Dark Knight Station: Origins By Nathan Lowell - A Prequel Story For Fans Of The Golden Age Tales

Dark Knight Station: Origins by Nathan Lowell

Vagrant Station hangs in space with the purpose of serving interstellar commerce. From the outside, it looks like a serene place that belies what is actually happening on the inside. There is much unrest aboard the station as its residents go about their business. The owner of the station only seems interested in lining his pockets with as many credits as possible. Of his two sons, the one who is being groomed to take over when the owner, Edgar Vagrant no longer can, is a malicious predator. The younger of the two, Zachary, is happy to work in the hydroponics lab, but circumstances thrust station management upon him. He’s not ready and knows it. On top of all this is an apparent threat of a hostile movement to unseat the Vagrants from their ownership.

All of that is just the tip of the iceberg in this character-driven story set in Nathan Lowell’s Dark Knight Station: Origins set in the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper universe.

The tale is told from three points of view. Zachary Vagrant is a young man with no interest in being part of station operations. When his brother, Malachi, fails to find and solve problems, Edgar, Zachary’s father and owner of Vagrant Station, taps Zachary to take Malachi’s place. Zachary finds and tries to get the job done, but soon finds himself overwhelmed.

Malachi Vagrant is a man with absolutely no redeeming qualities. He prowls the station just looking for people to hurt and sometimes even kill. In his mind, he keeps lists of people to take revenge on if he perceives they have wronged him, and everyone he encounters seems to wrong him.

Verkol Kondur starts out as a barge captain. The barges go out to the asteroid belt near the station and bring back ore to sell. Kondur’s barge, and most of the others serving Vagrant Station, become inoperable because of the lack of maintenance and the use of substandard supplies. When it is time to deliver a load of ore to another station, Kondur is called on to be the first officer of the delivery ship. We learn he is a good man. Kondur is even-tempered and thoughtful. He treats everyone with respect but is not above snapping them back if the need arises. He receives the offer of a lifetime, but is reluctant to take the task on until he has all the facts, and friends convince him he is right for the job.

Every character in the story, including the minor characters and the walk-ons, have a depth to them that makes them seem real.

The story flows logically and moves at high speed. There is no waste of words and no point that the story becomes tedious. Once one opens this book, there is no stopping, you just cannot set it down.

For those of us familiar with the universe of the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, this will seem like a prequel novel since these events take place before the events of the Ishmael Wang stories. What Nathan actually gives us with this story is a nod to his fans. On his blog, (https://nathanlowell.com/category/catalog/books/) Nathan explains:

“I picked up and combined some of the ideas that fans submitted to write the origin story of Dark Knight Station and how Verkol Kondur came to run it.”

The tone of this book differs from what we are used to in Nathan’s previous writings. It is grittier than his other stories and can make one a little uncomfortable thanks to the exploits of Malachi. That being said, there is no point at which the story is implausible. To those of us that read Nathan’s work, these stories are real, filled with genuine people we care about.

The theme that strikes me most in Dark Knight Station: Origins is how people who care about others can triumph over those who only care about themselves. We never really get the backstory on what happened with Edgar Vagrant to make him such a bitter, miserly, uncaring old man. Maybe we’ll get that story later on.

I give my highest recommendations for this book, and all the rest of Nathan Lowell’s stories.

Nathan Lowell was born in Portland, Maine, in 1952. He grew up in an agricultural community in rural Maine and spent time working on fishing boats along the coast. His first literary success came with the publication of a poem while still in elementary school. That early success was followed by forty years of attempt, rejection, failure, and ultimately giving up on the dream of writing science fiction.

In 2007, with the rise of podcast fiction, he started writing again. He completed his first successful novel - Quarter Share - in January, 2007, and podcast it through Podiobooks.com over February and March, 2007. Since then he has written more than twenty novels, several short stories, and a novella. His podcast novels have been finalists in the Parsec Award five times, and he’s won Parsec Awards for Speculative Fiction (long form) twice - 2010 and 2011.

He’s been a full time, self-published author since 2012 and was elected to the board of directors of the Science-Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2018 as Chief Financial Officer.

He holds a BS in Business Administration with a minor in Marketing from SUNY/Buffalo (92), an MA in Educational Technology (98), and a Ph.D. in Educational Technology with specializations in Distance Education, Interactive Media, and Instructional Design (04). He lives in Colorado but travels the world online.

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Mission to Phaedra by Troy A. Rutter - Great Entry Level Sci-Fi About A Youngster Forced To Move - To Another Planet!

Mission to Phaedra by Troy A. Rutter

Have you ever found yourself faced with a life-changing situation completely out of your control? I think most of us have, but no one has ever faced the situation Jacob Hale finds himself in when informed he will have to move - to another planet!

Mission to Phaedra is the story of an 11-year-old who is doing his best to cope with moving to the planet Phaedra where he, his father, and thousands of others charged with starting a colony. Their trip is to take place aboard a sleeper ship called the Constitution. Jacob’s dad is one of the designers of the new engine, which will take the colonists to Phaedra, a trip that will take four years. During that time, they will place all but the most essential personnel in cryo-sleep, essentially frozen in time.

Jacob has many things causing him concern. The book opens with him cleaning his room, having to decide what of his treasures to keep, and what to throw away. He cannot keep everything because they have given him two small boxes to take his most valued personal possessions. As he works, he sees his life going into the trash and thinks about how he will leave everything, and everyone, important to him behind. He thinks about the friends he is leaving behind on Earth and realizes that when he arrives on Phaedra, he will still be eleven while all his friends will be four years older than him. This is a lot for a young boy to deal with, but thanks to his dad, Mark, he has a solid support system.

Mark is a kind and understanding man, completely dedicated to the success of the mission, as well as Jacob. As Jacob works through his difficulties, Mark is always there to help Jacob understand as he works out all the difficulties of making a huge life change, the difficulties of shipboard life, and their future life on Phaedra.

One of my favorite scenes in the book is when Jacob is thinking about how restrictive all the rules and regulations on board the Constitution, and how it will be when they reach their destination. Jacob sees it as an almost prison like environment. Mark takes the time to sit down and explains why the regulations have to be so restrictive for the good of everyone in the colony.

Another character that becomes important, more to Mark than Jacob, and that’s the ship’s commander, Sarah, who will become the governor of the colony upon arrival. She takes an interest in Mark, not only as the engineer who designed the advanced engines aboard the Constitution, but also shows a personal interest.

Mission to Phaedra is an excellent entry-level sci-fi novel for kids from mid-elementary ages to seventh grade. It is well written with just enough technical detail to set the scene, but not so much to be overwhelming to young readers. Any youngster should be able to enjoy and understand the action and the feelings expressed by the characters. It is not a long read at 179 pages in the print edition. I’ve read the print edition twice, once as a beta-reader, and again when the final edition was published. More recently, Troy released the audiobook version of Phaedra, which I enjoyed immensely. Read by the author, one can get more of a feeling for the characters and the dynamics between them. It is a quick listen at about 4 and three-quarters of an hour that I found wholly entertaining.

Now, even though I said it is an entry-level sci-fi story, I think it would also be something that anyone can enjoy. I found it fun to see the world through the eyes of Jacob and how he coped with the unfamiliar situations. Many of Jacob;s observations are humorous and the banter he shares with his dad speaks of a healthy, mutually beneficial relationship. Their support for each other is fun and emotionally inspiring.

For me, that is the major theme; mutual support for new situations. I hope that one day, Troy will write the next volume of this story and we can follow the adventures of Jacob, Mark, and Sarah as they work to tame the wilds of the Phaedra colony.

Troy Rutter is an actor and author living in the Midwest. Having worked for a number of motion picture studios in Hollywood, he spends his free time writing and producing podcasts, YouTube videos, and writing both fiction and non-fiction books. Mission to Phaedra is his first fiction novel, and he looks forward to expanding the adventures of Jacob and his dad in further stories. Troy is also one of my closest friends (to be honest, I consider him family).

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