Endless Blue By: Wen Spencer
Endless Blue is a space adventure/mystery/romance from Wen Spencer. As with all her books the best part of them is the interplay of her characters, and the process of them dealing with their own issues. In many ways this book is defined by the flaws in the characters and the way their flaws mirror the flaws in the society they come from. One thing that I particularly like in this book is that in coming to grips with their own problems the main characters are able to move forward with fixing those parts of their society. As usual Wen Spencer builds a complex world you hope to continue to experience, and there is nothing about this book that I dislike. This is the only book in the series, but I continue to hope that she picks up this world and these characters again.
The book starts begins when Mikhail Volkov and his foster brother Turk are sent to investigate the origin of an ancient human warp drive that warped into their space without a ship to go with it. Mikhail and Turk must set off for the coordinates the warp drive came from with an untried complement of genetically engineered super soldiers known as Reds. Almost immediately after their warp things go very wrong. The jump coordinates have placed them in what appears to be the atmosphere of a planet. The ship is badly damaged and Turk is sucked out to land somewhere on the world below. Mikhail somehow manages to gain control of his ship and it remains partially functional. From here both characters must learn to cope with the world on their own.
Mikhail must somehow pull his ship and crew together while trying to cope with the loss of his foster brother (who he presumes dead) who he has always leaned on emotionally. This is made more difficult by the Reds that they picked up being badly trained, and abused by a perverted former master. You see the nasty secret of this universe is that genetically engineered humans are enslaved. This causes Mikhail many issues since his foster brother Turk is a Red, and he himself is a clone of his father designed to lead his planet as an heir. Mikhail has many insecurities due to his early childhood and the feeling that he is just an inferior copy of the real thing. In order to pull off his tasks Mikhail must realize that he is more than just the clone of his worlds great leader, but is a leader in his own right.
Meanwhile Turk is rescued by the descendants of a human ship that was also lost in this dimension filled with water that the inhabitants call Sargasso. From them he learns that they have landed in a kind of warp bermuda triangle, and nobody has ever escaped. Paige, one of his saviors, teaches him a lot about the world he finds himself in. They even find themselves beginning to have a relationship but Turk has trouble getting over the deeply ingrained prejudice he feels for any genetically engineered human. This is made worse when he learns that some of her ancestors were from different genetically engineered lines.
Ultimately Paige helps Turk overcome his own self hatred and helps him find his brother. Reunited the brothers are inspired by what has been built in Sargasso to fix their society for the better if they make it home. Turk and Mikhail have the most functional ship to ever land on Sargasso, but it remains to be seen if they will be able to make it back home in one piece because there are forces in Sargasso who don't want Mikhail and his crew to ever be heard from again.
This book will appeal to a very wide audience since it has fully developed romance, space adventure, and mystery plots. As with other books by this author I recommend this book for anyone who will give it half a chance.
This book can be bought as an E-book or in print from www.amazon.com.
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