A Review: StarScout Rising: First Trail by Gary Darby

The back of the book says: "The thundering acid tsunami raced towards Del as he tried in vain to pilot his damanged scouter out of its path. Tremors ran through the ship as it lost altitude and speed. Del had only one option, to dive the craft deep into the lake of acid ahead of the wave. Del glanced at his controls and wondered, 'would the bulkheads hold when the scouter slammed into the lake surface? Did the little ship have enough juice to power through the thick goo?'


Del didn't know. He only knew he had but one chance to save his ship and his comrades. With one final look back at the speeding swell, Del tipped the nose of the scouter over in a downward arc toward the orange liquid and the dark depths below."

Sounds intriguing, yes?

I'll admit, though, that it took me a bit for me to actually get in to this book. At first it was more of a chore, reading it, until I got about halfway through. At that point, it suddenly hooked me and I read the rest of the book all in one night (staying up far too late, I might add).

I think this was because of the characters. Some were introduced well, the main characters, but for the side plot lines, most of the characters were a little blurry to me, and it made it difficult to figure out what was going on a lot of the time. However as the book progressed, I was able to get to know even the more minor characters and really start to enjoy the book. I did like some of the personalities of the characters, though. A favorite of mine was Sami and his somewhat flawed humor.

The setting, "Out There" and the other terms that they used were a little overwhelming at first to me as well, which is probably typical of a science fiction novel, but I could catch on to the different terms easily enough as the book progressed.

The plot line is great, and I did enjoy that all the way through the book. The author, Gary Darby, had a few pretty good cliffhangers along the way that did keep me reading through the tough parts rather than just setting it aside and choosing one of the other books on my list to read.

Another plus for this book was its ending, which shocked me probably more than it should have. Now, I want to go back and read it again, searching for those hints that I now can tell led up to it. I'll probably enjoy it more the second time as well, since I already know the characters fairly well.

And, despite not particularly liking it in the beginning, I will be waiting for the next book in the series to come out so I can read it and continue the story.

Want to buy this book? Click here.
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And lastly, go check out the author's blog for this book -  http://starscoutrising.blogspot.com/