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Post by: Helena Trooperman Dated: 5th April 2025 Isbn: 9781505658200 Title: Alien Hunters, book 1 Author: Daniel Arenson 🇨🇦 Narrated by: Jack R. R. Evans
This is an awesome story of how the Alien Hunters form. I love origin stories, don’t you? I have already re-read this story, which usually means a five star review, however, the start of book one put me off a bit. Read on and I’ll spill the beans without spoilers . . .
The skelkrins. Predators from deep space. Creatures of claws, fangs, and unending malice. They swarm across the galaxy, slaying all in their path. Planets burn in their wake. And now they’re heading for Earth.
Raphael “Riff” Starfire commands the Alien Hunters, a group of scruffy mercenaries. Galactic pest controllers, they mostly handle small critters — aliens that clog up your engine pipes, gnaw on your hull, or burrow through your silos.
Riff and his crew have never faced anything like the skelkrins before. As these cosmic killers invade our solar system, will Riff be the one hunting aliens . . . or will aliens hunt him?
The start of the book features Midnight, a female character in deep trouble. She’s a perillian on the run from the skelkrin. Perillian’s are magical and skelkrin want that magic for themselves.
Midnight had help to escape. Her saviour told her to seek his son on Earth for further help. However, the skelkrin are hot on her tail and her getaway goes horribly wrong. (There’s a lot more here to unpack, but no spoilers—I promised.) Finally, she’s forced to bail into the atmosphere of an unknown world, never reaching Earth. It’s only a matter of time before the skelkrin descend to the planet and recapture her.
Riff ‘s father is the connection to Midnight and is the reason the skelkrin search him out on Earth. This forces Riff to look for ways to get off-world, but first he must warn his brother. Who decides to go with him, along with his ex-girlfriend. He buys an old rust-bucket of a starship, the Dragon Huntress, and finds it’s already inhabited. This rag-tag crew must get it space worthy asap, to draw the skelkrin away from Earth and somehow prevent them returning.
The cast of characters is brilliant.
Riff (Raphael Starfire) starts off as a singer at the Blue String Club. Nova is Riff’s ex-girlfriend, a princess of Asha’s, a planet inhabited by soldier settler’s originally from Earth. She’s an ace warrior in her own right. She fights other aliens in the arena to keep a roof over her head having run away with Riff against her father’s wishes. Steel is a year younger than his brother, Riff. He’s a knight with all that entails and has been cast out of his order which has left him broken.
The Dragon Huntress comes with four other inhabitants: Roamy, a demon of twenty with hair crackling with fire, who has been discarded from hell for being too good. She’s young for her age, lives in children’s pjs, hugs her teddy bear, consumes their fuel and lives in the attic of Riff’s scrap yard ship. There’s Little Twig, the head ship technician and Piston, a Gruffle, who is the engineer. Giga is a female, holographic AI humanoid. She wears a kimono and is their official ship control interface. And so begins an original story of a crew thrust together under unusual circumstances from all walks of life . . . and death.
Space opera, magic, and a splash of horror.
For anyone that loves fast-paced mashups, this could be for you. Mostly, space opera and light hearted awesomeness. The magic side of the story is associated with Midnight and Riff’s father, although overall we don’t learn too much about that. The horror is the skelkrin and how they treat their captives. The unique concept of pest controllers in space is brilliant storytelling and makes for a unique spin on space opera.
The crew’s story kept me reading.
Midnight’s clash with the skelkrin was too visceral for me and a very different vibe from the rest of the book. Star wars meets the horror of monsters. Also the magic introduced isn’t showcased much in the story, so I thought maybe it was a foretelling for future books. I’ve read the next two books in the series and so far, that’s not been the case. Hopefully, there are many more stories to come.
I can’t wait for the next in series.
If you like found family adventures. Â A crew all from different planets, richly drawn and super entertaining. It’s a fantastic series to get stuck into. Plenty of action and yet not blood thirsty. There’s a good amount of humour woven in too. A great combo.
Website: www.danielarenson.com
Check out 🇨🇦 Daniel Arenson’s, Everrealms, a multiverse of worlds. This story is available free when you sign up to Daniel’s newsletter, along with two other stories showcasing his other universes. Really worth a look. His newsletter is a good read.
OR Free on either Kobo at Amazon
The performance is 8 hours 4 minutes. Vocal range is impressive and helps you to warm to the characters immediately. ***** star performance from Jack R. R. Evans.
Prefer the audiobook: Get it here on Amazon. You can get it on Kobo, but I suggest being part of Kobo plus subscription, to get unlimited listens, or unlimited listens and unlimited ebooks. Kobo is a Canadian – Japanese organization who have good ethics.
Until next time, keep calm and read on.
NEXT MONTH… Ben’s Pick (LHS) Don’t miss an anti-hero, who’ll take you to the moon. Through her eyes you’ll experience the schemes of off-world survival told by a USA TODAY best selling author.