THE RISE OF NEPTUNE (Book 2 of The Dragonships series)

THE RISE OF NEPTUNE by Scott Reintgen

The Rise of Neptune is a hybrid genre. It's a mix of sci-fi and fantasy. (The first book in the series, The Last Dragon on Mars, included a little bit of dystopian thrown in, but we've moved away from that a bit. )

I'm not going to digress too much into the set up of this series, but for discussion's sake, I'll just say that each planet and each moon has a dragon ruling/attached to it. For that planet to become inhabitable by humans, the dragon must sacrifice itself. Only, then, can the planet's conditions/environment change to a conducive state to support human life. The first book deals with Mars and the upheaval that happened there. The second book focuses on the success of Mars that is now about to be attacked by one of Neptune's Moon Dragon's, Triton. Neptune (the dragon) is dead.. As a result, Triton, Neptune's rebellious moon (Did you know that truly, Triton, is Neptune's largest moon, and it orbits in the opposite direction of the planet's orbit?) takes over, controlling the humans and the other moons and prepares to attack Mars who is now peacefully settled and forming alliances with Earth.

What happens is a high action read with twists and turns that keep the reader guessing to the end! I'm not typically a sci-fi lover, but this series does have me a bit hooked. However, there are a couple things to be aware of -

HEADS UP- This book does give a nod to some Eastern Mysticism. There is mention of yoga and meditation a time or two, and certain dragons have dragoons which are their human riders. Dragons and dragoons are able to communicate with each other through telepathy.

Also this book gives a nod to mythology. The planets and moons are named after Greek and Roman gods. The dragons bear resemblance to their planet/ moon and also to their mythological name.