A-Z Indie Books: CassaFire

Today's featured book is CassaFire by A to Z guru Alex Cavanaugh:

CassaStar was just the beginning The Vindicarn War is a distant memory and Byron 's days of piloting Cosbolt fighters are over. He has kept the promise he made to his fallen mentor and friend - to probe space on an exploration vessel. Shuttle work is dull, but it 's a free and solitary existence. The senior officer is content with his life aboard the Rennather.The detection of alien ruins sends the exploration ship to the distant planet of Tgren. If their scientists can decipher the language, they can unlock the secrets of this device. Is it a key to the Tgren 's civilization or a weapon of unimaginable power? Tensions mount as their new allies are suspicious of the Cassan 's technology and strange mental abilities. To complicate matters, the Tgrens are showing signs of mental powers themselves; the strongest of which belongs to a pilot named Athee, a woman whose skills rival Byron 's unique abilities. Forced to train her mind and further develop her flying aptitude, he finds his patience strained. Add a reluctant friendship with a young scientist, and he feels invaded on every level. All Byron wanted was his privacy

Comments:  This is an adequate, well-mannered piece of space opera.  Reading the first book is definitely not necessary as this takes place 20 years later and from what I could tell there was little from the first book that carried forward except for Byron, the main character.  So you can jump right in without being worried that you'll be lost or anything.  Probably the most unique feature to the book is that to travel through space they use psychic powers to open up a wormhole.  Somehow I bet Neil deGrasse Tyson would scoff at the possibility of that, but making the impossible possible is one of the good things about science fiction, right?