Famil­iar Aliens: A Genre-Bend­ing Blend of Sci-Fi, Mag­ic, and Mem­o­ry by Rise-JK
My rat­ing: 4 of 5 stars

Ryn, a leader with a cyber­net­ic mag­i­cal eye; Sera, a speedy sharp­shoot­er; Dax, a tech spe­cial­ist; Keira, a berserk brawler; and Jalan, a dare­dev­il pilot, form a recon team sent to stop a mag­i­cal space­ship hurtling toward their plan­et, Hota. They regard it as some­thing unnat­ur­al. Upon inter­cept, they find it rac­ing toward Hota’s oceans on a mag­i­cal­ly con­trolled col­li­sion course, com­mand­ed by its ancient crew: Veyra, a strate­gist; Kaelis, the brute; and Zathros, the assas­sin. So begins Famil­iar Aliens by Rise-JK.

This mag­i­cal romp has lots of spec­tac­u­lar bat­tles, tak­ing this quick work to be a high-speed adven­ture that would rival many space operas. Using mag­ic in sci­ence fic­tion is not new, but this approach has me throw­ing off my sci­en­tist brain and just enjoy­ing the sto­ry. Mag­ic-con­trolled space­ships aside, this sto­ry feels like a fast-paced sci-fi epic.

The char­ac­ters are won­der­ful, though I found that such a short sto­ry makes it hard to con­nect with so many. Con­se­quent­ly, some char­ac­ters seem under­de­vel­oped. Though answered in the end, I found it hard to under­stand why the two sides start­ed fight­ing. That being said, I like Famil­iar Aliens, and I rate it four stars.

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