A.K. Duboff's Stranded (Starship of the Ancients Book 1)
Talk about a trip. I’m not sure what I expected when I picked up my copy of A.K. Duboff’s Stranded (Starship of the Ancients Book 1) but what I got was better than that. This thing started at the word “Go” and didn’t stop until I turned the last page. It’s not often that the first book in a series goes this hard. There is frequently more world building than action, but that’s not the case here.
Stranded basically goes “Hi, boom, crash, wow” and accelerates from there. Everything moves at light speed (no pun intended, although the book does feature interstellar travel in the form of colonists arriving on a new planet) and nothing is what it appears to be ESPECIALLY when you hit the point that you’re one hundred percent positive that Jimbo is full of fecal matter and that it all lines up.
Seriously, never mind having your ducks in a row. Duboff will leave you unable to keep your squirrels in a gaggle. There is so much going on here at such a fast pace that it can be hard to adjust for new circumstances before something else happens. The old adage about dropping a mountain on your characters when things get boring kind of applies here, only Duboff doesn’t wait for it things to get boring first. I’d like to see the spot where she stores here mountains too. It must be HUGE.
I’m struggling to put Stranded into a sub-genre of Science Fiction and I’m failing miserably. It has aspects of a colonization story, but it’s more than just hat. It has aspects of a mystery story, but that’s simultaneously a huge part of the book and not the true focus. It has aspects of an alien invasion except that it really doesn’t. There’s definitely some exploration/man vs. nature but that’s not quite it either. There’s too much here to pin it down, I guess.
It’s cool though. It’s not like the Green Lantern movie where everything and its brother got shoehorned in and nothing seems to fit. There is just enough time here for each subject for it to work before the book took another twist and changed not just my view of what was coming next, but my view of what had already happened. Things are revealed gradually but they’re foreshadowed well. I enjoyed that about Stranded. When things took a left turn, it made sense as all the pieces that had been laid down to that point started working together in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
The main characters are Evan and Anya. They work well together, and it feels like they’d like to spend a lot more time together, preferably when their life is not in danger. I like that about them though. I’m not a romance reader by any stretch of the imagination, but I enjoy a good romance subplot. This one makes sense. Two people forced to rely on each other and finding out what makes the other person tick and how competent they are.
And they are competent. Anya is a xenobiologist and Evan knows some things. The two of them start out not knowing how to play off of each other but that’s really the only thing they’re lacking skill wise. What they could use would be about three hundred billion armed allies, but honestly who couldn’t? They get things done.
And I know I made a comment earlier about not spending too much time on worldbuilding. That’s okay though. Duboff spends just enough time on showing us how things fit together. I really like the way she did things, because she gave us enough to make her story entertaining and logical, but left enough out that she has plenty of room to add things in the future. This is, after all, a Book 1.
I’m not sure if Duboff distrusts politicians, or if it’s just her characters that do, but that definitely works for me. Evan in particular has a healthy distrust of just about everyone and I like that. It was so easy for me to identify with. I don’t like the naive type. There was none of that here. Anya has a scientist’s curiosity, and that makes sense, but she’s not stupid about it. And, let’s face it, curiosity is the one emotion even Vulcans will admit to. If people don’t wonder, society doesn’t advance. It’s that simple.
Watching Stranded unfold was an education. It almost felt like I was reading an entirely new book at times, but it didn’t feel disjointed. It’s just that things changed so rapidly and so totally in spots that things felt completely different. It was kind of like walking into your favorite restaurant only to end up at the movie theater down the street. That doesn’t make any sense, but it’s the best I’ve got. Things just kept changing. It was like a kaleidoscope on the end of a power drill.
Stranded is, in many ways, a blockbuster movie waiting to happen. I loved reading the book but, with the right production team, this thing is a solid winner. It’s got everything Hollywood needs to make itself some money without having to revive a property that was popular forty years ago. This is high quality new content that needs to be seen. Of course, if that sells Duboff a few more books I wouldn’t complain about it. We need to send her all the money as a bribe to keep her writing.
It makes me very happy that Stranded is a Book 1. I’m waiting for Book 2 with bated breath. I’m not sure when it’ll be out, but I’m following Duboff on Amazon now and I’ll be sure to pick up the next one when it hits. I’m also looking into another series she wrote. Actually, I’m seeing more than that listed on her author page. I think I might just be an official fan after only one book. Expect to see more of her work here.
Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Pieces of Alien Tech and probably my dragon nomination for Best SF Novel.
Stranded (Starship of the Ancients Book One)
A.K. Duboff
Epic Realms Press, 2025
Stranded (Starship of the Ancients Book One) is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.