Back in Christmas 2012, my parents gave me a Kindle Fire HD. As tablet computers are becoming more and more ubiquitous, it's a great tool to have. When I moved to Maryland, I left behind most of my belongings, including a physical copy of my scriptures since I have a digital copy on my tablet. One of the cool things about having a tablet computer that's main job is as an ebook reader is that I have access to a lot of books, and Amazon even offers some books temporarily for free. So when my mom pointed out that there was a book written by an author with the same name as her late father, I decided to check it out.
Second Ship, the first book in the trilogy, follows three New Mexico high school students, Heather McFarland and twins Jennifer and Mark Smythe, through their adventures of finding a spaceship. There are two alien spaceships in the story, both of which crash landed on Earth back in 1947, though only one ship was recovered by the US government. The second ship was found by our trio of heroes, hence the title. The later books, Immune and Wormhole, both build on what came before very well. I will say that Second Ship is probably my favorite, but you don't find out the true origins of the spaceships until the final book, though clues are dropped along the way.
I really like author Richard Phillips' style for these novels. Each chapter is short, usually between three and ten pages, and uses a different character's perspective. So one chapter will be from Mark's point of view, only to have the next be from Heather's, Jennifer's, or some side character's. By constantly shifting the perspective, it keeps the narrative interesting - which can be challenging for science fiction as there will have to be times when the characters explain some scientific point or fictional tech - and helps to drive the story. Plus, by using this technique, it allows the audience to easily follow multiple characters.
Phillips' bio at the end of each book is also impressive. You can trust that his actions scenes are probably accurate since he was an Army Ranger and since he has a Master's in physics, his scientific explanations are founded on solid science. Basically, this is a guy that is tougher and smarter than just about anybody and he decided to write science fiction. I respect that.
One thing that I do need to address is the tone of the books. I would say that these books are probably in the PG-13 range in regards to graphic-ness. While there is some swearing, no one drops any F-bombs - in that sense, it's too "clean" to be an accurate portrayal of high schoolers. There is some flirting that takes place between some of the adult characters, but no "adult situations" are described. However, it does get pretty intense when it comes to violence. Nothing is ever focused on for too long and I'm pretty sure that I've read more gory works by classical writers, but it kept my mom from finishing the second book. Because the books star high school kids, I can see why people think this is a Young Adult series, but they're written at a more adult level.
Even with the darker nature of the story, these books were fun to read. I recommend them for adults that enjoy cool sci-fi stories with good characters and exciting action.
The Rho Agenda trilogy is published by 47North
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