Dean Weston is a navigator that specializes in getting space ships in and out of texture corridors between planets without getting them all killed. He used to be a pilot, but his boss Ivan insisted that he be promoted to navigator due to his experience in physics. Kevin is the pilot now. Dean doesn't dislike Kevin, but he doesn't think that he's a great pilot. Dean does dislike Ivan, though. Ivan treats everyone below him as if they are a lesser form of life. He is one of those people who is just missing some basic morals and will do anything to get himself ahead in life, which is going to come back to haunt them all. Also on the craft are Karen, Roger and Anne. Karen is the medic and biologist and Dean's wife. Anne is their geologist and Roger handles communications and computer analysis. Their mission is simple in concept, but is turning out to be difficult in practice. They are to find planets that are rich in specific minerals, able to be drilled for those minerals, and preferably able to sustain human life as well.
Their trip to the unnamed planet around a star called Cryton is a rough one, but they make it through just fine, mostly thanks to Dean's skilled navigation. The planet is a class M, so it should sustain human life just fine. The first thing that they notice though is the lights. It looks like there are little fireflies everywhere except the computer doesn't read any life forms present. As they start the drilling for samples, Karen takes off her helmet mesmerized by the lights. Considering they don't know what could be in the air, this is a very dangerous move but she just states that the lights are communicating with her in binary code. Before they even have time to process this data, Ivan is injured when the drill catches. They get him inside immediately, but even before Karen starts to work on him, his body is mysteriously healing itself. Not only that, but Karen feels like her medical knowledge is amazing now. The group discusses it and Ivan decides that Dean, Kevin and Anne are to work on freeing the drill while Ivan, Karen and Roger will try and talk to the entities. The more time they spend with the entities, they realize that they are becoming smarter, much smarter. Not only do the entities give them healing powers, but also super intelligence. They also discover that their presence there is killing the entities. Unfortunately, it turns out that the planet is perfect for mining. The group votes, Ivan and Kevin for telling the company to drill there even if it kills the entities, and the rest want to mark the planet dangerous and uninhabitable to protect the only intelligent life forms they've ever found in the universe. Ivan agrees to mark it unusable, but only if the rest will agree that they should look for a way to mine it without killing the entities. They name the planet Spectra and mark it as one to avoid. Three weeks later, the entity effect has worn off and they're back to normal.
Only 18 months later, things have really changed for them all. Annie now works for the geological survey. Dean and Karen are divorced after she cheated on him. Dean is now the executive director at Eagle Base Station, which is a huge honor and promotion, while Karen also works at Eagle Base Station. Dean has remained friends with his brother-in-law Matt and his family, at least. Roger is dead after drowning in his own vomit. Ivan is the Director of the new Lyra Particle Accelerator Laboratory, which is outperforming its counterpart by leaps and bounds. For this reason, Laura is there as a guest physicist. She's hoping that if her accelerator closes down, then working on the Lyra one will give her a jump on a new job. When Dean meets Laura, they are immediately taken with each other, almost love at first sight. He meets her before she heads to Lyra though, so they really don't have time to spend together. Before they can even plan anything, Dean gets some bad news that Anne is dead. Right after that, on her first day at Lyra, Laura overhears a lot that she shouldn't have between Ivan and Kevin and she has to warn Dean. From here on out, no one's life will be the same again. Dean and Laura are going to have the fight of their lives to try and save everyone. Of course, the bad guys underestimate the entities and forget that any form of life will eventually try and fight back for their survival!
I absolutely loved Spectra. It is enough science to keep the nerd in me happy with the right amount of drama to keep me coming back for more. The ending progressed naturally and came to a complete end and yet still left just enough hanging for a sequel, Entities coming in May of 2012, which personally I can't wait to read. I recommend everyone check out Spectra today as it has something for everyone and is guaranteed to entertain all.
