I know it took me a long time to read this, but don't let that sway you about my review. I loved the first book in this series and the second doesn't suffer from a sophomore slump at all. The slowness with which I consumed this story is entirely about the state of my life while consuming it, the lack of time to sit to read, and the tendency to fall asleep as soon as I lay down and try to read.

I loved the book, though. The characters continue to grow and my investment in them continues to grow with them. The action is "just right" without the need for a lot of gun porn. Writing continues to be confident, pacing strong, and characters compelling.

If "Excession" is your favourite of Iain M. Banks, then "Encounter at Jupiter" is without question your cup of tea.

In the Wine Dark Deep Series of three books, the second installment "Encounter at Jupiter" continues the tradition of intelligent galaxy-spanning space opera. Extending the concept of spacecraft with AI minds, the story focuses on a single captured ship's analysts struggling to predict where next this sentient ship will take them. While not as militaristic as Excession, as the abduction unfolds, the potential for star system annihilation creeps in around the edges.

I read the first book by this author and knew I'd love the writing style. The plot wasn't what I anticipated but I enjoyed it!

Encounter at Jupiter is the second novel of R. Peter Keith’s yet-to-be-concluded space opera series, Wine Dark Deep. The first three volumes, starting with Wine Dark Deep and ending with The Odyssey, were released simultaneously. All are tightly coupled, and should be read in order, each ending with a cliffhanging connection to the next. If you have not read the opening volume, and wish to avoid spoilers in my review regarding it, go back the beginning, and stop reading these comments now.

The action resumes after the too-abrupt ending of Wine Dark Deep, the Ulysses has obtained its fuel tankers from Ceres, and is approaching a stable orbit around Jupiter. There the crew encounters a binary asteroid which behaves strangely, and increasingly imperils the ship. Eventually, the integrity of the ship is invaded by a peculiar fractal substance, which may be an alien life form, or an artifact of an alien intelligence, or something else. The crew, none of whom seem to have any backstory, struggle to understand and to survive, following procedure when possible and maintaining the professionalism of astronauts. The tone of the writing here is very jargon-filled, and plausible, even as the events get pretty wild. I appreciated learning the about the magnetic field, gravitational field, and magnetosphere of Jupiter, the plasma from the sulfur dioxide gas erupting from volcanoes on Io, and in general the Jovian environment. The setting seems well informed by NASA’s polar-orbiting Juno mission. At the same time, I am suspicious of the too-cinematic nature of what seems to be alien life; I will have to read further volumes to see if that is explained in way that makes biological and evolutionary sense. Also, I would like to see if the characters or situation of Ceres are ever revisited. Definitely, the abruptly dropped Ceres plot line of the opening novella is not resumed here, or even mentioned.

This novel is transitional from the hard-sf style of the opening novella, to the galaxy-spanning space opera of the third. The realism of the opening is therefore leveraged into the more fantastic setting of the third (and later?) volumes. However, I feel that more character development will be needed to pull readers further.

I received ebook advance reader copies of volumes 1-3 from Uphill Downhill Press (the author’s own company) and Smith Publicity through netgalley in exchange for honest reviews. All three books were released on 12 October 2020.

After the first book, I was anticipating another space cowboy saves the day tale, this time at Jupiter. But, this story went in an entirely different direction. This is a look at first contact with an alien. Or not? Is it alive? Is it sentient? Is it a threat? The crew goes through a very plausible experience of what that might be like. Like the first book, it is loaded with potential hazards but does not wallow in horror. A pretty good setup for the next book with the conclusion as well, but without an unfinished, cliffhanger feel. Very enjoyable, highly recommended!

This is a review of the entire 3 book series: This is a pretty good series that starts out OK (with a rather short first book), but gets better as the series progresses. although the second book is probably the best. Each book has it's own personality and tone, and the second book builds the tension and the story nicely. The third book continues and builds the story to an interesting conclusion. The author has a great imagination (not surprisingly) but keeps the story grounded in realism. Recommended.

Hard sci-fi is one of my favorite genres, so this was a good fit for me. A pretty good bet for sci-fi fans.

I really appreciate the review copy of each book!!

The book starts out as a spaceship has a routine pass by of Jupiter. Until an unknown object follows and eventually overtakes the spaceship. The crew must fight to survive. It's an interesting book.

This was such a fun continuation! I really enjoyed the ideas discussed and the way this first encounter was explored.

This is the second instalment in the Wine Dark Deep series.

Events here follow directly on from the daring escape plan that closed off book one. However, it seems the crew have fled from one spot of trouble for another, of the far bigger and more alien variety...

This series is so short but so intense! This book is a mere 150 pages and yet every single one is put to good use: the plot is fast-paced and thrilling, the atmosphere is eerie and feverish, and the characters daring and intrepid.

This is a series liberal with its scientific descriptions, this instalment even more so than the last, and yet is adds an authentic air to proceedings and manages not to bog down the narrative. Did I understand everything this sought to explain? No. Did I have a fun time vying to imagine the multiple life and death scenarios and the ingenious manoeuvres the crew enacted to extract themselves from them? Hell yes!

While reading book series, almost all readers expect the second or the next books of the series far better than the first installment of the book. No matter what the author does in the first book, he cannot repeat the same formula because if he will do that then his readers will probably not get something 'new' from his books. In that case, author R. Peter Keith brilliantly provided some extra new content and much more depth on the premise of this book.

'Encounter At Jupiter' is the second installment of the 'Wine Dark Deep' series. Where in its first book, the author put the entire crew of the Ulysses spacecraft in its fuel crisis and it ended them getting in conflicts with the rebellions of asteroid Ceres. Somehow they managed to escape from there and continued their voyage in the space. In this book, The protagonist and his crew came across a problem while passing through the trajectory of Jupiter. Some asteroid moon kind of thing was moving towards them from behind, but as it came closer to the spacecraft, the crew observed something which was beyond their expectations and imagination. The astroid-moon-like thing was nothing but some extraterrestrial object/life-form which then turned out to be humanity's first-ever encounter with the life/force beyond their knowledge.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book because of its gripping suspense that revolves around that alien life form. I have never read a book where humans encountered with the aliens and reading some hypotheses and theories, or watching sci-fi space movies only gave me ideas about the possible life forms, but what I read in this book, was completely insane. Even the whole reading experience was INSANE. The author put me in a situation—just like he out his characters—where I wondered how the first contact with the aliens can be and it cannot be very pleasant or tragic, but very CONFUSING.

When I read the first book, I doubted the way the author excessively used technical terms and procedures—which was/is completely okay with me— and even I mentioned that it would be a down point for the readers who are not into such details technical description; after reading this book, I realized how important that technical aspects are—they provide the practicality to the book and make it even more realistic. I am fond of the author's knowledge of all those technical procedures he mentioned in this book, from the different operations of the spacecraft to assigning different duties to its crew members, and even after that to justify the actions and decisions they make. This all makes this series a very sophisticated work of space sci-fi.

I still don't know the characters' background but at least in this book author R. Peter Keith made them more familiar. After reading the first few chapters I found myself in a flow of the story where all characters and stories were moving smooth and then suddenly after a point it all became intense. I am not sure if there's any genre like 'Sci-fi space horror-thriller', but for me, this book was exactly like that. It was hard to speculate if the alien life-form was either cooperative or trying to harm the spacecraft and before I could form a judgment it all ended with a DAMN cliffhanger.

The description of the part when they entered the atmosphere of the Jupiter was quite horrifying; it was all chaos and uncertainty and all I and the characters were concerned about was their survival. It was a hell of an insane reading experience and I am eagerly looking forward to reading where the spacecraft and its crew ended up. What made this book even more fun to read was its humor element that I felt was missing in his first book. Some dialogues and scene exchanges were hilarious to read and kept me laughing for minutes.

Now, last but not the least, I still have the same conclusion that this hard sci-fi book series is not for regular book readers but space geeks will go crazy over it. The author knows what he's doing and he's consistent with developing the story in the most unexpected and realistic ways. His method of writing is a bit more technical but consciously reading it can provide a lot of knowledge about space and the working procedures. His work is mature with the contents he uses in his book and it's worth a reading cinematic experience the way he describes events. Looking forward to reading the third book of this series with huge expectations.

This book series is releasing on the same day and it's perfect to binge read it because readers will not have to wait for the next book of the series for months or years. Highly recommended for some intense and realistic space exploration adventure and thrills. If you love movies like 'Gravity' and 'Life', then pick this series blindly and you won't be disappointed.