SPSFC Review: Zenith or my favorite from the batch!

Hello people! I hope you all are happy and safe! Here it is pretty cold, and okay we are in January and it is normal, true, but up until now, the weather was quite humid but not so cold. I am not really complaining, but lately, my hands are solid pieces of ice. Truth be told they are always pretty cool in wintertime, but now they are really freezing! Anyway, today I am back with another review so I should stop blabbering about the weather and start talking about the book!

Title: Zenith
Series: The Interscission Project #1
Author: Arshad Ahsanuddin
Page count: 350
Publication Date: March 10th, 2014

What if you could change history?
What if someone else already had?

Grounded after a rescue attempt in Earth orbit goes bad, Commander Martin Atkins of the Confederation Navy is approached by the Interscission Project, a consortium of civilian corporations on the verge of perfecting the technology to travel to another star. Despite his misgivings, the chance to get back in the pilot’s seat is too much to pass up, and he convinces his best friend and crewmate, Charles Davenport, to leave the military temporarily and join him as part of the crew of the Zenith, humanity’s first starship.
Edward Harlen is a brilliant young engineer, and a key player in the construction of the Zenith to take advantage of the untested technology of foldspace drive. But Edward has his own agenda in joining the project, and a bitterly personal score to settle with his boss, Trevor Sutton, a vendetta of which Trevor is entirely ignorant. When Edward’s sister Stella enters the picture and manages to secure a position on the project, all of Edward’s careful plotting is upset, and she might spell the downfall not only of his plans for revenge, but of the entire Zenith mission.
The spark of attraction between Edward and Martin is a complication that Edward can’t afford, but of which he can’t let go. For Edward knows the secret at the heart of the Interscission Project, the hidden potential of the technology that in the wrong hands could become the ultimate assassin’s weapon: the ability to rewrite history, not just once, but many times. As an unseen enemy moves to destroy them, and the body count multiplies in their wake, Martin and Edward must choose whether they will allow the possibility of love to challenge their destinies, or will they instead take up arms in a war to control the most ancient and terrible power in the universe.
Time, itself.

This was the last book I have read from our batch of books for SPSFC, and it seems like I kept the best for last. This book has a lot of good things going, and I was captivated almost from the beginning.
Once the two MCs are invested in the project that can change human history forever I was mighty intrigued and I couldn’t stop turning the pages.

The writing is pretty smooth, and I found myself caring more and more for Marty and Charles, but especially Marty. He is an interesting character, he is quite complex and resourceful. And he really cares about the people that are important to him, even if he has a roguish way to approach life. And this made him even more endearing. Charles is the cool-headed one, but he is also interesting. And when you add Stella, Edward, and Jake to the mix we get a really interesting cast of characters. And we shouldn’t forget about Knox either. I wished to get to see more of him because he was intriguing and he had so much potential. But maybe we would see him again in the next book? I can’t really say what to expect from the next book, I can’t say which characters we will meet again, and what would happen… I can literally say nothing, and usually, I would find this thing quite annoying, but here I just think it is intriguing!

But I have gotten ahead of myself, so let’s take a step back here. We have great characters, and then we have a really interesting plot. It is so full of twists and turns. And the end… oh my that end! I know that I shouldn’t talk about the end now, that I should wait but since I have mentioned it I can as well get on with it. The end is… not really a cliff-hanger, because we get a conclusion of sort, but it is just so… wait what??? That you need to read the next book. You just have to. Because the need to know, the need to see what happened and what would happen is just so strong! And I know that it can sound a bit confusing, but we have time-travel in there, and so past present and future became a bit mixed. And I won’t say more because I can’t spoiler this for you. But you have to trust me, this is just good!

And yes, we have time travel here, and usually, I am not the biggest fan, but I enjoyed this part a lot all the same, and this is quite astounding. And then we have a mystery, some romance (and I have to say that maybe the romance was, in some ways, the weakest point of this book. Mind me, it is not bad and it is quite important for the plot, and I appreciated it a lot, but… even if it is quite well developed, and I enjoyed it, it felt like it was lacking something. But this is just a minor thing, really!) and a lot of science going on. And action. And it is all pretty well balanced too.

I have to say that I was quite surprised to find myself so engrossed by this reading, but I devoured the book, and now I can’t wait to read the sequel, because I really need to!

And what about you? Have you read this book? Or are you interested in it?? Let me know!!!!

Happy reading!
S.