Title: Titan Mine | Series: Arosil #2 | Author: B.L. Alley | Pub. Date: 2015-4-22 | Publisher: Lone Peak Publishing | Pages: 302 | ISBN13: 9780986342240 | Genre: Science Fiction | Language: English | Triggers: None | Rating: 4 out of 5 | Source: Kindle Unlimited
Titan Mine
You never know who may be out there.
Mining methane is a difficult process even when conditions are ideal, but when it has to be done on another world the challenge increases exponentially. The members of a mining crew have just completed construction of a new facility on the Saturn moon Titan, but shortly after they begin collecting the methane a discovery is made while mapping the surface. An expedition is sent to locate and identify the mysterious object, but what they find instead is a conspiracy that could not only lead to the destruction of mankind, but of all life on Earth.
With a final desperate act they attempt to reveal the truth behind the object’s existence before it’s too late.-Goodreads
Titan Mine Review
Titan Mine is the second book in the Arosil series. I have not read the first book. I grabbed this one from Kindle Unlimited because it was supposed to take place on Titan, and I was looking for something not Mars or spaceship-based to shake up my reading a little bit. To the author’s credit, even though some stuff definitely references the first book, I did not feel lost. Titan Mine functions fine as a stand-alone.
Kem, the main character, is the type of boss almost everyone wants to have. He trusts his people to do their work and uses the carrot rather than the stick approach that keeps morale up. Actually, I liked most of the characters in Titan Mine, and even when I didn’t like them, I still felt something other than outright disgust for them. (Well, except for that one character…) Sometimes the situation isn’t black and white, and I think the author did a good job communicating that.
There’s a nice switch-up at about the 60% point that took me by surprise. Now, had I read book one, it might not have surprised me at all, but as it was, it was a nice “What?!” moment. Looking back, it should have been a little more obvious to me that something was different. I won’t say more though, because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone.
My one real criticism of Titan Mine is that sometimes the descriptions (of both action and object) were confusing. Initially I had put it down just to my being a bit of an idiot when it comes to visualizing things. However, there were a couple of other times where I got a bit confused as to what was going on. It wasn’t enough to really detract from the story, though. One minor thing was that there was a bit of an info-dump about the layout of the ship orbiting Titan early on that felt a bit unnecessary at that point.
While Titan Mine isn’t the type of story to send you on a grand imaginative journey, it is nonetheless competently written and enjoyable. The plot moves along at a steady pace, the dialogue is believable, and the amount of action is satisfying as well. It held my attention long enough for me to read it in two sittings during one day, which is fairly rare lately.
Overall, it’s a good read that presents very professionally. (Quite frankly a delight lately the way my luck has been with books.) Worth checking out, especially if you’re a sci-fi fan that’s a bit bored of Mars this, Mars that.
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