.

A classic pulp adventure

If you lolike classic pulp adventure stories or are just intrigued by the cover with its airship and are looking for an old school rousing adventure then this is exactly what you want and hope it is.

Awesome Adventure Story with just enough romance

This story was right up my ally. A tiny bit sci-fi/fantasy, mysticism, adventure, romance, culture/travel, history, ... satisfied me in all the ways a novel might. It always takes me a chapter or two to get acquainted with the characters of any book. But this one was easy to slip into. And the adventure was unexpected. It’s family friendly too and I think teens would like it as much as I did (at 50). I always appreciate a book that is written well enough that it doesn’t have to rely on “shock value” to keep someone reading. Very fun. And I can’t wait for the sequel.