The Trilisk Ruins (Parker Interstellar Travels #1), by Michael McCloskey, is a futuristic tale.  Mankind has achieved an efficient form of space travel and ventured out among the stars, but humanity and the people who try to manage it are not so very different from us today.

Among the stars, humanity has discovered evidences – artifacts – left by several technologically advanced alien races, but have not found any evidence that these races still survive.

Telisa Relachik is the daughter of a high ranking naval officer, the captain of a military starship.  She is trained as a xenoarcheologist (studier of alien artifacts) and highly resents the government’s increasing attempt to control possession and even knowledge of the alien artifacts. This puts her and her father at odds with each other.

Telisa accepts a job offer with an organization that has the ability – and the desire – to help her locate and study artifacts without government interference.  The only problem is that doing so is so illegal it carries the death penalty.

Her first trip out with this band of brigands is disastrous in many ways. The group has a couple of narrow escapes and encounters a living alien who may or may not be about to kill them all at any moment.  But the pirates, a small UNSF strike team and the alien all share a common problem and are forced to call a truce and work together if any of them are to get out of it alive.

Strong Points

The story is imaginative, fast paced and holds the reader’s attention well.  The alien is very – alien.  Not your run-of-the-mill, stereotypical alien.   The writing is generally good, with reasonably strong visualizations.  McCloskey blends in back story and avoids exposition well.  The dialogue is natural and the story flows well. Editing is pretty good, only one major glitch was encountered: an edit that had not been properly cleaned up.  Adult language and situations are reasonably well contained.

Weak Points

The story lacked an effective first page hook.

The characters never become “real” to the reader. At least, not to this reader. They are not trite, or cardboard, or caricatures, but they just never take on enough personality to make the reader really care about them.  Except, maybe the alien!

Summary

This is a good read, an interesting tale, and the first in an apparent series that this reader plans to pursue.  Perhaps characterization will build as the series progresses.

This book is available from Amazon in Kindle or paperback formats, other e-books from Smashwords and Barnes & Noble.