Vinium

The Silver Ships, Book 10

By: S. H. Jucha

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

After the passage of two decades, the Omnians discovered a second, critical clue about the Nua'll, humankind's enemy, while investigating Celus-4, the home world of the intelligent, canine-like aliens, the Dischnya. 

This striking discovery, combined with the final broadcast of the Nua'll sphere at Libre, prior to its detonation, gave Alex Racine and company the means to narrow the search for the Nua'll home world. 

Alex has a consuming desire to locate the point of origin of the Nua'll before another gigantic sphere arrives to destroy more colonies. The first sphere's incursion into the Confederation burned billions of humans to ash. 

Six scout ships are constructed by the Omnians and crewed by SADEs, self-aware digital entities, to search the stars along a narrow path defined by the two clues. 

During its search, a scout ship, the Vivian, is captured by an alien warship in a faraway system that the SADEs dub Vinium. The two ships, locked tightly together in a form of electronic warfare, achieve an impasse. 

The scout ship calls for help, and Alex Racine receives the strange message. According to the SADEs, the aliens aboard the warship appear to be plant people. 

Rescuing the scout ship presents Alex and his companions the opportunity to meet the plant people, the Vinians, on their home world. It leads the Omnians to one more incredible discovery about the Nua'll, which, unfortunately, proves Alex's worst fears. 

©2017 Scott H. Jucha (P)2018 Hannon Books, Inc.

Better

The books were starting to feel a little "cookie cutter" with how great and wonderful Alex is, doing the same thing over and over again. This one started out that way but then moved on to continue the actual storyline that got me interested in the series to begin with. Excited for the next book!

A Fun Read

Alex Racine and the Omnians are still hunting for the Nu’all. An Omnian scout ship has been captured by a ship from a star system called Vinium. The ship contains a new life form and Racine attempts to communicate with the plant-based life forms.

The book is well written. I have been following the series from the beginning; this is book ten. The characters are now like old friends to me. I continue to be fascinated by the SADE (Self-Aware Digital Entities. Each of the alien species has been intriguing. The book contains some action, humor, curiosity and a love of exploration. I cannot wait for the next book in the series.

The book is just over fourteen hours. Grover Gardener does a super job narrating the series. Gardener is one of my favorite narrators. He has won so many awards over the years. One was Best Voice of the Century in 1999 and another was 2005 Publishers Weekly Audiobook Narrator of the Year.

A rare miss for the series

Books 1-9 have been great and progressed the story and action very well. Strange, this tenth addition to the series seems to have been rushed and includes very little substance (which is surprising given we are introduced to a brand new alien species entirely developed from plants at the beginning of the story). Greater than 2/3 of this story is just mundane patter between the characters that has nothing to do with the story as a whole. Seriously, the talk is as inconsequential as "what did you have for breakfast? Are you going to have lunch? Have you gone shopping for dinner? and spread out that kind of conversation through 2/3 of the book! It felt like S.H Jucha only had 4 hours of story lined up and filled the remaining 10 hours with nothing patter between the characters.

Thankfully, book 11 looks lined up to provide all the missing action from book 10 and I'm looking forward to the listen!

Good but to long for no reason.

As much as I love this series and in a way would want more and more of it, Vinium felt wrong unlike the nine books before, there was to many unneeded words
Don’t get me wrong I still love this series but I truly believe that this book could have been just as good if not better as a 10 hours audiobook, 14 hours contained a lot of unneeded parts which did nothing to add to the story.

Even so I still have no problem recommending this audiobook.

"Paddles, Clear!". "ok, let's call it."

The only thing keeping this series alive is a descent narration by Andy Carpenter. Sorry, I mean Grover Gardner. The story line is completely played out. The book just circles around the same dozen characters. There's not many books I start and then do not finish: this is one of them.

TIME OF DEATH FOR THIS SERIES: 1000 PAGES AGO!

Pass on this book.

What would have made Vinium better?

Less politics and useless bantering conversations.

What could Scott H. Jucha have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Rewrite the entire book.

Which scene was your favorite?

There was none at all.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Complete Disappointment. Worst book in the series.

Any additional comments?

The previous books were great this one was a total waste of time. Will be Returning!

Things really start to heat up in the silver ships universe.

Over a year and a half ago I started listening to the series and I have to say it’s been a wonderful ride.
Vinium really turned the dial up to 11 and raise the stakes on a pan, galactic situation, and the scale.

I don’t really wanna spoil anything, but I will simply say that the last two hours or exciting and I can’t wait to see where this is going .

Once again...

Once again S.H. Jucha has produced a deeply enjoyable novel. Each Silver Ships series novel takes its characters, which you can't help but care for deeply, in new & unexpected directions. With most extended series, I find myself needing a break from the story line. Reading 1 to 2 books from different authors before continuing with the series. In contrast, my appetite for the next book in this series only grows more ravenous as this solid & imaginative story continues to unfold. Also, Grover Gardner does a fantastic job adding life & depth to the story!

Review

There was nothing about the characters development that gave any reason to care about the story. The subject matter of this story had potential.

Love the story but not the weapons development

While the story and characters are great, as always the insanisity of relying on a single weapon type seems unabashedly narrow minded. What if they come across a species who has shields that absorb beams or metal that does. Why not turn the Banishers into missiles. Get tungsten core wrap it in grav crystal and slap a controller and grav engine on it at small as possible. Boom got a mobile kinetic impact railgun like weapon that can direct its vector . It's not like they are shooting at small fast darting silver ships, these are huge spheres, far easier to hit.

You have to listen to it

A great book loved the story great narration 5 stars I highly recommend listening to this book 👍👍👍⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️