Mary S. Sheppard
THE ANZU
First book is FREE at major book stores.
Please see below for links to other books
The mission of The Anzu was clear and simple, the exploration of space. The Zandu, the builders of the spaceship, are a highly advanced and logical race and they planned to include other species in their quest. Their intent was not only to learn from their travels, but also to learn from each other, they had not counted on how disparate intelligent beings could be.
When Alec was born in Santa Cruz, California, he had no idea he would be part of a interplanetary crew. There are currently twenty-four humans on board and after a year in space, there is one thing Alec knows for sure, there is nowhere else he would rather be, even if the humans are not in the majority or in charge.
As The Anzu continues to explore space, the vastness of the Milky Way is apparent. A trip to the Perseus Arm, the closest spiral in our galaxy, will take much time. Luckily the Zandu have found a wormhole that will cut that time significantly. They are a highly advanced and logical race intent on teaching the other species much of what they know. It is unfortunate not everyone thinks the same way.
In this, the second book in the series, The Anzu has been operational for over a year and with five different species on board, the crew continues to learn from each other. Officially, things are going well, but there seems to be an undercurrent of discontent. Could it stem from having too much diversity?
This is the third book in the series. The Anzu has been operational for over a year and the different species on board are starting to integrate well. As they get ready for their first deep space mission, they must first go through a wormhole. Leaving their familiar sector of space should quiet the few dissenting voices within the ship, or should it? Wormholes are not as dependable as one might think..
Even through the multi-species crew is facing 4 years of travel, after the wormhole catapulted them 15,000 light years across a spiral arm of the Milky Way - all is not lost.
The mission of the Anzu remains the exploration of space and the crew remains upbeat as they go about their normal tasks: implementing a basketball association, and visiting a planet. In addition, the ENG team, inspired by Jamez' concept, is enhancing the engines, which could cut the return time down to a more tolerable 2 years. Now if everything could go as planned.
Things are looking up for the Anzu and its crew. They have encountered a temperate planet with plenty of vegetation and water. In addition, it is inhabited by an advanced race of logical beings that just happens to be very ‘cute’. This is an ideal situation, isn’t it? Alec is not convinced, but his experience in space exploration is limited, after all he is just a human.
The Grenai from planet Green have shown themselves to be as technologically advanced and as logical as the Zandu, but as the Anzu crosses their sector of space to get home, other, less desirable traits have surface. The Grenai lack empathy, they think of themselves superior and they are also intent in taking some of the crew as prisoners. Now the Anzu is in a race for its survival