The Cold Light of Stars

The Icarus Code, Book 1

By: Rysa Walker

Narrated by: Paige Reisenfeld, PJ Freebourn

A chamber from an ancient civilization is uncovered deep below the surface of Mars. Science reporter Claire Echols is assigned to cover the story, but someone is determined to stop her. Is it the wealthy entrepreneur leading the ongoing terraforming effort? The mining companies desperate to protect their livelihoods? The cult leader who wants to put a stop to all scientific progress? Or is someone else so threatened by this discovery that they'll kill to keep it hidden?

©2023 Rysa Enterprises (P)2024 Rysa Enterprises

Enjoyable first book of the Series

I really enjoyed the world building and character development. It moves a little slow but was very enjoyable. The narrators do a great job. Overall I'd recommend for Sci-Fi fans. Very cool premise.

The beginning of an excellent series

I won’t lie, I totally missed some things the first listen-through but it was an excellent beginning of something very different but very awesome from Rysa Walker

The literary equivalent to "this meeting could have been an email"

I tried. I really did. I love Rysa's Chronos series, and I was hoping that this book would pick up the pace once the exposition was done. But it doesn't. I'm 4 hours from the end of this book, and I just can't bring myself to care enough to finish it.

There are 2 main characters that are about as three dimensional as a paper doll. The remaining characters are so forgettable, I'm not sure why they even exist. There is no real plot to speak of. No suspense, barely any action, and no reason to care about what happens next. Just hours of eco-political world building, some mildly interesting science, and travel. It's like an interstellar car trip through the Midwestern United States. Flat and boring with only an occasional roadside attraction to break up the monotony.

The voice acting is fine. Noting super special, but nothing terribly annoying either. Don't be fooled by the double billing. The male actor just reads a small introduction to the two parts. The rest is just the female voice.

If you're looking for something to help you fall asleep, then this is the book for you.

2.75 Stars ⭐️

I'm not exactly sure what happened, but for whatever reason, I could NOT get into this book. I was listening to the audio version and not in a position to switch to anything else, so I kept on listening.

Granted, I went into this book fairly blind. I hadn't read any reviews and based on the summary I thought it was going to be an exciting book about possible first contact resulting from the discovery of some long lost artifact on Mars.

Unfortunately, I felt like I spent the entire book WAITING for something to happen. Waiting for the exciting part to start. But boy oh boy was there a lot of information about the topography of Mars. The landscape, the atmosphere, the stages of colonization.......sensing a theme here.....?

So yeah, lots of information - and a lot of science - which is fine if it is related to the theme. But for a book about containers found underground that had actual writing engraved on said containers and all of this happening on a planet that did not have existent life when colonized......well, there really wasn't any progress on that storyline until the VERY end of the book.

Then, figuring out how it related to the additional storyline about an organization that was devoted to keeping the advancement of the human race from crossing "the Rubicon" - some undetermined level in which the planet becomes a threat and therefore needs to be destroyed. Well, I kept waiting for THAT storyline to progress.

Basically, the book earned its entire rating for the very last portion of the book. Things felt like they were finally making good progress and then boom - The End.

Unfortunately, I just don't think I have it in me to continue on with this series.