A breathtaking science fiction saga of survival, destiny, and a secret as old as life. On a frozen December night in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a mysterious craft tears through the sky and forever alters seventeen-year-old Garth Miller’s world. Moments later, the Detroit teenager is hunted by forces he can’t comprehend—an alien warlord armed with ancient technology and a hunger for power. Catapulted through a collapsing rift in spacetime, Garth awakens on a dying planet buried beneath endless ice. Here, the last remnants of a civilization cling to a prophecy known as the Promise Foretold —the return of a savior from the stars. But Garth isn’t a savior. He’s just trying to survive brutal landscapes, strange beasts, and enemies who believe his existence fulfills an ancient destiny. As he unravels the truth about the Quest that brought him here, Garth must confront not only his enemies—but the unimaginable truth about who and what he really is. Vaka Sevah, Book 1: The Great Ice launches an epic interplanetary adventure filled with danger, wonder, and the relentless power of fate. Vaka Sevah, Book One embraces a uniquely compelling kind of alien encounter that no reader will be able to predict: A host of characters both alien and human, earthbound and rooted in the stars. Space opera fans seeking stories that take the time to build big scenarios from small beginnings, such as an encounter at a high school track, will welcome the introductory salvo of a story exceptionally vivid in its gripping descriptions: "Atta Ra walked on air. And just behind him, his gunship followed like a rumbling steel wolf." Lawrence Brown incorporates a wry sense of humor that serves as relief to the very serious world-changing paradigms that pepper the story as battles, quests, and devils emerge. - California Bookwatch and Midwest Book Review; Diane Donovan (Editor) , Science Fiction and Fantasy Shelf. A young man . . . is torn out of his world by forces he cannot understand . . . (a world) evenly divided between desert and ice expanses. The author's hero . . .has a clear story arc, which is just as well since he starts out as a rougher version of Holden Caulfield from the Catcher in the Rye. His evolution, however, is more evocative of a character much more familiar to UK readers: Tom Brown's Schooldays. Eventually, of course, we reach the point at which evasion is no longer possible. Has he grown in character, skill and wisdom to the point that the nemesis can be defeated, or will he collapse in a puddle and let the bad guys win? The fact that one can still ask this question tells you that Larry Brown has put enough wrinkles in his first book that the story does not simply plod on to the perfect endings of Dune or Star Wars. It leaves you the chance to do what all good thrillers do: make you stay up later than you had intended so you can finish the story and find out what happened. Bravo, Larry! - Caltrop Press Review, Douglas Brown (Editor)