Exiled: Autumn’s Peril

The first installment of Australian author Skinner’s eight-volume Chronicles of Caleath saga is ambitious but uninspiring grand-scale science fiction cloaked in adventure fantasy. Caleath is a former surveyor of uncharted planets and reigning champion of the Game, a virtual reality competition played by contestants from “over a hundred galaxies.” Stranded on a primitive world where magic is real, Caleath must stay alive long enough to escape his planetary confines and track down Ephraim Simpton, a corporate scion who plotted Caleath’s demise after being defeated in the Game. But for Caleath, survival is far from easy when assassins track his every move and an invasion of giant alien ants threatens the entire planet. Later plot twists and revelations rouse some excitement but can’t make up for two-dimensional characters, superficial world-building, and a story line that verges on superfluity. (Mar.)