Hell Moon (Xeno-Spectre Book 1) by Mary E. Lowd ARC from BookSirens

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⭐⭐⭐⭐ Stars


Blurb

A search and rescue mission on a deserted moon goes wrong when Janice and her crew mates are attacked in the dark abandoned city beneath the surface. Infected by a strange blue energy, Janice doesn't know how much time they have left, or what will happen when time runs out. The underground ruins crawl with mysterious, scarab-like figures, and even death isn't a certain escape, when the dead rise as ghostly forms. The only logical choice is to flee, but the lizard-like aliens paying for the mission insist on forging on. Their secretive agenda and the sordid history of the sentient spaceship who brought them there divide the crew, when they can't afford to be divided. Trapped on hell moon, Janice must fight to keep as much of her crew alive as possible while wrestling against impossible odds. The only one who has a clue about how all the pieces tie together is a little girl who survived the last hundred years asleep in her cryo-pod. On a world where the dead rise as ghosts and multiple civilizations have already been destroyed, solving the mystery of the scarabs might be the only way to survive and escape... HELL MOON. Don't miss this dark, action-packed adventure through a hostile universe. Perfect for fans of sci-fi thrillers and horror, from Alien to Jurassic Park.



Hell Moon (Xeno-Spectre Book 1) by Mary E. Lowd

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. I thank BookSirens, the publisher and the author for the copy.

Explorations, Search or rescue missions on deserted space outposts has been an oft repeated science fiction topic and has been done to death in books and movies over the last century. Fantastic series like the Alien series are embedded in my memory and this book blurb reminded me of the same.


I waded into the book with this notion in mind and expected Mary a regular sci-fi writer to take things into deeper darker territory.


The story still sprung some surprises and especially the take on the conversion inspired loosely from the Xenomorph has been taken a whole notch higher and made this a difficult to put down thriller. The specie which are exploring the moon here are again different animal species who are anthropomorphic are a revelation.


The book could have been a 5 star story for me but I felt that the anthropomorphism for me needed some background which was missing and expecting the gap to be made up in the sequels. Another thing was the ship which is an advanced AI recognised by law as a sentient being was also something that brought interest in the story. Her also I felt that the interactions with the protagonist needed to have started earlier in the story and it would have helped bring about the finale to a more justifiable conclusion. The story also starts slow and the initial pages needed to set more context so that the reader would be more comfortable with the action as it played out.

For me these points pushed the story to 4.5 stars taking nothing away from the author who has put a mostly impeccable piece of writing.


Focusing on the story the exploration of a mostly unknown barren moon turns deadly when the team starts exploring and find some stragglers in cryochambers who need to be rescued. The way one of the people dies when the chamber is breached brings chills but what happens next stuns and takes the story beyond sci-fi territory to ghoulish horror. There is an angry ghost everyone can see gesticulating and cursing. Some of the exploring colleagues start showing signs of being infected and the subsequent results are horrendous.


The story starts entertaining more when a part of the team starts exploring the catacombs of a destroyed city and encounter more ghosts and even more ghoulish alien organisms that although not indestructible like the xenomorphs are extremely mind boggling and ones that stay in the mind for a long time.


I felt that the story was well paced and entertains in its entirety. This is a book that can easily be recommended and I would love to read the sequel.


⭐⭐⭐⭐ Stars

Recommended



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