In Search of Kronos

Colonel Landry Space Adventure Series, #4

MORE GRAND SCIENCE-FICTION SPACE ADVENTURE!

This is the fourth novel of the "Colonel Kendrick Landry" space adventure series, nostalgically reminiscent of the "pulp" science-fiction of the 1950's and the original Star Trek of the 1960's.

Bryan Smith has woven a tight and intricate tale of postwar peoples obsessed with finding an elusive, mythical master entity called "Kronos"--a hybrid of man and computer, which is perceived as the solution to life's problems. The suspense builds as Colonel Landry travels in the starcraft Aurora with intergalactic tycoon Maxwell Rheinhardt, who offers "seed money" to rebuild the former Federation worlds defeated in a long-ago bloody war with the First Intergalactic Alliance.

An ulterior motivation of Landry's mission to rebuild is to determine once and for all whether Kronos exists. Landry meets a mystical cult leader named Robert Zilkoff who is bent upon finding Kronos. Zilkoff appears to be a key in the search for Kronos. But what is Zilkoff's true identity, and what does he really want with Kronos?

Landry views an old newscast with a Federation official suggesting that Kronos was mere wartime propaganda. But he is later led to the planet Varcon where he meets "Kronos seeker" Jonathan Farrow. Farrow guides Landry into the modern 25th Century City of Kronos where two of Landry's men have already disappeared amid drone-like people that are joined together into a collective consciousness.

Is Kronos real or a myth? The reader will be going back and forth on this issue until its resolution in the satisfying ending of this novel, peopled with engaging characters and with ample plot twists to keep the reader excitedly turning the pages.