Solaris Seethes by Janet Mcnulty

[Jeyran Main]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of “Solaris Seethes” by Janet Mcnulty]

Solaris Seethes is a science fiction story written about a girl named Rynah, whose planet has been destroyed. She manages to escape using her grandfather’s ship named Solaris. In order for Rynah to restore her planet, Solaris informs her about the legend of six crystals and the power of the four heroes.

“Six Crystals in evils grasp:
One Lone exile with fury’s wrath.
Four you need from thirteen:
Four heroes of faith and belief.”

Rynah is reluctant to believe this story yet complies, as Solaris actually leaves her with no choice. Solaris is the ship’s artificial intelligence, which means it can self-operate and has an independent mind. Rynah’s grandfather used to own Solaris and had bought the ship when it was decommissioned from the military, fifty years ago. He spent his entire life researching the lore of the crystals and attempted to locate them in order to investigate what powers they held.

Solaris informs Rynah that there are thirteen sectors of which she only knew twelve existed. Rynah’s people were oblivious of the thirteenth sector because the planet was deemed to be too primitive. Six of the twelve sectors of planets, hold the crystals. The only planet that has never been touched by the crystals is in the Terra sector, which also happens to be where the four heroes are located.

The heroes come from all different eras. The philosopher is from the Roman era, the warrior is a Viking, the lover is a teenager from the present day (2014), and the inventor is a twenty-year-old from the year 2099.

Their mission is to gather all six crystals of powers in the universe before Klanor, and his troops locate them. Klanor wishes to use the power of the crystals to destroy entire solar systems and create his own empire.

I liked the fact that the story was in full action right from the start, leaving no time lapse for a slow build of circumstances and information. Solaris was an absorbing character even though it was a ship. The fact that it could make decisions without needing permission or orders was intriguing. In one instance, she even recalled a memory, of which she should not have known, hence, that even created more questions for me.

The layout of the story was put together in a pleasant way. This assisted the reader in better understanding the tale. The ending was satisfying, and I liked how the plot was original in its genre. However, there were some things that the book could improve on. The literary standard, for instance, was average, and there were poor choices of words used at times. After the opening sequence of action, the book slows down, and many segments of dialogue take over the content of the book. This took away the adrenaline of interest generated from before, and it somewhat became disappointing. At times there were also not enough description of what is happening or enough backstory to support the event. For these reasons above I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars.

I recommend this book to anyone that likes to read sci-fi stories.