author : Ryk E. Spoor

All the newly invented FTL drive test probes have failed to return. So the spaceship Holy Grail is sent off with a human crew to discover why. Captain Ariane Austin assumes this will be a routine mission that won't need to call on her piloting skills: the AISages will take care of all that. She couldn't be more wrong, as the ship and crew end up trapped in a mind-bogglingly vast artefact, and have to face several Challenges before they can think about returning home.

This is a Doc Smith homage, but it isn't a Doc Smith pastiche. That is, it has all the ever-increasing sense of scale and scope and wonder and technology and square-jawed heroes (and the lead character is even a fan), but none of the "the Golden Age of SF is 14" prose style (one character does occasionally lapse into Smith-speak, but there's a good reason for that). Okay, some of the characters are a bit cardboard (which one is Steve and which one is Tom, again?), but on the other hand, the various aliens are great. And the sensawunda is mostly well-conveyed.

After a slightly slow start, this is just rollicking good fun, good old-fashioned space opera, without some of the old-fashioned problems. There's closure at the end, but clearly a lot more to be told in this universe. Remember, Doc Smith wrote series...