Black Sheep cover art

Black Sheep

A Space Opera Adventure (Flight of the Javelin, Book 1)

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Black Sheep

By: Rachel Aukes
Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
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About this listen

An alien ship. Stolen colonists. All Throttle wanted was a vacation....

Fifteen years into a 20-year voyage, war veteran Captain Throttle Reyne is looking forward to taking a break from dealing with malfunctions, glitches, and the hassles of monitoring 1,000 colonists in cryo-sleep.

But when her colony ship breaks down in the middle of nowhere, Throttle and her crew must leave the colonists behind to search for help. They find a ship that's not only missing a crew...it's clearly not from their star system.

It's the discovery of a lifetime. All they need to do is tow the mysterious vessel back to their colony ship for further study and Throttle won't ever have to work again. One problem. While they're away, the colony ship is stolen - with the colonists still on board.

Throttle gives chase to a lawless star system on the outer rim. To get their colonists back, they must take on the pirates and ganglords who will do anything - and sell anyone - to make a buck.

They play dirty. But Throttle and her crew play dirtier.

Strap on your restraints and experience the start of this new space-opera thrill ride. It's perfect for fans of Jay Allan, Jennifer Foehner Wells, and Star Wars.

©2020 Aethon Books (P)2020 Aethon Audio
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What listeners say about Black Sheep

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Awesome.

A hard adventure to a new home. Full of resilient struggle, firm friendship and the onward forward motion of living. Brilliant.

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Great start to a new series

Loved it from start to finish. Good story with a proper ending but setting up well to go forwards.

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Fast Paced Space Opera

I do love a good space opera, and this is a great example of a good space opera. I listened to the audio version, narrated by Emily Woo Zeller, and enjoyed her story telling skills as much with this book as I have with others.

Throttle is a captain of a cargo ship that has been converted into a colony vessel. She and a handful of crew, including the man she loves, an ex-pirate, take it in turns to sleep on the 15 years of the journey so far. The colonists are all in cryogenic sleep and they are all looking for a fresh start away from their star system that has been riddled with wars.

The ship is starting to fall apart as it was not designed for deep space long term journeys and eventually there is a system wide failure. The crew decide to take the ex-pirate ship they have in the hold to try and find help, not really expecting to find any, except they find a ship, lying dead in space with no one aboard.

When they take the ship back to the colony ship to rescue all the colonists they find a hole in space and evidence of pirates having stolen the vessel. Throttle has made a promise to get those colonists to a safe new home and she is determined to keep that promise.

I loved Throttle so much. She is a paraplegic who wears leg braces to ambulate most of the time, but a wheelchair when the braces are not possible. It’s not often you have disabled characters in Sci-fi because usually they have miraculous cures or cybernetic limbs that are better than the originals. To have a disabled main character, who also has a successful and loving relationship is fantastic for someone who is also disabled. I particularly loved how much she enjoyed floating in zero gravity, because I can imagine how freeing it would be.

Apart from being disabled, Throttle is a gifted leader. She is strong, fearless and will do anything to get the job done. She’s called Throttle because of her incredible skills as a pilot. She’s also a crack shot and great at hand to hand combat, even in leg braces. The other characters were as well rounded as Throttle, but she is the main focus of the story, though there are other points of view.

The story rockets along at a cracking pace and I really enjoyed the notion of two different branches of humanity’s colonisation efforts meeting centuries after the fact and finding a divergence in law, technology and social structure, but who still have a common language.

There were a few plot twists along the way, especially toward the end, that knocked me askew. They made me very likely to read the next book in the series, but didn’t leave me gnawing my nails to the quick in frustration about the way it ended.

I really enjoyed this book, especially the audio version, I will definitely be reading/listening to the next in the series.

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good deep space sci-fi.

Really enjoyed the feeling deep space and of being far from home or help. Beautifully narrated by Emily Woo Zeller, her range is excellent and her intensity is palpable.

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Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat

When system failure of the colony ship, Gabriella, 15 years into her 20 year voyage forces Captain 'Throttle' Reynes and her crew to abandon the 862 colonist cryopods on board to search for help, she discovers the unexpected: a huge, new looking ship floating where no ship should ever have gone. And it was empty. And functional. And at least 200 years old. They named her, Javelin, after making friends with the lonely A.I.

Action packed science fiction of the almost goodies versus the evil ones, this was an interesting start to a new series by Rachel Aukes, which delivers on personalities as well as good world building. A bit too heavy on the close proximity action for this reader: the mysteries earlier in the book were, however, fascinating, and overall, the series holds promise. Emily Woo Zeller was the excellent narrator.

A good read for space pirate saga fans, especially those who enjoy feisty woman leading the action. I will definitely be looking out for book two.

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Really enjoyed it

It starts with a disaster, then everybody gets saved, then it gets worse and you're never really sure where it's going next. You've got good guys, bad guys and the downtrodden mob who turn out to be the really good guys after all. You'll like this.

It's described as "Book 1" so there's clearly a sequel on the way, but the ending doesn't leave anything hanging so it works as a standalone story. Recommended

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Enjoyably story and good performance

Loved the story as its very original and the story with the narrators performance has left me wanting more.

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Great series

If you love mmo and rpg you'llove this series it's great book to getlst in.

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