After completing Thomas Stone’s Xylanthian Trilogy, I’ve got to admit I am properly impressed. The Xylanthia books may be the best thing I have ever read. I know, I know, it sounds like a marketing ploy, or a plug for a friend, but it’s not because I mean it and by the way, I’ve never met Mr. Stone face to face. The Xylanthian Chronicles is chock full of interesting characters, fantastic situations, interstellar travel, adventure, and ideas I’ve never paused to consider.

The story begins with an interesting premise: a habitable planet (Xylanthia) is discovered in the Sirius binary system. One of the corporations that runs things on earth sends a team of explorers to record and document. They encounter a geophysical anomaly arising from the conditions in the binary system and some of the team end up traveling through time and space.

Meanwhile, dangerous swamp creatures start popping up and picking off the explorers. Oh, and they discover a new recreational drug derived from a curious substance that is somehow mixed up with the anomaly which turns out to be a wormhole.

Like all Stone’s stories, The Xylanthian Chronicles moves along quickly through one adventure after another. There are harrowing escapes from a wide assortment of dangers both on Xylanthia and Earth.

What a wonderful sci-fi tale reaching across three books and finally taking the reader to the center of the universe — The Galactic Center (which is the title of the concluding book in the trilogy.).

Beautifully written and unforgettable. Top book of the year as far as I am concerned.