FWIW, I reviewed Arwen 1 and 2 on my most recent “Grizzly’s Growls” podcast. (Had some technical difficulties, but the show’s actually available now.) Not a glowing review, but favorable overall. I think it’s as good as the “regular” stories the Golden Age authors did — they weren’t always brilliant, either, but your books are as good as their regular stuff. Held my interest throughout — and since I’ve been reading science fiction for as long as I’ve been able to read, and I’m dealing with Asperger Syndrome along with some elements of ADD, holding my attention is a good sign.

Nice work. So, when’s book 4 coming out?

Arwen III will be out on Friday June 20th!

My one niggle is near the very beginning of the story. Captain Cook is a commander with 20 years of combat experience, in command during an on-going interstellar war (if I understood correctly). She travels across space completely blind through “wormhole space,” comes out and -isn’t- already at least at Yellow Alert? She’s entering an unknown situation in a combat vessel, and doesn’t prepare for all eventualities?

Nothing jumps out as absolutely absurd; it’s a very good book.

I’ll be putting a review on my “Grizzly’s Growls” podcast, probably next episode. Not a lot of listeners, but hey, couldn’t hurt.

I did find one thing kinda hard to swallow: An intruder was able to to disable the ship by password protecting/encrypting the computer responsible for controlling the strangelet ejection,and no manual override existed to eject it other than blowing parts of the ship away? Mr. Scott would have been shocked at that oversight in engineering, Captain Kirk would have pounded the captains chair, and Mr. Spock would have raised an eyebrow and inwardly scoffed at the poor design.
Oh well, one must suspend disbelief when reading sci-fi.

You asked why, well, I’ll tell you. I’ve always been a big fan of Space Opera myself and I’ve got a lot of ideas for such stories. If I ever write all those stories I wanted a ship and a Captain that I could easily place into the plot or idea.

Even though The Arwen was influenced by other stories I did try to bring thing unique to this universe. The idea of wormhole space through the use of Strangelets, the idea of a religion that wanted the planet destroyed, the idea that not every planet automatically joins the Earth Alliance and, not every planet wants to join. The idea that even the Captain can make a huge mistake which would have repercussions on her and the crew, even going so far as causing the death of most of her crew. That’s the kind of stuff you’d never see in a Star Trek ep or book, at least none that I’ve read or seen.

Thank you for the comment Router and thank you for giving the story a try. Hopefully my next none Arwen story will be more to your liking and, if it’s not, don’t hesitate to let me know! All constructive comments are welcome.

From the second this story begins and through its rapid development you will be thinking one thing, Star Trek. The main plot line alone (saving a planet from destruction via comet/whatever) I think was covered in dozens of ST shows. The ship, its crew and their designations, the polarized alien worlds, interpersonal issues, a very Kirk-like brush with authority and idolatry of the ship, the “guest actor as infernal science/expect guy” - its really everything. And thats really where I draw the line here. This influence is so heavy that I see no reason to criticize style, grammar or dialogue (which are wanting).

I think that if the description had said, “Star Trek Fan Fiction” I would have left it completely alone. Sadly, I leave it unfinished, wondering of the author, why?

This is a great adventure, a nice story. If you get through the beginning, which is boring and doesn’t grab your attention.

But the quality of the prose, dialogue, and writing is very poor. Getting your work ripped apart by a good editor is always a great thing.

By the way, you have grammatical mistakes in your book’s description, and even on your author’s website.

If that didn’t make the final version I’m sorry for the confusion, sometimes in edits things are missed!

Arwen II should be up shortly and I’d love to hear what you think of that once it’s finished.

Hope you enjoy Ida, let me know what you think!

Anyway, the second book should be out late September, that’s my goal date for it. I was writing it while recording this chapter and I just got done writing it a few weeks ago. I plan on doing the revision in July which gives me a few months to get things in order.

Glad you liked the story and thanks for the great comment!