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Simon Goodson

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Wanderer's Escape (Wanderer's Odyssey Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Simon Goodson (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.2 4,987 ratings

Book 1 of 9: Wanderer's Odyssey

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The Empire will kill him for stealing this ship… but they have to catch it first!

To the Empire the Wanderer was just another booby-trapped ship to claim, and Jess was just another worthless slave to be sacrificed.

Things didn’t go to plan. Jess survived the dangers and when he sat in the pilot’s chair the ancient ship came to life for the first time in centuries.

Acting on instinct, Jess seized the chance, firing up the engines and fleeing the Imperial forces.

Now Jess and the ancient self-aware ship are on the run, their freedom and their very existence on the line.

The smart thing to do would be to run like hell and never stop, but Jess finds he can’t ignore pleas for help from those in danger. With the powerful Wanderer at his command he can truly make a difference… but at what cost?

Reviews for Wanderer’s Escape include “In the end, I was gripping the arms of my chair as I rooted for the heroes.”, “A fast-paced, can’t-put-it-down Sci-Fi.” and “One of the best books I’ve read this year.”

Tens of thousands of people have loved travelling with the Wanderer. Get Wanderer’s Escape now to find out why.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This novel is a brilliant example of the perfect sci-fi/space opera. Hard edged, but soft hearted, the bond between the ancient ship, Wanderer, and Jess is beautiful.
Cheryl Mackey, Author

Reading this book, and the two sequels took me back to my teen years, reading Lucky Starr, Isaac Asimov and so many other great adventures.
Richard Bequette, Amazon Review

Just finished book two and I'm going to start book three tonight. This is turning out to be a great series."
Far left Texas, Amazon Review

...a rollicking adventure of freedom, friendship, betrayal, space battles, rescues, love, and growth.
graycat98, Amazon Review

From the Author

Did you set out to write an epic space opera series?
No! Not in the slightest. It started as a short story, the fifth, sixth, or maybe tenth variant on "youngster gets powerful spaceship", but this one not only clicked, it refused to stay short.  In fact it grew and grew and grew.

Just how big is the series now?
Well it's five books long, with the sixth on its way.  That comes out at over 2,250 pages and close on ¾ of a million words just for the first five books.

What's special about the series?
I think it has to be the relationship between the main character, Jess, and the ancient spaceship the Wanderer.  The Wanderer never speaks, their bond is much closer than that - thoughts, feelings, images, and more.  That wasn't really a conscious decision on my part but I love the way it played out, and a lot of people have told me they feel the same way.

How would you classify the series?
Well it's an epic space opera, especially as the series goes on, and a real Sci-Fi adventure.  I've heard the term science fantasy used and I think it's a really good description for this - think the type of science fiction you see in Star Wars, great fun but not firmly based in our current scientific knowledge.

What were your influences for this series?
It's really hard to say for sure because the raw idea has been with me for so many years.  I guess there's a certain amount of youthful wish-fulfilment in the young boy gets incredibly powerful spaceship idea.

That said... the start of Blake's Seven definitely had an influence.  Not the TV series, I loved it as a kid but I don't think I ever saw the first episode.  But a few years later I read the book and when Jess is first finding his way aboard the Wanderer there's still something of the same feel.

There's at least a hint of the relationship in Flight of the Navigator too, with the Wanderer needing its connection with Jess to truly function, but again it's more the feel than anything specific.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00AZ7YSFQ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dark Soul Publishing Ltd; 2nd edition (January 8, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 8, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 557 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 262 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #1,209 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #8 in Space Opera Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #11 in Science Fiction Adventure

Customer Reviews:
4.2 4,987 ratings

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Simon Goodson

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Welcome! Come in! Take a seat by the fire and let me tell you a tale of adventure, danger, ancient starships, and universe threatening evil… (Wanderer's Escape)

Or maybe you’d prefer a tale of magical powers, dark deeds and one man’s fight to do good despite the darkness within him… (Dark Soul Silenced)

Ah! You can only stay a brief while? Then I have many shorter tales to entertain and delight you, but beware… one will never be enough! (Tales from the Starflare Universe & beyond)

Oh… it’s you… you with the insatiable appetite for new stories. Well then, I have a treat for you. Visit my site SciFi-Shorts.com for a whole bunch of totally free short stories, with a new story added every two weeks.

You came here to learn about me? Well, there’s no accounting for taste I suppose. This tale is not as dramatic as the others, but perhaps you will still enjoy hearing it. I'm a father of three who's always loved to read and make up stories. My teachers recognised this skill from an early age, and gave me the lofty title of Daydreamer.

After many years I decided to get the worlds I created in my mind down onto paper... well, the computer anyway (my writing is horrendously unreadable!) and other people read and enjoyed them. So I keep on writing, people keep on reading, and our dogs keep on demanding they be fed. Really. Every ten minutes! It's a wonder they can fit through the door.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

4,987 global ratings

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Kenneth R Eskew

Space Travel

Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2024

Verified Purchase

Fantastic Book
Always liked a special ship with an odd crew that begins to work together. The betrayal in the beginning was rough as it is in real life. Hope the crew has better luck in the next book.

Helpful

R. Adkins

Wanderer's Escape is a "non-conforming" story that will keep you wanting to know what happens next

Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2022

Verified Purchase

By "non-conforming", I mean that the reader should accept this story as "what happened" rather than "what they think should happen". Jess, the lead character, is a young man born and raised as a slave with limited education and lacking in maturity of action; he is empathetic, highly emotional, naive, and lacking experience in interpersonal associations. Nonetheless, he is likeable, intuitive, intelligent, and very honest.

The plot is really a "non-plot" in that the storyline takes the circumstances presented and reacts as needs arise. It begins with Jess and two other slaves being assigned a dangerous task and getting lucky in acquiring access to a "semi-conscious" alien spaceship with "mind-blowing" technology. Jess bonds with the ship and the adventure begins as they escape captivity. As their journey continues, they encounter additional space battles and pick up additional crew members including a beautiful, young woman named Alice whose charms Jess finds irresistible. With each dangerous encounter, Jess becomes less trusting of strangers and smarter in dealing with the next situation.

With all of the crew being former slaves for varying parts of their lives, they are quite prone to taking any action(s) necessary to free other slaves that they encounter during their journey. The fantastic capabilities of their spaceship, Wanderer, give them the technical means to accomplish their rescues and defeat the forces of the enslavers. Even though Jess has bonded with the spaceship and is in control of its operation, the entire crew functions as a "coordinating committee" in setting objectives and planning operations.

This first book of the series has a "happy ending" and sets the objective for the next book in that having resolved most all of the crew's immediate interests, they plan to address a need of the spaceship to return to its origins.

Overall, I found this to be a quite entertaining read and I suggest that to enjoy it as I did, that one just accept the characters and storyline for what they are and not what you think they should be.

3 people found this helpful

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Planet77

Good concept, odd character trait

Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2017

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It's a good enough book. The plot kept me interested. What I found odd though was the author's decision to have the main character cry whenever he was angry or frustrated. I get it. I get how sometimes emotions can be so complex that you might cry out of anger or frustration. But, it was distracting and a bit annoying in this case because it kept happening. Our protagonist is a young man thrust into a situation not of his making, but one in which he links to a powerful ship and becomes its conscience and consciousness. This is where I wanted to get caught up in the journey, in the situations and choices he is confronted with, but at those moments "he broke down, tears running down his face," "tears blurring his vision," "it brought a lump to his throat and tears to his eyes," "he felt tears fill his eyes," "Jess could feel tears coming," "… and not comment on the tears running down Jess's face," "his eyes filled with tears," and so on. That's not even the entire book. Really? Ok ok, he cries a lot. Also he grew up as a slave in brutal circumstances. I really doubt that a slave so apt to cry would have lasted very long. I just don't buy this evolution of his character. Crying isn't a sign of weakness but being unable to control your emotions is. I don't get what point the author was trying to make. Was it an attempt at making the character seem sensitive? Sorry but crying doesn't equal sensitivity in my book. That's a weird connection to make (and I don't know if this is what he intended at all). This character starting out as a slave, achieving freedom, and linking with a powerful ship to become a hero of sorts yet crying at every moment just didn't work for me.

16 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Peter J Murphy

Very good plot

Reviewed in Australia on July 18, 2020

Verified Purchase

Very good story, plot and ending.

Garret Dent

your book was amazing. Plain and simple

Reviewed in Canada on August 8, 2015

Verified Purchase

Lordy, I will never ever judge a book by it's cover ever again! I gotta say Simon, .... and I hope this doesn't hurt your feelings, but whoever did your cover did you a hideous misdeed. However .... your book was amazing. Plain and simple. I couldn't put it down. Literally I just had to finish it in one sitting. Let me tell you it was a bit of a long night for me. Just to give this review some scope, I've been reading Sci-fi for years - well over 40 years for sure. There have been few that stick out in my mind as being in the top 5% of everything that I've read, but your book is well within the top 1%! Don't get me wrong, there were a few typos, or grammatical errors, but so few that it didn't mar the experience for me. Hey, I really loved this book. Anyone interested in a really good read should buy it - if it isn't free (which is how I found it). I've already bought the second book in the series, and after I get done wring this review will start reading again. Good job, Simon.

2 people found this helpful

Livi Crazy

Extremely well written sci-fi book, just the right balance between drama and sci-fi

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 23, 2014

Verified Purchase

Have been reading a lot of sci-fi books recently, and this one caught my eye when it was promoted by Free Digital Reads (give them a follow on Facebook).

The concept of the story is compelling and it is interesting to consider how you would react to such a situation yourself.

The main characters are all believable, and what the story really had going for it, after just a few pages I was sucked into their individual stories and routing for them individually.

Goodson effectively adds in some good twists and turns that keep the pages turning.

I have read the following two books, which were as good, if not better, than this one, I look forward to seeing this story develop further.

10 people found this helpful

ulih

too good to be true

Reviewed in Germany on August 22, 2014

Verified Purchase

Accidentally you gain acceptance of an ancient mind-ship? Everything you can think of will come true? Sure, a few setbacks - but generally, you win? Too good to be true!
Too much to stomach in the story. Spelling and Grammar may be correct, but the story???
Second issue may be better, but I can`t recommend it.

Amazon Customer

a good story

Reviewed in Canada on May 10, 2020

Verified Purchase

A very good story that shows that no matter what you think things aren't black & white, just different shades of grey. I'm looking forward to the rest of the books in the series.

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Wanderer's Escape (Wanderer's Odyssey Book 1) Kindle Edition

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