Reviewed by Chris

TITLE:  The Spires of Turris

SERIES:  London Wells #1

AUTHOR:  Christine Danse

PUBLISHER:  NineStar Press

LENGTH:  285 pages

RELEASE DATE:  January 2, 2017

BLURB:  

Dr. London Wells, linguist and adventurer, has the unique ability to understand any language in the universe, including the languages left behind by the ancient dead races of the Lost Planets – making him an intergalactic celebrity. But London likes his privacy—and he always works alone. No assistants, no entourage. When he goes on expedition to a Lost Planet, it’s just him, the memory of dead aliens, and the resident man-eating fauna. He’s a self-sufficient sharp shooter whose insatiable curiosity can stand up to any danger.

Until he breaks his head falling from a cliff. That changes everything.

Now, after a long recovery, London is onto the greatest discovery of his life: a language to prove a connection between the Lost Planets. In order to investigate further, he’ll need to travel to an unforgiving alien planet. But he can’t go alone. That’s his dean’s last condition: either he travels with a research assistant, or not at all.

Unfortunately for London, graduate student Chas Chambers is not the only unexpected element on this trip…

REVIEW:  

No one knows what happened to the Lost Planets–or, well, more specifically, the people who used to populate them. All anyone can figure out is that at some point they left or died out without leaving any trace of their existence there other than a few broken pieces of writing. Dr. London Wells was the one who cracked all thirteen languages (though he only gets credit for twelve) but even he doesn’t know who or what these writers were or where they went. Sadly, most everyone is convinced that what is known is all that they will ever know, and have consigned the Lost Planets and their mysterious inhabitants to the nothing more than a good story. That is until London finds two small bits of pictographic writing connecting two Lost Planets–a connection that defies all explanation. When a third planet is suspected to hold that very same impossible carvings, London is sure he is on the cusp of answering one the the universe’s biggest questions. The problem is that he is not the only one with a stake in the answer–and those others are a bit more willing to wipe out the competition to get to it first.

I am absolutely thrilled that I got a chance to review this book. It’s been a while since I came across a scifi story that really sold me on the the scifi aspects of the book. All the technology used in this story fit seamlessly with the the world in which it was takes place…but not only that, but I honestly got the feeling reading this that this future world is entirely plausible. I loved the sims and how they are used. The way memories could be copied from a person’s brain was really cool, and was a good set up to later stuff in the story.

There was also the language aspect of this story. Some of my favorite scifi stories are the books that make up Lyn Gala’s Claiming series, and while these books are a bit different, I loved how the language was used in both of them. Protags with smarts are my favorite kind, and London Wells was a great example of why. He also has that eccentric-professor thing going on–which, yeah, another hit on my favorites list. I’ll admit that I was a little worried about how his ability to decipher every language he comes across, would impact how I see his character (characters with amazing super-like powers have a tendency to bore me) but everything else about him easily balanced it out. The way he deals with his fears and pains really made him come off as a well-rounded character and entirely relatable despite the world in which he resides being so different from our own.

This book had a definite Indiana Jones feel to it, and despite the fact that involves mysterious aliens it was not at all like that horrible fourth movie. Christine Danse had such a great way of describing these long-abandoned places and worlds. I had so much fun reading about Landon and Chas’ (Landon’s assistant) constant perils and exciting discoveries.

Speaking of Chas…I’m really looking forward to learning more about him. Slowly learning about him and his past over the course of this book made me love him all the more. We probably only have scratched the surface of him. The romance in this book is really low-key, and only really comes to head near the end of the book, but there is definite potential. And having heard from the author that this is just the first in a four-story book arch, I am so excited to see what comes next. There is still so much we don’t know. This is just the opening salvo of what will probably be a great series, but I still highly recommend it.

RATING:  

BUY LINKS:

NineStar Press

Amazon