Revelations Review Tour

Blurb:

Aster Worthington is whisked away from delivering an astronomy lecture to a secret facility in New Mexico. There she spearheads a select group of scientists investigating First Contact with an alien civilization, in this case a message from an altruistic race called the Lambdons who are offering plans for a reactor giving humanity free energy.  Humans build the reactor and, per the instructions from the message, house it in a massive Dome.

Seven years later strange things have been happening inside the Dome and Aster is sent in to investigate. She finds impossibly high buildings filling the interior and weird life forms inhabiting what should a sterile environment. Then the impossible happens: thousands of Lambdons are found inhabiting the Dome and they are not friendly at all. Now two civilizations are on a collision course and humanity is most definitely going to lose. The last hope of humanity? A two-thousand-year old scroll hidden by the church.

Excerpt:

The Message

“Maybe it’s just a coincidence,” Stenton suggested.

“No. There won’t be coincidences in this message, Dr. Stenton,” said Demarco in a dismissive voice. He then went to the podium, which Henry ceded, tapped some keys and a moment later, the ones and zeros of the binary message aligned themselves in the form of a perfect square. With a flourish, Demarco pushed the last button. A black square appeared for every zero in the message and a white square for everyone. A black and white array appeared, rendering a clear, unambiguous picture of a planetary system. One with four planets, the second one from the sun circled.

“My God!” someone shouted from the back. “They sent us a picture.”

Henry smiled and yelled to Louis. “Hey, Louis, I told you a picture would be easy.”

Without taking his eyes off the screen, Demarco asked, “Is that the Lambda system, Dr. Worthington?”

Heads swiveled to Aster. She nodded. “Yes. That is the correct spacing for the Lambda star system.”

“Another large number after the last spacer. Different one, but the same number of bits,” Jeremy announced, speaking loud over the din.

Demarco did his magic again, and a humanoid body filled the screen, strikingly similar to a human, except for a slightly larger head. Their hands had three digits, not five.

“It’s them.”

“They’re like us.”

Someone from the back shouted, “The Lambdons.” Now the aliens had a face and a name.

Louis, however, scrunched his face in consternation. He shuffled close to the screen, studying it.

Aster watched the muttering biologist. “Louis, what’s wrong?”

Louis turned around, his face worried. “These Lambdons… they look like us.”

“Not exactly like us. They have three fingers and a larger head.”

“Too close,” mumbled the biologist.

My Review:

4 stars

This book was a blast to read (yes, that’s s space pun). I enjoyed diving into the world the author created, with some friendly aliens…who end up being not so friendly.

The characters were interesting, and I liked the romance between Brock and Aster (though it did annoy me a tad at times when it was the typical strong female character going all sparkly eyes at the big strong male). I liked the Lambdons the most though because I felt they were the most thought out characters. Finding out their motivations in the conclusion alone was intriguing, as it made me look back on everything I’d read in a different light.

The plot was also interesting, though I didn’t quite get the point of the religious undertones throughout the story. I might be overthinking the intent of including this, but when reading the epilogue, it made it seem like this book was the setup for a series where the religious undertones would come even more into play, which I would like to see, as the epilogue has one heck of a cliffhanger/opening for a new book.

All in all, this was a fun sci-fi novel, and I would recommend it to sci-fi fans looking for some well-planned aliens.

*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

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Don’t forget to visit the other stops on the tour.

Author Bio and Links:

Robert Sells has taught physics for over forty years, but he has been a storyteller for over half a century, entertaining children, grandchildren, and students.  He has written the award-winning novel, Return of the White Deer, historical fiction about Penda of Mercia. His second fiction book, Reap the Whirlwind, was a thriller about the dawn of artificial intelligence and the subsequent decline of humanity.  His third book, The Runner and the Robbery, was a young adult novel about a teenager and his grandfather who had Alzheimer’s disease. Revelations, a science fiction novel, is his fourth book.

He lives with his wife, Dale, in the idyllic village of Geneseo, New York with two attentive dogs who are uncritical sounding boards for his new stories.  He is intrigued by poker and history, in love with Disney and writing, and amused by religion and politics.

Amazon Author Page    |    Goodreads

The book will be $.99 during the tour.