Steve Rzasa

Kesek, a secret police agency, has spent many years arresting and killing people of faith, including the uncle of Captain Vincent Chen. Vincent, who sees to interstellar communications ferry maintenance for the Realm of Five, heads down to a colony to check out a malfunction. When he discovers that former Kesek agents are enslaved there, including the agents' families, Vincent's comms mission must take a critical turn in Severed Signals: A Vincent Chen Novella by author Steve Rzasa.

This is a show more new-to-me author, but no, I didn't read the book blurb beforehand. Stumbled across the book, liked its cover, grabbed the book, jumped right in.

Now, even with all my past years of watching Star Trek, I'm still pretty much a newbie when it comes to science fiction reads, especially space operas. While I was interested in Vincent's musings about his personal life in the first couple of chapters, I had trouble wrapping my head around all of his techno talk. Feeling at sea, I applied the practice I took up back when I started my first Jane Austen novel at thirteen. "Keep reading till it clicks."

At the end of this novella's second chapter: CLICK.

I became engrossed in the story's themes of grief, seclusion, justice, recompense, vengeance, and the price of revenge. While I'm sometimes turned off by characters if they spread on the snark too thick, I could roll with Vincent. He's quick and droll, has some unpredictability, isn't incapable of recognizing when he's being a jerk, and his areas of pain make him all the more relatable.

Although Vincent tells his story in the present, his narration slips into past tense a few times when it shouldn't, but it's not a big deal.

Here's an engaging fusion of intrigue and action on the sci-fi front, with substance on the human-story front. A great series opening. show less

For Us Humans is the ultimate nerd book. Its filled with tongue-in-cheek humor and references to sci-fi films, tv shows, and characters. While reading I couldn't help but underlining my favorite passages and references. There is a lot of humor packed in, but also a lot of depth and meaning. At one point, the main character breaks the fourth wall and it made me laugh out loud... in public... and people stared. Just a warning for you.

There is a lot of action and fast-paced dialog in this book. show more Between the rapid-fire references, the bar fights, and the gun-wielding aliens, you won't be able to put this book down. I would recommend this as a must-read for those who love Galaxy Quest, Firefly, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and more.

It should be noted that this is a Christian science fiction book, but could definitely be enjoyed by the general market. Between the two main characters there is a lot of tension, primarily regarding Christianity and the importance of faith. Caz plays the ultimate tough guy--drinking away his worries, spending nights with women who's names he doesn't remember, but he wants something more. When he's partnered with the alien Nil, he has to face the facts that this alien knows more about his own "human" religion than he does. What follows is a conversation about race, species, and religion that encourages us to unite the most divided of us. show less

The Intelligence Service of the Realm tasks Captain Vincent Chen with finding a lost operative—a sticky assignment given that the operative is none other than Izzara Neoh. Reuniting (so to speak) with Izzy will lead to more dangers than one for Vincent, and what's coming may turn his world on its head in Mixed Messages by author Steve Rzasa.

So! Is the fourth book in this ChristFic sci-fi series the last one? Perhaps not, since the end of the story leaves room for more to come without show more cliffhanging, but this book also felt like a heavy handful of goodbyes to me.

Was this my first time feeling all but choked up while reading a Vincent Chen novella? It has some really poignant moments in it...along with some great action, dashes of comedy that don't go overboard with silliness, a little romance, serious questions of faith, and Vincent's signature dry humor.

Yeah, as with the previous books in this series, it took me a while to get into the story, chunks of the science-y narration lost me, and I found some of the technical errors a little distracting, such as the places here and there where quotation marks and small words are missing, and times when Vincent's present-tense narration of his story slips into past tense when it shouldn't. It messes with the "here and now" effect of the storytelling.

But it's been worth it to be along for this overall journey with Vincent. I hope there's more coming for him. show less

Captain Vincent Chen isn't exactly excited about making a trip home to Tiaozhan to reunite with his family. This won't be a vacation, as he's in for somewhat of a disciplinary meeting about what MarkTel thinks of his latest escapades as a comms employee. And Vincent's younger brother is caught up in a smuggling scheme that will soon have both the brothers' lives on the line in Failed Frequencies by author Steve Rzasa.

There wasn't any need for me to read the blurb before I dove into this show more novella, as I've been enjoying this ChristFic sci-fi series enough not to require an intro.

Vincent is still his dryly humorous self, and it was interesting to finally meet some of his family in person, if you will. (I especially liked meeting his mother and sister. Gotta love women with brains.) Some of the family moments tugged on me, as did seeing the lasting, terrible effects that fear of Kesek, a former secret police agency, has had on the people of Tiaozhan.

Now, I found some parts of the read more engaging than others, and typos here and there pulled me out of the story a few times as I had to read some sentences more than once. Also, the same as in the previous books in the series, the present tense narration in this one slips into past tense at times when it shouldn't. I enjoy stories in first person present, but verb tense confusion weakens the effect.

Even so, I'll admit I was moving around and adding a little of my own sound effects during the action, and the ending left me plenty intrigued to move on to Book Four. show less