Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Frontiers Saga: Episodes 1.1, 1.2, 1.3

Top positive review

Absolutely the best! (hint, start with Episode 1 of PART 2)

Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2022

I was bored. Looking for something better to read. I wasn't sure I would like a space saga, but I knew that I was getting frustrated with so many adventure books being about some ultra-macho-male that "was never good with the ladies" yet woos and beds any of them in sniffing distance because they can't resist him - blah blah blah. Maybe if they could find a way to make that part interesting... nah. It's just boring nonsense. And the typical protagonist that is always the most bad-ass, king of all fighters that ever existed, also bores me. I wanted intrigue and action, but something that made you try to guess who the bad guy(s) was and what was their motivation (like the Holmes, Poirot, Quatermain, etc. books).

Anyway, I decided to try this one (in 2016)- but I made a mistake; I bought the first episode of the second part of the series (it was in the suggestions list and it said episode #1, so...). After finishing this episode, I realized the mistake and continued from the first episode of the first part. Now, after having read this full collection about 8 times now (yes, it's THAT good!), I recommend to prospective readers that they, too, start with Ep1 of Part 2.

Why? Well, I think there is a good reason that the first 3 episodes of part 1 are bundled together: it isn't until the end of episode 3 that many of the main characters have really joined the story (with MANY more great characters to come in later episodes). It takes a little bit for the action to really get started in Part 1. But, in Part 2, Ep 1, the action starts off right away, and the characters are already working together with the usual closeness that comes with years of relationships. But, the way Ep 1 rolls out, you barely notice that you missed all that came before it - but make sure to read all of Part 1 after finishing Pt2 Ep1.

The way the author has put together this massive collection of characters is simply amazing. Whenever I'm waiting for the next episode, and I go off to read something else, I find myself longing for the characters of Frontiers Saga. Nothing compares to this.

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D. Smith

Enjoyable sci-fi

Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2021

I’m not super into sci-fi, and there was definitely a scene and some language I could’ve done without (probably at the upper end of the YA spectrum?). That said, the characters are really well developed, the action is engaging, the suspense tense…really good writing as far as all that goes. Seems like the sexuality and language generally toned down as the story went along, too, which I appreciated. Some really great twists in the story,too! And incredibly believable. So, on balance, I enjoyed it. Just would prefer not to have to read with my censor guard up…

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D. Smith

Enjoyable sci-fi

Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2021

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Edward D. Omiccioli Jr

But the stories are too short reading more like a comic book

Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2017

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This was tough for me to rate because the stories were enjoyable with likable characters. But the stories are too short reading more like a comic book. The books seemed broken up just to get you to purchase the next book. I didn't like it when I was a kid reading comics and not a fan now. I started the series with Audible and after the first book ended though I liked the story, I didn't think it was worth a credit much less 15 for the entire series. When I saw the kindle package of the first three books I decided to give it a try. These three books combined would have made a decent first book. I will probably continue for now due to kindle prices.

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wooster

Good `Star Trek Like' Science Fiction

Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2013

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Good Scfi. Well written and well edited (I didn't find the editing errors that other reviewers complained about, so maybe I got an up-dated version). Characters are well developed and likable.

The futuristic Earth history that is a preface to the main storyline is very imaginative and interesting.

The main story evolves around an Earth spaceship that experiences an unexpected power surge during the testing of a new (and revolutionary) propulsion system, which results in the ship being propelled 1000 light years from Earth. The few surviving crewmembers are very young and inexperienced. So, what we end up with is a very small and untested crew, far, far away from home, trying to sort things out and make their way back. The story is about their adventures along the way.

I enjoyed Episodes 1-3 for the most part. The characters are fun and the author's imagination is very good when envisioning the alien worlds that the crew encounters. At The Mining Colony you are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching the place, just like you are actually there.

What I didn't like about the story was the unrealistic non-stop military action and never-ending conspiracy.

I gave the story 3 stars, but would have rated it higher if the author would have tamed things down a little.

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Kindle Customer

Decent Sci-Fi

Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2014

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Disclaimer: Almost any author deserves heaps of praise for being bold enough and motivated enough to write and publish a book. If Ryk Brown reads this review I hope it is read as the single opinion of one reader and not as a general critique. I am super grateful for people like Ryk Brown for creating, populating, and narrating whole universes for my enjoyment.

That being said, the first three books of the Frontiers Saga were, in my opinion, adequately engaging. I felt as if the first book started pretty strong and really got me excited to keep reading but by the end of that book, and then all through the following books, I felt as if the story got a bit weak and that the character development was a tad underwhelming. I love the setting, the technology, and the overall plot but I did not get "hooked".

To anyone who enjoys reading sci-fi I would certainly recommend this series. I think there are many people who would enjoy it and, if you do like it, there are quite a few more books to this series! Bonus!

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Sean Bai

Kind of boring

Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2018

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The first book is three stars, the second is four stars, and the third is three stars.

Overall, my sense of the series is I give it three stars.

The author tries to keep the enemy, the Jung, in mystery at the beginning of the book, and doesn't even describe them when the main characters see them, except for one small description.

This series is about rebellion in a distant galaxy and humans vs humans. It's people in their twenties versus an entire civilization. Not interested in reading about Ensigns who got promoted recently.

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Andrew Kimbell

Read only if you can't find anything else...

Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2015

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First, I want to say that I carefully read all of the reviews of this book before purchasing it. Second, for five dollars it wasn't a horrible waste of a few hours. However, there are some major errors that cannot, or should not, be overlooked.

Over all I feel like this book should be filed under Young Adult. My young teenage self would probably not notice many of the issues and he writing style seems to be that of a high school student.

*** some mild spoilers to follow ***

The combat scenes in this book have too much detail and at the same time not enough. He will detail out which leg the attacker uses to sweep the enemy but there is a complete lack of imagery.

Ryk seems to write as if he has some idea of the military and what it is like to serve, yes I know this is a fictional military but somethings never change, and he often contradicts himself. He goes on and on how Nash is member of the Special Forces and how tough they are but these so called Special Forces are overwhelmed at every turn and make rookie mistakes that anyone with ten minutes of boot camp wouldn’t make. I understand that he is using these mistakes to advance the plot and that is fine, but don’t go on about how awesome these people are if they are really just unseasoned rookies.

There are plenty of continuity errors as well. At one point when the enemy assault teams have snuck aboard the ship Ryk describes how the Earther’s weapons do no damage to the enemy body armor. Then all of a sudden, there is a weak point in their helmets and the crew that was having trouble fighting back wipes the floor with the assault team. The Aurora itself starts out as a diplomatic ship that is actually a scout ship and a carrier, turning into more of a gun runner and eventually some sort of dreadnaught since it stands up to ridiculous amounts of fire power and other insane events that should have torn a shield-less ship into shreds.
Also, in the last scene when the ship is making gun runs on the enemy ship with only its Point Defense Rail turrets they suddenly have armor piercing ship destroyer rounds? Where did those come from and why haven’t they been used before? Also, Ryk has no idea what Point Defense means as the turrets in his book seem to throw up a shell of flak around the ship to protect it from incoming fire. These seems like it would work horribly since the ship is moving quickly through space. There are tons of videos on Youtube about the Navy’s point defense on their ships, none of them involve a “shell” of flak.
Ryk tries to develop his characters in meaningful ways, but as with his combat scenes, his descriptions are flat and the imagery fails to deliver. The biggest irritant to me was Scott’s dealings with Jalea. Jalea is supposed to be some sort of rebel seductress who Scott, a ladies man, easily sees though and plays to his own tune. However, he almost always spontaneously goes idiotic whenever she enters the story. Her own attempts at subterfuge are ludicrous and the fact that the other characters don’t pick up on it and call her out is plain stupid. She seems like a teenager who just made it through puberty and is trying to be seductive but comes off more like an awkward kid. Apparently, she is supposed to be older and a veteran of something or other. The fact that they didn’t lock her up after her religious outburst and the beating she lays on the prisoner is just silly. On top of that to trust her to go on a solo mission on an unknown planet…again, it’s a plot device but a very poorly executed one.
No one in this book, except the Captain that dies very quickly, has any military bearing and they all make the worst possible tactical choices whenever they can. They have a boat with a top secret military project on it and they are going on a test run in said boat away from safe space and prying eyes and they don’t take a full complement of weapons, or crew, let alone make sure they are full combat capable before this test run? Are you kidding me? There is almost no way that you can recover from the initial idiocy. There are better ways to drive the plot, even make their situation seem more desperate, if the characters make the right choice and things go wrong it is so much worse than if they make the wrong choice and things go badly.
Anyway, I hope that I was able to get my point across. If you are getting into this book to kill a couple hours then fine read away. But if you are looking for a gripping space Opera then look else where.

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Kindle Customer

Bad physics, can't suspend disbelief, pass on this one

Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2014

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I have to say I consumed these episodes in a single sitting. That said, I felt a little bad about myself afterward for having killed so much time. My main beef is the lack of believability. The author plays fast and loose with the laws of physics making it impossible for me to submerse myself in the story. I keep popping out and shaking my head wondering how a space ship can have a top speed, how communications alternate between speed of light delay and real-time, often in the same engagement.

The author does make an effort to develop the characters but fails to add depth, boring us with page after page of unamusing banter meant to demonstrate how the crew is gelling.

I will NOT be buying the rest of this series.

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crashdown

thin plot, good action, (very) generic characters.

Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2014

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Frontier saga if it was made a movie, would have been great in the hands of Michael Bay or J.J Abrams. In fact if you've seen the latest Star Treks from J.J Abrams or any kind of light science fiction action movies, you've kind of seen a glimse of Frontier saga in literature prose.

The history is a classic space opera setting, a single military ship with inexperienced and dedicated crew leaded by the hotheaded and unconventional young captain who meet and resolve all the impossibly dangerous and difficult challenges threwed at them in a deus ex machina fasion.

The universe the story is set in isn't very original, Earth is arming itself as it's existence is threatened by some generic evil galactic federation. It's best hope is the Aurora , a ship equiped with the latest highend technology available. The ship and it's revolutionary equipment is tested in secrecy, but of course something goes wrong, and a ragtag of a crew have to find a way to return to earth while dealing with implacable and dangerous enemies on all sides in this fiendish universe.

While not revolutionary the plot is actually okay if you don't have expectations of the book to become the next "Dune", although a few characters might be a bit grey, the difference between the "good guys" and "bad guys" is pretty clean cut. And the good crew of the Aurora and their allies stand for the valours of democracy and freedom while their enemies are mostly Tyranic evil hordes, the book gives us surprisingly little information on them other than they're mix of fascists and mongolian hordes.

Honestly this is something I can forgive, especially since the space battles (and there are many of them) are really well written and rather well executed if predictable. Like others reviewers have pointed out, important plot actions that happens in the books are unlikely to the extreme even in the theatrical settings of of space opera.That our unlikely hero should just show up just in the right moment in the right spot in the universe to help some revolutionary in need as a result of a misjump is a bit much to swallow.

Again thanks to well executed action scenes it's not boring and the writer's world (or rather universe-) building skills make up for those blatant plotholes. It also makes up for the uncreadible luck and skill the heroic crew demonstrate however desperate the situation is against all odds.

What I can't really forgive are the generic characters and their predictable personalities. We already mentioned the young hotheaded and unconventional captain, his second of command who is basically his opposite in personality, she always do things by the book and follow the rules and throw tantrums once in a while reacting to the captains out of the box thinking. The Chief Ingenior is of course russian, an abrasive and friendly person, bit of comic relief and best friend of the captain. And the chief of security is a young and pretty woman whose dark ops training has made suspicious and a bit cynical. I could continue but you see the point, most of the characters are caricaturist to the extreme, you have seen them before in countless settings but probably not as generic. I have seen children cartoon show with characters with more depths than those.... The romance plots are incredibly predictable as well and generic as everything which has to do with the characters personalities, you can spot them right away and they're rather bland.

I really wished the characters had been more fleshed out and complex rather than the "usual good heroes" which work in an action movie cause all the action and explosions take your attention away from that fact, but those books doesn't give the reader that luxury. The frontier saga is still quite readible if you can stomach a predictable plot and generic characters with no depths. Personaly I don't regret buying or reading the 3 first episodes of the saga, it's well written and for all its fault , not boring, but I'll probably skip the rest of the serie. Maybe the author will mature in time, I'll keep an eye open for future and hopefully more fleshed out adventures.

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S. Dekker

Where is the magic?

Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2014

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This is space opera like Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. A young captain with a new crew lost in space on an experimental space ship. It is well written and has everything to become a promising series. However… Ryk Brown is repeating the same sequence over and over: on the run, need for repairs after a hard encounter, finding a seemingly save haven which is not save at all, new encounter, on the run… It is getting tiresome after a while. As a reader I was wondering when this would finally end. There is no ‘Sense of Wonder’. Yet good enough for those who like hardcore SF with lots of space battles.

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Richard

An overly mediocre and derivative series.

Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2014

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This three book set can best be summed up as mediocre at best.

The author Ryk Brown sets the stage of his new series with a somewhat familiar plot. A group of raw cadets are placed as the skeleton crew of a brand new spaceship, an accident happens that kills every single senior member of the crew leaving an unqualified rookie in command, add in the stoic first officer and a racial stereotype chief engineer. If this sounds familiar it should, the book basically takes better known character archtypes from the Star Trek reboot movies and plunks knock offs into a Star Wars style story. The rest of the story is a string of very vague plot threads and freak accidents that strand our novice heroes far from home in dangerous space.

The author has chosen to treat this as a "soft science fiction" story, wherein he chooses to gloss over the technical reasons for the technologies being used and simply goes with the standard ideas we have seen in other better known series such as Star Trek and Star Wars. Unfortunately this tendency to avoid explaining things extends into the plot as well, the story teases the reader with glimmers of interesting things but then quickly pulls back without giving any proper explanations. It almost feels as if the author is afraid of overwhelming the reader at times. Sadly this means that we rarely get proper explanations for the stories current events or the major players involved. We are teased with a villain that is threatening the people of Earth but we are given almost no information at all about who or what they are actually about. We are teased with a backstory about a plague ravaging future Earth and plunging it into a thousand year dark age, but we never get the details until book three.

Many events in the story rely so heavily on blind luck and plot convenience that my willing suspension of disbelief was stretched beyond its limit. Many aspects of the story are far beyond the realm of reasonable expectations. For example a big part of the plot is how the Earth is in vital need of an advanced new faster than light propulsion system. So the leadership of Earth sees fit to stick every member of their FTL research team onto an unfinished understaffed ship, with the only prototype and no copies of the blueprints back home, and then sends them off on a test flight. Test flights using new technology are inherently dangerous, so putting all your eggs into that basket is beyond absurd.

Then that brings us to the situation of our main hero Nathan who goes from being fresh out of the academy to filling the role of captain in a matter of a single book. Due to the circumstances we are led to believe that the ship departed so totally understaffed that a single accident was able to eliminate every member of the crew with more than two weeks of experience. This is compounded by the fact that Nathan never comes across as having any professional training despite having just spent four years at Earth's officer training academy. Every event only serves to make him look like a random college student who just happened to stumble on board the Earth's most important space ship.

The final flaw of the books is that they aren't really written as individual stories, but as a single multipart episodic series. As such each book ignores the usual story telling format of having a defined beginning and ending and simply treats this as chunks of a single larger story. This format unfortunately compounds many of the problems with the lack of proper explanations and details, as the readers are simply expected to read future "episodes" to fill in those blanks later.

Overall the book feels like it is geared towards a younger demographic. The events and manner of the story telling come across like teenage wish fulfillment. Older readers will find many of the ideas in the book to be derivative and lacking in terms of originality. There is a small foundation of interesting ideas sprinkled in here, but they are never given enough time to really take root. There just isn't anything to really hook the reader to keep going.

As such I can't give this three book set any higher a score than this. It is simply mediocre in most regards and geared more towards children than adults.

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The Frontiers Saga: Episodes 1.1, 1.2, 1.3

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