Mimic and the Space Engineer Boxed Set by James David Victor

Mimic and the Space Engineer Boxed Set by James David Victor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Space Shifter Chronicles (Omnibus 1) contains the first three novels in the series namely Mimic and the Space Engineer, Mimic and the Journey Home and Mimic and the Fight for Freedom written by James David Victor. As you might expect the collection is an excellent value for money way into the series of novels and ultimately I bought all three omnibus releases which cover the nine novels in the series. The basic premise centers around an everyday run of the mill maintenance/janitor named Higgens who is assigned to a deep space drilling/mining vessel who makes first contact with an alien life form. The life form in question survives the mining of its asteroid home but is stuck in the drilling mechanism onboard the ship, for his own reasons Higgens chooses to strip down the mechanism which frees the alien well the adventure begins. Higgens soon learns that this being is a shape shifter and while trying to continue as if nothing special has happened and stay below the radar of some of the crew he learns that this "mimc" consumes some pretty exotic materials.
The narrative for the first book focuses on Higgens and Mimic and brings in a number of secondary characters who become central as the story unfolds. The second novel revolves around the search for the homeworld of the race Mimic belongs too and the third the consequences of finding it and the fact that all is not well. All three novels are well written with good character interaction and pacing is crisp with both action, drama and humour equally represented. As I said I enjoyed the first three novels and no worries about buying the subsequent releases to discover the fate of Higgens, Mimic and their friends as they deal with Earth and other interested parties.

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First Of The First by Andrew Maclure

First Of The First by Andrew Maclure
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are many reasons people (and by that I mean any sentient being) joins an army especially given the galaxy spanning political and social conditions, generally they have something to prove or accomplish or maybe a belief that even now those that look to oppress others have to be stood up to. In the case of Mike aka Hess An Sur, First Born of the First Family her primary goal is to stay well away from the demands of her birth right and being in an independent army surrounded by friends and colleagues is a good place to be. However when her father is nearing the end of his time as ruler of the Empire and the political situation is leading to the raise of a proactive opposition then the search and return of her to the homeworld becomes more intense.
Flanked by her friends and with the protection of Mark (friend of the people) Mike returns to her homeworld and well pretty much everything goes wrong, not only is the political situation unstable there is also external influences in play but to protect their friend Sally and her army well do pretty much anything within their power and this is considerable.
Andrew delivers a well written and thoroughly engrossing scifi story with enough humour to keep things "light" but maintains the threat imposed from elements within the narrative. I've only been reading Andrew's books for a short time but already I am convinced I will be reading his work for years to come, the characters and plots work well and keep you engrossed as everything plays out and often not as you would expect.

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Wyrd Sisters

Well I was having a clean out and came across this VHS boxset of the animated "Wyrd Sisters" one of the early tv adaptations of a Terry Pratchett Discworld novel. These days you can find it on youtube but I have to say even though don't remember buying it the packaging and presentation were excellent.