{"id":1142,"date":"2015-08-09T16:27:20","date_gmt":"2015-08-09T21:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/?p=1142"},"modified":"2015-08-09T16:27:20","modified_gmt":"2015-08-09T21:27:20","slug":"the-lines-are-calling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/the-lines-are-calling\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lines are Calling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Linesman\"<\/a>Linesman<\/em><\/a>
\nS. K. Dunstall<\/a>
\nAce Science Fiction
\nmmpb $7.99 US, $10.49 CAN
\nebook<\/a> $5.99<\/p>\n

Before I get started, I’d like to thank Ace Books for the review copy.\u00a0 Ace is one of those lines you should be paying attention to.<\/p>\n

S. K. Dunstall is the collaborative pen name of sisters Sherylyn and Karen Dunstall.\u00a0 Linesman<\/em> is their first published novel.\u00a0 It won’t be their last (the sequel hits shelves in February).<\/p>\n

The story takes place at least 500 years in the future if I picked up on all the internal clues correctly.\u00a0 Interstellar travel is accomplished by means of lines.\u00a0 They’re some type of sentient energy, although the sentient part isn’t a widely accepted idea when the book opens.\u00a0 Without the lines, it’s impossible to travel faster than light.\u00a0 (Where they come from is a mystery that isn’t solved in this book.)<\/p>\n

In order to travel and make use of the lines, a ship has to have a linesman on it.\u00a0 Lines are numbered one through ten, with nine and ten being the two lines that involve entering\u00a0 and moving through the void.\u00a0 Not all linesmen can interact with all the lines, so “tens” are at the top of the pecking order.\u00a0 That pecking order is about to be upset by an alien ship discovered in deep space.<\/p>\n

Ean Lambert is a ten, but he grew up in the slums and entered his training late.\u00a0 His training didn’t go well, but he was certified as a ten.\u00a0 He’s not a respected ten, though.\u00a0 Unlike the other linesmen, who communicate with the lines through something resembling telepathy, Ean sings to them.<\/p>\n

Ean’s contract is bought out by a princess.\u00a0 The Alliance is on the verge of war with Gate Union.\u00a0 So far only the Alliance is aware of the alien ship, and they need Ean to help them investigate it.\u00a0 What they find will change the power balance in human space.<\/p>\n

First, a couple of things I didn’t like.\u00a0 First, Ean tends to spend too much time feeling sorry for himself.\u00a0 He is naive and inexperienced in many ways, but there are times when he really needs to grow a spine.\u00a0 The good thing is by the end of the book, he was shoeing some initiative.<\/p>\n

The second thing is something that probably won’t be an issue for most people.\u00a0 I’m not most people.\u00a0 I have a background in physics, and I found the whole physical justification of the lines to be claptrap.\u00a0 If I thought too much about what the lines were, I tended to lose my suspension of disbelief.\u00a0 So I considered them to be energy sources of different frequencies that just happened to be able to communicate.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the political intrigues and some mysteries of the ship that were solved were more than enough to keep me engaged.\u00a0 In spite of his behaving like a wet blanket at times, Ean is a sympathetic character who usually comes through in a pinch.\u00a0 And he gets pinched plenty.\u00a0 And by pinched, I mean kidnappings and attempts on his life.<\/p>\n

The Dunstalls handle a complicated political situation well, without allowing the complexities of the myriad intrigues to become too complicated.<\/p>\n

The story in Linesman<\/em> is far from over when the reader has closed the book.\u00a0 There are some discoveries at the end which imply the real story is just getting started.\u00a0 After all , that alien ship had to have come from somewhere.\u00a0 Linesman is a solid first installment in what promises to be a terrific space opera series.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linesman S. K. Dunstall Ace Science Fiction mmpb $7.99 US, $10.49 CAN ebook $5.99 Before I get started, I’d like to thank Ace Books for the review copy.\u00a0 Ace is one of those lines you should be paying attention to. S. K. Dunstall is the collaborative pen name of sisters Sherylyn and Karen Dunstall.\u00a0 Linesman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[734,753,759],"class_list":["post-1142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space-opera","tag-ace-books","tag-s-k-dunstall","tag-space-opera"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3P5pJ-iq","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1142"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1146,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions\/1146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}