The Hyperspace Enigma Part 2: Fantastic Voyage

Adam Andrews Johnson
Completed 12/26/2025, Reviewed 12/26/2025
4 stars

This book was not quite the hoot that the first one was.  Destination Unknown introduced a lot of silly ship names and scenarios that caused chuckles throughout the book.  This one was a little more serious.  There’s more action and more dire situations.  They are separated by jokes and witty dialogue, but the overall plot takes this book to darker places.   

The first book ended with a huge cliffhanger, so be prepared for SPOILERS for it.  

Our eclectic group of space travelers have been separated.  The sweet android Phentrom who has acquired the ability to love is captured by a bounty hunter while in Bouilla Bay with hunky Captain Suoki and his little pug Frou-Frou, Fonith, and Golvinte.  It’s up to Suoki, Fonith, and Golvinte to track down Phentrom and his abductor.  Stawren and Lyoth are out trying to find Suoki’s ship which was stolen by mutineers and flown through a wormhole which took it outside the known universe.  They rely on research by Stawren’s amazing Aunt Thia who can hack just about anywhere to get information.  She finds the anomalous nebula at the edge of the universe and sends the two there.  They find a hidden planet with an amazing power source and a society of brilliant scientists who send them on a quest to find ingredients for a compound that may be able to help them find the ship.  The list includes one hundred liters of godstrolls blood.  This, and the other ingredients send Stawren and Lyoth all over, meeting strange and dangerous societies, not to mention the whole act of obtaining the blood from these gigantic people eaters.  Action and excitement ensue as the two groups try to pursue their missions and survive the strangeness that they meet along the way.

Unlike the first book, things get dicey right from the beginning.  There are moments of levity here and there, but overall, the seriousness is in the forefront.  One wonderful lighter scene is when there’s a celebration on Boullia Bay at Stawren’s father’s bar and restaurant.  The evening begins with drag queen story time for the children.  After the children are taken to a separate hall to play until they fall asleep, the adults watch the full drag show with a sumptuous buffet.  It’s one of the few times everyone is happy and safe.  

As I was reading this book, I realized the main characters are all Mary Sue’s.  As I described in the last review, they all seem a little too unbelievably perfect.  Lyoth has amazing skill from his past as a career righter of wrongs.  Stawren is an awesome pilot.  Aunt Thia is the hacker from hell.  It’s rather funny when you think about it.  But with the crazy situations that Johnson puts these characters in, they better be unbelievable to get out of them.  So yeah, they’re still rather two-dimensional, but I’ve come to really like them.  And minor spoiler, not everyone gets out of every situation this time.  So the darkness of the plot affects the characters as well.  

I also really liked that the group’s morality comes into question.  They work hard at not killing their enemies willy-nilly, but tough situations call for tough decisions.  They regret what they have to do to save each other and they openly discuss it.  It calls into question the whole Star Wars-y shoot ‘em up space cowboy mythos that began in the first book.  It brings the characters a little closer to being three-dimensional.  One really touching scene has Lyoth trying to deprogram a nineteen-year-old girl who’s just been freed from a dangerous cult.  

I still find the writing to be a little rough.  There’s a lot of telling rather than showing.  Some of the dialogue is a little too plain, with the obvious being stated too often.  And there are an awful lot of really nice, helpful people around the universe.  It’s too good to be true.  But somehow, it all works, and I can’t wait for the next book to be released.  So yes, there’s another cliffhanger, which bummed me out.  But you can be sure that I’ll still keep reading the series.  It is great to have likable characters who keep saving the day in a homo-normative universe.  And Johnson does his damnedest to explain the crazy science in this wild universe he’s created.  I give this book four stars out of five.