The Icarus Job (The Icarus Saga #3) 3.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Icarus Job
Series: The Icarus Saga #3
Author: Timothy Zahn
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 287
Words: 108K
Publish: 2024

This time around we have more Space Mafia doing corrupt Space Mafia things (and forcing Roarke and Selene to help), more Patth doing Patth’y things, more Icarus modules popping up like balloons and then throw in an intergalactic assassin, bake it in the oven at 350° for 3hours and voila, a perfect space opera thiller, just like Momma used to make, the old fashioned way, in her space oven!

I am thoroughly enjoying this series. It is fun, it is zippy, I like the characters (both good and bad) and the situations from book to book are never the same. New people, new settings, new adventures. Zahn is really impressing me with this series and I’m not sure why. I can say all the reasons why it shouldn’t, but that just hasn’t mattered to me. That is why reading is such a subjective activity. It is also one of the reasons I wax so eloquently and so opinionatedly on books. Just like the word “opinionatedly”, it is correct because I used it that way and thus the books I read are good books if I enjoy them because “I” enjoyed them. That sounds egotistical I know, but considering the majority of other readers have a taste for mud and filth, I’m the only one with good taste that I can trust. You can trust me too!

★★★✬☆

From the Internet

Narrative Setup & Inciting Incident

The story begins with a localized conflict that rapidly escalates into galactic corporate warfare. Protagonist Gregory Roarke is cornered in a bar by a bitter bounty hunter named Oberon, seeking vengeance because Roarke previously freed a group of aliens Oberon intended to sell into gladiatorial slavery. Roarke is saved by fellow hunter Sebastian Trent, who uses the distraction to capture Oberon. Trent offers Roarke a high-stakes hijacking job.

Though tempted, Roarke declines because he is contacted by Floyd—a mob enforcer tied to organized crime syndicates from Roarke's past. Floyd connects Roarke and his scent-tracking partner, Selene, with criminal underworld boss Robertine Cherno.

The Ultimate Trade

Cherno presents an incredible proposition to the Icarus Group. In exchange for the exact coordinates of a hidden, unmapped alien teleportation portal, Roarke and Selene must act as transporters for a passenger named Nikki. The massive complication is that Nikki is an active, elite, and highly feared professional assassin who is currently in the middle of executing a contract across the Spiral.

Multi-Sided Conflict & Complications

Once Roarke and Selene accept the assignment and get underway, the mission turns into a lethal chess game with shifting layers of deception:

• The Assassin's Secret: Nikki is playing by her own enigmatic set of rules. She isn't just running a routine hit; she is actively being hunted by a ruthless, unknown stalker who tracks her every move.

• The Patth Intervention: The powerful alien Patth catch wind of the portal's existence. Because their economic dominance relies entirely on their monopoly over galactic shipping, the discovery of free, instantaneous ancient portals threatens their empire. They deploy aggressive agents to intercept Roarke and seize the portal by force.

• The Syndicate's Hidden Hand: As Roarke and Selene navigate deep-space ambushes and assassination attempts, they realize the mafia hierarchy, Cherno, and even the initial bar fight are interconnected parts of a massive trap designed to exploit the portal's ancient creators.

Climax & Resolution

Roarke is forced to rely on his old bounty hunting instincts while Selene utilizes her acute alien senses to survive crossfires between rival hunters, mafia hit squads, and the Patth military machine. By untangling Nikki's true target and outmaneuvering the Patth, Roarke manages to secure the portal coordinates for the Icarus Group while preventing the tech from triggering a sector-wide corporate war. The novel concludes by deepening the overarching mystery of the vanished alien civilization that constructed the network, setting up the events of The Icarus Changeling

The Icarus Plot (The Icarus Saga #2) 3.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Icarus Plot
Series: The Icarus Saga #2
Author: Timothy Zahn
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 287
Words: 114K
Publish: 2023

So twisty, so fun. By this time in my association with Zahn, I’ve realized my brain just can’t keep up with the twists and turns and so I don’t try. I just sit back and hang on while Zahn rockets me forward on the ride. It was a good ride too.

I’d like to talk more about the book, but really, I just had fun. It is part of a series and the series is going well. I’m good with that.

★★★✬☆

From the Internet

For years Gregory Roarke and his Kadolian partner Selene worked as crocketts, combing through the atmospheres of uninhabited worlds for places that might be colonized or hold valuable resources. Now, they quietly work for the Icarus Group, a top-secret government organization hunting for portals created by a long-vanished alien race, portals that can teleport a person hundreds or thousands of light-years in the blink of an eye.

Roarke and Selene are searching one such possibility when they find that someone appears to be stalking them. They evade their pursuers and return to find that a man named Easton Dent has been searching the Spiral’s databases for the names Gregory Roarke and Icarus.

Roarke reluctantly agrees to meet with him. But that first contact is cut short, and hours later Roarke is arrested and accused of Dent’s murder.

More importantly to Roarke’s Icarus Group overseers, that brief meeting also confirms that Dent was in recent contact with a portal.

But the alien Patth are also searching for such portals, and they are also on the trail. It’s now a race . . . and the Patth have resources and ruthlessness far beyond anything Roarke and Selene can match.

In a universe where transportation is subsumed by the Paath monopoly, Gregory Roarke and his partner Selena have been hired by the Icarus program to find interstellar gates that allow instantaneous transportation between any two points in the galaxy. But when a conman and thief named Easton Dent continuously searches for “Gregory Roarke” and “Icarus,” everyone wants to hunt Dent down. The con man will only make contact with Roarke.

But when a body drops near the contact point, with Roarke’s wallet near the corpse, the problems expand exponentially. The Paath are after the portal. Roarke’s old mob boss employer is after Roarke and Dent. Icarus has secrets of its own, and playing its own long game. On top of everything else is Easton Dent’s brother, Weston—an omnipresent threat that always watches Easton’s back. Worst of all: The badgemen are after Roarke for the murder of Easton Dent.

The Icarus Plot (The Icarus Saga #1) 3.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Icarus Plot
Series: The Icarus Saga #1
Author: Timothy Zahn
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 318
Words: 120K
Publish: 2022

This is a “new” series by Timothy Zahn that follows up on his standalone book The Icarus Hunt. This series is “Icarus” adjacent, in that we follow a new set of characters who were not actually part of the Icarus Hunt. But Project Icarus is front and center, so it definitely deserves the Icarus name.

I’d last read The Icarus Hunt back in 2016 and had zero problem slotting right back into the universe. Zahn does an absolutely bang up job of introducing a new set of characters while giving us just enough enough from the Icarus Hunt so new readers can completely understand what is going on. Part of that is because this series is published by Baen while The Icarus Hunt was published by Bantam and I suspect Baen didn’t want readers to go exploring outside their garden. That makes zero sense to me, but hey, publishers, amiright? Anyway, any new reader can dive right into this science fiction series without worrying about backstory. However, if they should choose to go back and read The Icarus Hunt afterwards, they’ll just have a richer, fuller experience.

Now, my last read of Zahn was his Quadrail series, a space detective series. It became obvious through those 5 books that Zahn had one voice for his writing. Sadly, that is the case here. I kept getting flashbacks to Quadrail while reading this book. Gregory Roarke and Selene, the main characters here, sound and act almost exactly the same as Frank Compton and Bayta (notice the lack of last name for the women? It’s not derogatory on Zahn’s part, it’s just his formula) from Quadrail. The situations are different, but multiple alien encounters happen (just like in Quadrail) and Roarke reacts the same as Frank Compton. Selene/Bayta is a side character and stays that way. It was like seeing an actor from a movie I really like acting in another movie. Imagine if Agent Smith from the Matrix was acting all “Smith’y” as Elrond in the Lord of the Rings movies? Or if Agent Smith was acting like Elrond while being in the Matrix? It didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the book, but it did leave me concerned that maybe this Icarus series was going to end up feeling like Quadrail 2.0.

Zahn writes really good move/counter-move/TWIST/count-twist/move kind of stories and that is the case here. Just when I thought maybe I had a handle on things, everything shifted and I had to put what I had before into this new perspective that had just opened up to me. As long as you don’t mind knowing that you don’t know what is actually going on, you’ll love this book.

Overall, I like the ideas presented here, I like how this continues the Icarus storyline but with new people while incorporating the original cast and I like the inclusion of more aliens and wider socio-political stage. My concerns I’ve already voiced, so now we’ll see if they happen or not.

Bon Voyage...

★★★✬☆

From the Internet

The Icarus Plot, the first book in Timothy Zahn's Icarus Saga, follows former bounty hunter Gregory Roarke and his Kadolian partner, Selene. Working as peaceful trailblazers, their quiet life ends when they are hired by mysterious operatives to track down a woman named Tera and a secret project known as Icarus.

• The Setup: Roarke is drawn to the job not just for the unlimited budget, but for the chance for long-delayed payback against an old adversary.

• The Hunt: As Roarke and Selene search for Tera, they realize they aren't the only ones in the game. Multiple groups of bounty hunters and one of the most ruthless drug lords in the galaxy are all vying for the target.

• The Twists: Every employer and player in the plot has their own hidden agenda. Roarke must constantly determine who to trust and survive countless long cons while uncovering the true nature of the Icarus project

Six years ago, the freighter Icarus disappeared with all hands aboard. Five years ago, bounty hunter Gregory Rourke and his partner Selene were hunting the Icarus’ captain Jordan McKell when they were both ambushed. Now Rourke and Selene are trailblazers, surveying unknown worlds. Now they’re hired by a mysterious pair who want them to return to bounty hunting. The target? Another member of the Icarus. For Rourke, it looks like payback time.

But Rourke is about to find himself hip deep in a plot with more players than he can possibly realize. His employers are untrustworthy. Other bounty hunters are in on the chase. One of the worst drug lords in the spiral arm of the galaxy has added his own bounty. The woman Rourke is hunting is playing a game of her own, and she has her own allies.