A pair of former bounty hunters turned planet development surveyors are about to receive a not-so-voluntary job offer to locate a woman named Tera and a fabled project called Icarus. On the plus side, it might happen to come with a side of revenge…
The Icarus Hunt is one of my all time favorite books, and for over two decades it was a one book stand alone story.
In 2022 Timothy Zahn revisited the world of Jordan McKell with a sequel/spinoff series called The Icarus Saga. The Icarus Plot is book one of six.
I read this when it came out, but didn’t get a chance to continue with the rest as the series progressed. I remember liking it, but the details were fuzzy resulting in this reread before I continue on with the others.
Icarus Plot picks up several years after the events in Icarus Hunt, and while similarly in first person it features a different protagonist. There’s significant conceptual overlap and opportunity for familiar faces to pop up, but the point of view character is new and comes into the narrative from a different direction.
This is a fine start to the series and explains enough that a reader could jump in here, although there’s a lot more depth if familiar with the original book this spins off of.
That said it’s masterfully balanced to serve either kind of reader. Things that could be either foreshadowing or red herrings for those familiar with Icarus Hunt add intrigue but still convey enough information for new readers to get most of the payoff. Well done all around.
The original novel was a mystery in space, and this likewise has heavy mystery elements in a well developed sci-fi world with the kind of mix of adventure and intrigue common to Zahn’s writing.
Without getting into spoilers one of the main twists was pretty predictable, but it was still well executed and important to the framework of the rest of the series. This feels every bit of its first book status as it lays a lot of groundwork for future installments, but it still works really well on its own merits.
I enjoyed this quite a bit. It didn’t exactly reach the heights of Icarus Hunt, but it was a solid sequel with a good mix of new characters and familiar faces that set things up nicely for the rest of the series.
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