Unfortunately I haven't been able to read and review this review book by Michelle Diener, Wave Rider, that released on July 13, 2021.

DNF at 3/4, mostly because it was so much action and not so much character or world-building. It read like an action-adventure thriller, and there was a certain amount of "taking off clothes for reasons of the plot"; comes across as a "guy" book. An interesting premise, though.

This is book 5 in the Verdant String series. The Verdant String is seven green planets in five solar systems. I had not read any of the first four books but didn't feel lost when I read this one. The book starts slowly as there is a lot to introduce, but the momentum builds until it becomes a suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat read.

This book takes place on a moon planet (is a moon but has an earth-like atmosphere, oceans, land, and indigenous people). It also has leviathans who live in the oceans and produce a substance called druk that is essential to the space industry - it repels space debris. Without it, space travel would be much more dangerous. Some of the indigenous people make their living as wave riders - they harvest the druk from the leviathan's teeth and have close relationships with the members of the pod that they work with.

Anja is a biologist stationed on the moon planet to study the leviathans. Odd things begin to happen - she can't find any of the leviathans, no one is answering her calls for help, and the person she sees most often is acting strangely. She decides to try to hike back to the main city on her own. Avoiding the people hunting her, she meets a group of wave riders, and together they make an astounding discovery that changes all of them.

I already have the first book in the series to read as I want to know more about the Verdant String. I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley and was pleased to voluntarily read and review it.

Loved it!
I was intrigued with this book when I first read the blurb. As this was my first read in the series, I was completely ignorant of everything. But from the first page onwards I was hooked.!
It had everything, strong, passionate and brave protagonists, variety of secondary characters, solid plot and mystery.
Loved the concept and the levithian Kada. He was adorable.
Recommended

Michelle Diener is a new-to-me author, but this book has definitely put her on my "favourite authors" list. SFR spans such a wide spectrum and I have found myself repeatedly disappointed by books that have very few true sci-fi aspects to them. Stories where the setting could easily be changed to any town or city on Earth and the story still work. Thankfully this is from the other end of the spectrum, proving to be an exciting, action-packed and fast paced story. When I requested the book from Netgalley I wasn't aware it was book #5 in a linked series, however the author wrote it in a way that allows it to be very easily read as a standalone. Given how much I enjoyed this it is very much my intention to read more of the author's work.


Anja and Cal are both strong, resilient and relatable characters whom I very much enjoyed getting to know. One improvement for me would have been to have had a more comprehensive backstory for them. Whilst I knew their personalities and jobs there was no history given for either protagonist - I don't even know if Anja had any family! Thankfully it didn't stop me enjoying the story. The pair had amazing chemistry and whilst the romance aspect perhaps felt a little rushed, perhaps a smidgeon underdeveloped, I was happy to forgo that part in return for the suspense and sci-fi aspects of the plot. I quickly found myself caught up and immersed in this world and just couldn't put the book down.


The world building was very solid, the author doesn't overload and for a few aspects I had to read between the lines. However I got the impression that more information is provided in earlier books and if I was reading them in order I wouldn't appreciate too much recapping each time, so for me it was the perfect amount. I was very much reminded of Carol Van Natta and Jess Anastasi by what is a must read for any SFR fan.

An enjoyable and easy sci-fi read!

I received a copy of this wonderful book via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I can always count on Michelle to produce a quality sci-fi, I've read and loved her Class 5 series but this was my first of the Verdant String series. Even going in without having read the previous books in the series it was still easy to delve into.

I would have maybe liked a bit more to have happened in the book to give it a bit more drama/action but otherwise the writing was well done and the character romance believable.

I am definitely going to go back and read the others in the series to get a taste for more of the Verdant String world!

This is book 5 in a series, and I have not read the previous books. This book does read fine by itself, as the story is self contained, but there are references to other events from previous books.

This book grabbed my attention from the beginning. The adventure begins with Anja, who is a scientist studying the pod of leviathans off the coast. But something is very wrong. The pod has disappeared and she cannot contact anyone at her home base for days. She decides to try and hike back to the main city and runs into trouble and a wave rider named Cal. They team up to defend the moon from deadly criminal scavengers.

The story has plenty of adventure, mystery and suspense and kept my interest. The part with the silver balls intrigued me. I especially liked the interactions with the leviathans. The pace is pretty much non stop, moving from one discovery or danger to the next. The only thing that felt repetitive is the good guys got caught more than once by the bad guys.

Overall a fun, entertaining story.

I love the Verdant String series. Once again Diener has delivered a great story set in one of the planets of the String. There is romance, danger, tension all making a hard to put down story. I loved the interesting mammals that play an important part in the series. Can stand alone but is better if you have read the previous installments in the series.

When it comes to Ms. Diener, I am always enthralled with the worlds she creates. This is book 5 in the series and can be read as a standalone. Warning, if this is your first book in the series, you might end up picking up all the previous books in this series. I did and went on a weekend binge reading of her Verdant String series.

I picked up this book specifically because it implied that it is water themed. I am happy to report, it is not only water themed but it also kind of includes a marine biologist. I'm now completely entranced. Anja is the scientist studying these native "leviathans". I'm not sure what they are, but in my mind, I think they are a cross between a water dragon and a whale. Either way, I'm intrigued by these majestic beasts and completely understand why Anja wants to study them. Her isolation in the science station may be hard on her. For me, I think even though I'm an extrovert, I would love it. Especially as there are some natives that live here called "wave riders". I want to be a wave rider.

Cal is a wave rider who is intrigued by Anja. She is more friendly with the wave riders which is different than the other scientist before her. When their paths cross, life gets really interesting. They run across something they didn't expect find. In addition, the leviathans are behaving so differently than what they have traditionally seen.

Honestly, I loved everything about this book. I loved what happened with Cal and Anja to make them and Cal's friends different. This book reminds me of the Dragonriders of Pern written by Anne McCaffrey. Why? Because Cal and Anja encounter an ancient artifact that could explain more about their mysterious ancestors. I have my suspicions as to what happened. There are several other authors that do this that I adore.

What I love most is Anja and Cal's new abilities to work as a team and how they can be in the water longer and swim faster. This ability is something I can only fantasize and dream about. It is as if Ms. Diener plucked my deepest wish and wrote it into a book. This fantasy is highly recommended to sci-fi readers who are water babies and love everything about diving, swimming and large marine mammals.

I’d read and enjoyed one book by this author before (the first in her Class 5 series) so I jumped on the chance to try out this one. A scientist and what sounds like a surfer dude running from bad guys? Sounds like my kind of thing! This is fifth in a series, but I read it as a standalone.

First off, a little background. The small moon of Fynian has only one city, Rinc, but has a larger than you’d expect impact on the economy of the Verdant String planets as the only source of druk. Ground up druk has the ability to repel space debris, making it a highly in-demand substance for coating spaceships. The amount available is limited as well, as it’s harvested from the teeth of leviathans, large sea animals, by a group of highly skilled and athletic people called wave riders.

Anja is a scientist sent to a remote outpost to study one pod of leviathans. Due to frequent solar flare activity, communications can be a bit dicey, but when she’s unable to contact Rinc for several days and the pod she’s been studying mysteriously disappears, she decides to risk the multi-day trek back herself. Cal, a wave rider, intercepts one of her transmissions when one of the pod he’s been following inexplicably decides to tow him ashore. While he only met Anja briefly before, once he realizes she’s in danger, he sets out to intercept her and warn her. But Anja and Cal quickly figure out that the missing pod and the men following her are linked, and before they know it they’re caught up in a discovery with galaxy-wide repercussions.

“I’m Fynian. There aren’t a lot of us, and we help each other. This is a rough place. With the solar flares, we have no mobile comms and the weather is dangerous. I wouldn’t leave anyone out here alone, but certainly not someone who’s under attack by strangers and who’s genuinely got the interests of the pods at heart.”


Both Anja and Cal are great characters, brave but still cautious and united in their desire to protect the leviathans. While most of the scientists before Anja were dismissive of the wave riders, Anja’s more open to their observations of their pods. After all, who would know the creatures best than someone who practically becomes a member of their pods? I’m not exactly sure what the leviathans were supposed to resemble, but my mental picture was a bunch of space Nessies. Yes, SPACE DINOSAURS, which if you can’t tell from my all-caps squeeing, was a childhood dream of mine, plesiosaurs in particular being my favorites. So of course I was immediately enamored of the wave riders and their lifestyle!

I can’t say too much more about the plot without going into spoilers, but it was well paced and the villains’ actions were sufficiently twisty to keep me interested. Anja and Cal start out very much in the dark about what the villains want, and bits and pieces are gradually revealed until they’re able to form a picture and take action. They’re very much the underdogs, so there’s a lot of sneaking around and figuring out how to win against much greater (and better armed) forces, and it was a great deal of fun. It did take me a little bit to get up to speed on the politics and past of the Verdant String Coalition and breakaway planets – I assume this was something I’d have known had I read the earlier books in the series – but it was explained well enough that it made sense in the context of this story. It made me very curious to go back and read other books in the series!

As for cons, like the previous book I read from her, this reads more as sci fi with romantic elements than sci-fi romance. There is a romantic relationship between Anja and Cal (and even an “only one bed!” situation) but it takes second place to the overall scifi plot. There’s so much going on that they have very little time to themselves, which was great for the pacing of the mystery but not so great for giving the romance time to bloom. It progresses a little too quickly from “oh hey, I saw you at that bar” to love for my tastes.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and I’ve already gone and bought the first book in the series. Recommended if you, too, get ridiculously excited over space dinosaurs and also are looking for a well-paced and intriguing scifi escapade.

I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Keeping it fresh!
I was lucky enough to request and receive an ARC of this book and am sharing my honest review.
Thoroughly enjoyed the latest installment in the Verdant String series. In Wave Rider, Michelle Diener introduces us to another planet and moon in the unique world she has built. I was immediately drawn into the story of Anja, a marine biologist studying leviathans on the moon of Fynian, who is put in danger when the bad guys attempt to steal tech from a crashed ancestral spaceship on the moon. Cal, a Fynian wave rider, is thrown together with Anja and they are forced to survive. I liked the unique take on the nanotech-sentience that Diener offers in this installment. It kept the storyline fresh and unique from the other books in the series. Definitely worth picking up, especially if you have enjoyed the series so far!