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Refractions of Frozen Time
Genres: Adventure, Children's fiction, Fantasy/SciFi/Speculative, Magical Realism, Science Fiction (Sci-Fi), Young Adult (YA)
Age Groups: 12-15, 18+
Formats: Ebook, Audio, Paperback
Star Trails Tetralogy Volume IV
A discovery that links two dimensions of time...A prison ship's dirty little secret...Esheron has answers, but will they arrive before it's too late?
Creena Brightstar believes the crystals discovered in the caverns can bring her family back together at last. But before she can finish unlocking their secrets, Integrator troopers discover their underground hideout, forcing a harrowing escape loaded with unexpected consequences. The dark and lonely days that follow change Dirck forever as fate plays out a hand dealt on Earth years before. Will time relent and give everyone a second chance?
Meanwhile, Augustus Troy is on the move again, armed with a weapon capable of destroying anyone opposed to his despotic goals. Do the Brightstars have what it takes to survive their final battle? Or will the family's longed-for reunion take place in another dimension of time and space?
Reviews
Amazon Customer
The Star Trails Tetralogy is the classic story of good versus evil seen through one family’s struggle to reunite, an endeavour that draws in a number of lonely souls along the way. The three Brightstar siblings are the young heroes of this story and, as they observe and understand their surroundings, their conclusions can be coloured by their Miran schooling. It’s when they break old habits in order to survive the hostile planet they must now call home that they open their minds and hearts to the mysteries of the universe and achieve the incredible.
This is a beautifully written story, developing themes of loyalty, tolerance, understanding, and patient study. As I have alluded to in reviews of the preceding stories, the thoughtful pace is broken up by moments of intense excitement, but the narrative has to be savoured and enjoyed for gems like this, “...a vast and abrupt precipice, the sheer sides a trickle of motion...” Each character makes a discovery, about themselves and their friends and family, except for maybe Deven, the little boy, who intuits everything in the most lovely and unassuming manner. I so want to see what he gets up to when he’s older. The more alien characters are equally fascinating and the subtle hints of their background cultures enrich the story with depth and colour.
Finally, author Marcha Fox has a gift for explaining the science in an interesting and original way. The detailed world she creates is genius, so well thought out and crafted and sci-fi fans who love properly developed cultures backed up by hard and well understood science will devour these stories. The quiet thread of an entity stronger than either individual or corporation runs throughout this series and I believe reflects many faith systems once semantics are put aside with its impact only fully understood in the uniquely fitting and uplifting climax.
Quite beautiful.
I highly recommend this series for adults and young adults.
Consumer Advocate on Amazon
I came to REFRACTIONS of FROZEN TIME without having read the previous novels. That said, I didn't have too much trouble acclimating myself it the Star Trails universe, but then I'm a voracious reader of science fiction. I will say that after the third or fourth chapter, I felt comfortable with the characters and understood enough of the plot to keep me turning (digital) pages.
I love space opera, especially when the characters drive the action versus external events. Star Trails is a nice mix of both. Events encroach on the characters, but they also make decisions that affect outcomes in meaningful ways. It's a good balance between the two, one that Fox navigates with ease.
Fox supports some of the science in the novel with real, actual, well... science! She's worked for NASA and it shows. I'm becoming a fan of reading books by folks with actual scientific credentials such as Ejner Fulsang's SpaceCorp . Specificity in terms of science always earns my admiration. I should say, the science isn't distracting from the story; this isn't one of those science-books-masquerading-as-a-novel that I sometimes run into from those who write "hard" science fiction story. Star Trails includes some philosophy, pseudoscience, and even a touch of fantasy to enliven the scientific bits.
The writing is clean and understandable. It's nice to read prose that flows and works with the story rather than against it. Some Indie-published books can be a chore to read. This isn't one of them.
I would recommend reading these books in order; while this novel stands up as as stand alone book, I had the sense that I missed a lot of the finer points of the plot not having read the books the precede it.
James B on Amazon
I really liked this book! It reminded me a little of Timothy Zahn’s ‘Star Wars - Thrawn Trilogy,' which was an all-time favorite as a kid. The Brightstar family have helped to form a rag-tag alliance of multi-cultural rebels (robots, alien bugs and vegemals!) against a planet-dominating conglomerate of men who are evilly ambitious. I think the evil characters, especially Augustus Troy, were my favorites, because I liked that they were these ambitious middle-manager types, but their ‘corporate initiatives’ involved genocide.
In order to defeat these villains, the Brightstar children and their diverse ‘Clique’ of friends have to think their way through a whole world of complicated problems. Much of the struggle revolves around ‘intelligence.’ Either analytical intelligence from scientific data, or ‘SIGINT.’ It’s cool to see a space sci-fi book play up the importance of monitoring (or cloaking) signals and energy signatures, because this would obviously be a very important aspect of any conflict in space. Unfortunately, the Brightstars are faced with figuring out another source of intelligence—or destruction. Both the good guys and the bad guys are racing to understand how to harness psi energy for their purposes. It’s a powerful quantum force that could locate, listen to, or kill a sentient being, instantaneously, from lightyears away.
So very big stakes! At the same time, some of the Brightstars’ allies have secrets in their pasts that might draw them closer, or may rip the family apart, just when they need each other most!