The Immortality Thief | ARC Review

Thank you to Netgalley and Rebellion Publishing for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. This does not change my opinion in anyway.

Book: The Immortality Thief (Kystrom Chronicles 1) by Taran Hunt
Release Date: October 11th 2022
Tags: Sci-Fi | Adult | Space Ship | Horror | Space Horror | Space Opera
Trigger/Content Warnings: Mentioned Human Experimentations | Gun Violence | Violence | Blood | Grief

Far off the edge of human existence, beside a dying star lies a nameless ship abandoned and hidden, lost for a millennium. But there are secrets there, terrible secrets that would change the fate of humanity, and eventually someone will come looking.

Refugee, criminal and linguist Sean Wren is made an offer he knows he can’t refuse: life in prison, “voluntary” military service – or salvaging data in a long-dead language from an abandoned ship filled with traps and monsters, just days before it’s destroyed in a supernova. Data connected to the Philosopher’s Stone experiments, into unlocking the secrets of immortality.

And he’s not the only one looking for the derelict ship. The Ministers, mysterious undying aliens that have ruled over humanity for centuries, want the data – as does The Republic, humanity’s last free government. And time is running out.

In the bowels of the derelict ship, surrounded by horrors and dead men, Sean slowly uncovers the truth of what happened on the ship, in its final days… and the terrible secret it’s hiding.

The Immortality Thief grabbed my attention with that awesome spaceship on the cover. It looks epic and from what I have read, this space ship is actually just that epic. While it didn’t completely sweep me up as others have said it would, I did really enjoy this book.

This book introduces us to the rather talk active Sean as he is navigating a space ship to a deserted patch of space. To a deserted space ship where he and his ‘crew’ have to pick something up. As we spend some time with him we learn that he is good in languages and apparently a criminal. He is very focused on not wanting anyone dead. I thought that was an odd fixation for every situation but as we learn of his past with his ‘friend’ Benny, that starts making a bit more sense.

What I found most interesting in this book was the set up. A few hundred years ago the humans, who at that point had a good bit of technology, were set back by the ministers who seemed to have come out of nowhere. Thought to be aliens who came to punish them for having too much for their own good. The ministers took over ruling the humans in a set part of space, letting there be room for a human Republic to rise in another part of space. One can imagine they do not get along very well. But this setting set off a lot of questions. Who are the ministers? What really did happen all those hundred of years ago? Well I can tell you, you will get some answers to that. I was glad for that because we aren’t going to be stringing along in a series to get some of these answers. Instead we get the answers by the end of this book and then we get the chance to explore and move on with the story more.

While this book is a science-fiction book, it strongly borders into horror as our group of characters navigate the ship. Human like creatures that want to eat them with razor sharp teeth, children with more sharp teeth and lets not forget the nanobots from the ships computer who sees humans as a threat. There is a bit of gore, blood and violence in it because of that.

Having said that, I didn’t immediately warm up to our main character or the other characters. With Sean I really needed to get a good feel for his character. Getting a good look into his past and how his alliance with his ‘friend’ Benny came to be. I was glad to find him in different company for most of the book because there he got the chance to develop himself without that influence. As I warmed up to him however I was able to extend that to his two companions who both came from very different sides. They were a contrast but a good addition to Sean.

All in all I’m excited to read on in this setting and series.