Shepherd Moon, 2nd Edition

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Think of a future Earth, where the long-dreaded nuclear war has come and gone, and the global population was knocked down to the level of the nineteen hundreds, but fully recovered and again prosperous, with the human race starting to explore the galaxy.But when the humans get the inevitable proof that there was indeed other intelligent life, what if these aliens weren't terribly different from the humans, and what if these people were on the brink of war themselves...- with a nod to the masters of space opera: J. Michael Straczynski, Larry Niven, David Brinn, E.E. (Doc) Smith, Iain M. Banks, and, of course, George Lucas.My thanks. And my apologies.

Note: The graphics here are collages of publicly-accessible material. No I.P. infringements are intended.

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2017
Author: Bobbi-C

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 297
Views: 273,191

Reviews

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Community Reviews(10)

SephereenRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
If I had to classify this Novel, I'd say it is a mix of first-contact, hard sci-fy and a large amount of inter-social and political discurs. You have to really read this story and remember all the interconnections between various races to understand all that is happening on the first read-through.
The second edition is a masterfully written example of an advanced Sci-Fy Novel, way beyond some of the literature available in the bookstore.
antioch75Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I am seriously enjoying this story. It is already one that I would enjoy purchasing, even though it is free on RRL.
The author really deserves kudos for writing a good sci-fi that stays out of the too thecnical, while still giving the reader enough to grasp what the author is trying to convey imho.
The character development is top notch, none of the main characters come off as cardboard cut outs, at least to me. Even the villians are given life and at least some backstory.
aperson2575Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I feel that the story is a very interesting piece that really captures both your imagination and your attention.
Constantly making you want to read the next chapter, wondering how the story will progress, wanting to know what solutions our protangonist and friends will make, and what other amsing stituations they will find themselves in.
At the beginning i felt that the protangonist lacked any form of individuality beyond the vague "here's the main character their amazing, deal with it", but after a time they finally became a unique character that i could enjoy reading about.
The same could be said for the other characters, they all in the end get fleshed out and become more than just bare bones side characters.
In the end if you want to enjoy the story you need to keep an open mind and seek out the next plot developement yourself whilst reading, this will allow you to properly enjoy what is a very well written piece about some very interesting people and the universe that the author has put together.
Don't let your pet peeves get to you for once and enjoy a story which does have a personality and even has an author/editor/proofreader with a sense for grammer.
copypasteRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This story is one of the few hidden gems, take a time to reach the better parts of the story, involves reading and understand quite a lot but is really good (probably all Sci-Fi stories involving that)
Characters are good, just that they dont seem to be alive but otherwise they are good
Style, it could be worse, it could be better, but its a style that good enough for me to be hooked
story score: hmm, hard to say..... the concept and how its being written are awesome yet somehow they dont fit to be perfect, but alas 4.5 stars for that
grammar: I aint a grammar nazzie, i hardly find faults, might had found a fault here n there but they usually skip my radar which isn't good at all =) OLD TECH RADAR!
TheRWS96Royal Road
★★★★ 4.0
(read till chap 20)
I love the story
love the characters
and like the battles
But and this is more of a pet peeve of me I suppose I just can’t shake the feeling that the technological levels are totally off and the direction they are going in is not logical.
something which would solve this problem for the earther side at least is the starting of a long overdue Dyson swarm around the Sun to power passive black hole generating stations (Why black holes? well you can use them as battery’s if you make them this way :) )
to the author thank you for writing and I really want a lot more :)
Ombre37Royal Road
★★★★ 4.0
A great story sci-fi, space-opera like. The plot is fun, but grounded, build on the idea we have (mostly) learn of our fuck-up... and finally, finally grow-up!
The characters are good and kind people (mostly), even if the MC is a little too much over-effective. Almost mary-sue like, sadly. But one well done.
The first, greater and prevalent "but" is the fact a big chunk of the story is "telling, not doing". It give you a heavy feeling of resume of a story, and not to read the story itself.
The second is far less prevalent : a unbalance man/woman. Man are either gross barbarian (the villain), or weak useless (but cute) little pet. It's not too there though, only slitgly like a aftertaste you can totally find or put a finger.
I have really enjoyed it. Just love to read and have more of it.
cage1996Royal Road
★★★★ 3.5
OK going say spoilers right now so be warned.
I read up to ch 6 and yea its good but not my type story I give my reasons later but first I explain why my scores are so different
Grammar score 5 because everything flows just right as far as I been able to see with spelling and the rest
story score 4 because the concept and the point view that it has
Style score got a 3 as not my cup of tea at all to much jumping around way to fast and time skips that are plain annoying the way they just land wham bang thank you mam style
character score go 2.5 simple reason the characters seem hollow at the moment (just my view)
now I gave this a 3.5 as a lot people will like this story even with its short comings and hell it may just be set up a boring thing but story may be great later so gave it decent score. l personal like idea of world coming together for greater good but it was never explained how the f did satellite survive or how brutal the war was if 95% world pop died due to war there no way in hell any satellites survived that can man crew so yea that tick me off. But all in all a lot people like it so thought a review was needed as it deserves more from different points of view
ArchyonxRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
(based on until chapter 20)
Grammar : nothing to say, one or two typo here and here, but chapters are globally fine. Well writen paragraph and good flow.
Story : a nice "first contact" sci-fi and complications happening arround it.
Character : not beeing 2D cardboard, the characters trait still feel too forced, and their interactions too. Especially their interactions.
Style : the flow is generaly good, world building is great and progressive but is sometime contradicting itself.
It's a good sci-fi story overall, but some parts of it can be quite hard/annoying to read : [spoiler]
Spoiler: Spoiler
After Mr Perfect MC (all of his friends are also very important people) - for the dubious reason of not ofending the Aliens race that have a matriarchal culture in a Federation of differents alien races (and so, differents cultures) - get offered a sex change and accept on the spot, and became Miss Perfect MC, author write us half a chapter (long chapter) some months after operation, on about how the MC cry on feeling different and insecure withs doubts, but still found him, or herself very attractive, like a little, full of worry teenager girl. Multiple times. And for a human culture were sexism is said, thing of the past, it doesn't feel that way at all.
Spoiler: Spoiler
MC, who is also a military veteran, taking charge of captain on a spaceship, act like a full fledged civilian, relegating the actual captain to a grunt position (without really troubles) talk and act with the soldiers like with best friends, or nice little kids.
Spoiler: Spoiler
When the ambassadors arrive on earth for the first time (some of them royalty of their race) without their own guards, they are flooded by earthlings wanting to touch them, feel them, like if they were rare pet, without any reactions from anyone (not even earthling guards) to stop that or keep the people at bay.
And unfortunatly for me, the author fail to respect the most important rule at story creation : "It's OK to not beeing r
MorvanaRoyal Road
★★ 2.0
The worse of a "Humanity f... yeah" story with Mary Sue as it's main character.
The base of the story is good. New tech allows to discover aliens, nice.
The MC is an amazing scientist, nice.
After that it's worse and worse.
-Aliens can travel FTL but are still using many 50' tech. Why not.
-MC is a Gary Stue to a point it's ridiculous (no joke: 250IQ, perfect body, speak 50 langages, incredible scientist, war hero, incredibly popular with women...)
-Humanity knows almost evrything about it's aliens neighbours in a year, just by intercepting some communications (including translating multiple langages and predicting geopolitical events with races they never encountered)
-The MC changes sex (because aliens are matriarchals is a bit light for a reason, I hope for the MC they never encounter a race with cows as autority figures or the next change will be even bigger...) and of course it doesn't cause any problem for the now Mary Sue (sadly, because it could have been a good way to give this character some challenges).
-No character respect any rule to the point it becomes ridiculous.
-...
I will stop here, because the list of absurdities is gigantic.
It's sad, because this story could have been amazing.
Drlove73Royal Road
★★ 2.0
Story started nice, but them super-inteligant man decided to change his sex just so he could influence and control future of entire human race, in essence changing his entire personality with change in bio-chemical makeup. Not something real contemporary man would do. It's just too big of a leap to be a man and switch to be on the receiving end of the intercourse (since he made himself as sexy as possible).