The great spheres and probes of Artifice, humankind’s enemy, haunt every inhabited world near and far. The Omnians’ long and arduous search for Artifice has ended. They’ve located Artifice’s lair in the Talus system.
The sentient digital entity rules a vast swath of worlds, known as the federacy, through ruthless intimidation. Its insidious programs are embedded in every races’ digital systems—warships, shuttles, stations, domes, comm platforms, and power plants. One misstep by a race could see its citizens exterminated in vast numbers. The survivors, if there were any, would be thrown back to the days before spaceflight.
Artifice has had millennia to secure its base. Powerful battleship fleets guard the system’s periphery and the approaches above and below the entity’s planet, Toral. Probes surround the system and warn of unauthorized encroachment, and Artifice has control of the planet’s army of bots.
The Omnian expeditionary fleet, led by Alex Racine, desperately needs allies in order to defeat or circumvent Artifice’s defensive measures. The Omnians are curious about the fleet of black-hulled battleships, which bear a resemblance to Artifice’s probes and guard the Talus system. The SADEs, the Omnians’ digital friends, believe that the sentients aboard the black fleet and Artifice share a common history.
Whether or not the Omnians can gather allies, they don’t intend to abandon their goal and return to Omnia. They mean to capture or destroy the entity, Artifice, or die trying.
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" This book started out ok... It has an interesting premise at its core. However, it has some very serious flaws. The first flaw is excessive dialogue. So. Much. Talking. Every time the characters want to do something they sit around in a conference room and talk about it forever, then what they are talking about happens(usually quickly), then they return to talking. It's infuriating. The second flaw is this authors rather shallow view of how different things work(bad worldbuilding). He has a good grasp on Spaceflight and orbital mechanics. But on things like computers(AI) and computer security, alien psychology, and ground based warfare... His understanding is almost laughably simplistic. Third, the main villain of the story is supposed to be super intelligent, but spends most of the book acting like an idiot. It's annoying that even taking the most basic security measures(that we currently have) our hero's main plot could have been thwarted by this supposedly intelligent entity. I couldn't even finish this book. I literally stopped listening during the climax. 2/5 stars. Could be worse, but not much. If you want the good parts, skip to the space battles and just don't listen to the rest. "
— Bryce Robertson, 10/27/2024Scott H. Jucha has had careers which spanned many industries, including the fields of photography, biology, film/video, software, and information technology (IT). The Silver Ships novels have reached Amazon’s coveted #1 and #2 bestselling sci-fi book multiple times.
Grover Gardner (a.k.a. Tom Parker) is an award-winning narrator with over a thousand titles to his credit. Named one of the “Best Voices of the Century” and a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, he has won three prestigious Audie Awards, was chosen Narrator of the Year for 2005 by Publishers Weekly, and has earned more than thirty Earphones Awards.