It’s always a treat to happen on a new author that displays the writing skills worthy of future novel purchases. With Star Shroud, Ken Lozito has shown to be one of those that I will add to my selective list. What makes this even more interesting is that the setting is in the not too distant future, however, the actual start of events leading to this mission starts back in the 1980s by CIA tests from volunteers using remote viewing. Yes, the same telepathic force that Dean Koontz wrote about in, Soul Survivors, and Art Bell kept folks up listening to during the wee hours of the morning.
Fast forward and now there is a small crew ready to launch off to Pluto to discover the secrets of these signals. The crew is mostly scientists covering multiple disciplines along with some NASA pilots and a pair of special forces type security personnel. For relationships, the author set up, as best as I can explain it, some budding double-helix romance triangles that seems to promise some messy situations in the subsequent novels. He also created characters who seem all too convincingly human, what with political rivalries and competing agendas. All this makes for a rather different SciFi novel and one I find pulled into liking.
Jeff Hays is one of the best narrators I’ve heard in terms of mimicking many accents and both genders and brings his talent to full force here.