Axis Crossing

Gate Ghosts, Book 1

By: S. H. Jucha

Narrated by: Nicole Poole

Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

The descendants of a fourth Earth colony ship, Destiny, successfully establish a foothold in unoccupied space. Naiad, the home world, is a frozen ball, but the colonists persevere and expand through wormholes to remote systems.

Navigating the time-space anomalies requires Axis-ships. The expensive vessels are constructed by corporations, and remote worlds are claimed by the companies for their valuable ores and gases.

The corporations and Naiads are at odds with each other, and their lives are made more complicated by the arrival of strangers in an alien ship.

To understand the nature of the unusual vessel coasting toward Beta Two, the director of operations orders the kidnapping of specialists from other mining worlds. Entire families are scooped up, but two siblings, Escher and Allie, evade capture.

Hiding deep below the domes’ surfaces, the siblings are befriended by the orphans of miners. The young mickies don’t possess identification chips or cids, which would identify them as citizens.

The gang of mickies and the siblings strike a deal to help each other. Each group is determined to reach Naiad. The mickies seek citizen status and freedom, and Escher and Allie want help rescuing their parents.

The beleaguered group’s hastily derived plans bury them in criminal complications. When all appears lost, a second alien vessel exits the dark. The hull is similar to the ship at Beta Two, and these strangers seek their enemies.

©2021 Hannon Books, Inc. (P)2021 Hannon Books, Inc.

Hmmmmm

I’m kind of on the fence about this one. I’ve read all the Silver Ships and Pyreans books so I had to check this series out. I did enjoy it but was also disappointed. The “anomalies” are barely touched on and the most intriguing thing mentioned in the book. Imagine if the Pyrean books never talked about the domes other than they get used to travel? Yikes. I did like the characters for the most part and the story was interesting, I’m just miffed about how little some of the most interesting parts of the new world building was touched on. I’m also not happy about the main story conflict between the SADE factions and the other story conflict about the corporate/homeworld clashing. They’re both heavily black & white with the antagonists being cartoonishly villainous. I hope the next books in the series have more contemplative plot lines and characters, especially the baddies. Not just the Irredeemable Arch Baddie, wicked goons and impressionable wannabe convert baddies that become the good guys, a formula that seems to happen in every single book. It’s not a bad formula by any means, it just gets a bit tiring when there’s no variation. Seems like these books can be 60% template-generated at this point. I’d still probably read them lol. I wonder how long this series has been authored by a SADE while SH Jucha is on permanent vacation in Bali.

One of Jucha's best books!

It's hard to decide if the first Silver Ship novels or Axis Crossing are his best work. But Axis Crossing is among the top 2 Audbile books I've listened to. S.H. Jucha hasn't lost his ability to pull you into the book by finite attention to detail, great storytelling, and a great vision of the future. Unlike many authors whose main premise is evil or danger, Jucha always writes main characters as good ones who use the Golden Rule in their daily lives. As such, one is always uplifted by reading a Jucha novel. His novels often get tied together to previous ones so well, it is seamless. But don't worry if you didn't start at the beginning. Each novel stands on it's own. Mr. Jucha starts a new storytelling chapter with Axis Crossing that begins to weave a wonderful narrative. Do not worry. There are still plenty of tense, scary parts as well. I strongly recommend Axis Crossing for sci-fi fans, and even non sci-fi readers. Because the real beauty of his writing is how uplifting you feel when you're done!

Thanks

In our short conversation with being human there are many experiences of all sorts. As usual, when Mr. Jucha writes a story he brings great joy into this experience.
Even though I am past the 70 mark, and supposedly have learned patients, I can’t wait for his next story.

Needs something

I am a Silver Ship junky, I love the first 10 books it went down from there and got worse when the Narrator changed. I think you need to bring Alex back maybe as a SAGE.

Interesting

I am a big fan of the Silver Ship Series and of S. H. Jucha. I have been fascinated with the SADA’s. I am happy to see a series about the SADA’s far into the future from the days of Alex and Renee. Glad to learn that Julian is the leader of the SADA’s. As this is book one of the new series, I am allowing lee-way to introduce and develop characters and to slowly set the stage for future stories. Looking forward to book two.

I read this as an audio book downloaded from Audible. The book is thirteen hours and six minutes. Nicole Poole does a good job narrating the book.

horrible

I couldn't get past the first 20 minutes. hard to say if the writing or narration was more stilted.

Basic plot read by "Alexa"

Overall I cannot recommend this book. The plot has a lot of holes in it. The main character is supposed to be an amazing hacker but any details show the main character following the instructions of the computer. There are some truly ethical dilemmas that could have been explored but instead are ham fisted and glossed over. It's overly simplified.

Additionally, the reader has no inflection or cadence change. It sounds like Alexa reading a book to you. It's just one run on sentence. Jokes fall flat. "Funny" characters just sound robotic.

Not worth the credit.

Narration was a complete turnoff so I deleted it.

After 100 or so “A said”, “B replied”, A thought, B wondered, A said, A said, B said , A said I gave up. Story was decent but I could not listen after a couple of hours.

Good job no need to change change silver ships nov

Consistent story continues to entertain but like A TV series it is OK. Keep up the good work

Really, just OK

First, the narrator's voice was 70% monochromatic to me, and the "he replied" or "she said" seemed to pop out making the narration at times difficult to listen to. So perhaps it taints my enjoyment of the story but it seemed bland. The premise of the story and the story line is good but the details were overwhelming. For example, when the main characters had to use the facilities . . . . . ok, sure that happens . . . . . but . . . . .

Initially unsatisfactory, later on it gets better

I don’t really like the first 10 or so chapters. They are boring and utterly lacking any appeal towards new characters without any return to those beloved characters from The Silver Ships until a dozens chapters into the book. However once past that point, we have the return of some familiar characters and overall interest begins in full.