For years, the Five Hundred of the Heart Worlds have only cared about their wealth and comfort. Five HundUh, oh. Terrence Murphy didn't get the memo.
For years, the Five Hundred of the Heart Worlds have only cared about their wealth and comfort. Five Hundred member Terrence Murphy is dispatched to a Fringe world for a "safe" two-year governorship. If he can keep his head down and avoid rocking the boat, he will continue to rise to the top in Heart World politics at home.
But no one counted on Terrence Murphy being an honorable & principled man. No one counted on Terrence having a mind of his own and the ability to decide for himself what he needs to do next. In other worlds, the Heart Worlders mis-calculated if they thought Terrence Murphy was going to be the average fop do-nothing governor usually seen in the Fringe worlds.
Highly recommended for hard sf space opera fans, military fiction fans, and people who like books with honorable protagonists who take risks for the right reasons and keep their heads when the situation suddenly "goes wrong". Can't wait for book two! [Set in the world of the book In Fury Born by David Weber.]...more
I appreciate how, even though this series DOES jump (FTL) between star systems, when it comes to in-system navigation Another good, satisfying outing.
I appreciate how, even though this series DOES jump (FTL) between star systems, when it comes to in-system navigation (in particular orbiting planets), physics (as we know it) applies.
Best of all, there will be another in this series!
This second installment of a misfit crew filled with all kinds of folks down on their luck that can't hardly win for losing!
People keep showing up andThis second installment of a misfit crew filled with all kinds of folks down on their luck that can't hardly win for losing!
People keep showing up and somehow become part of the crew. Especially people who, at first, appear entirely useless. In this series, even unlikely new crew members learn how to pull their weight, even if in unexpected ways.
And, of course, Murphy's Law still applies. If something can go wrong, it will and spectacularly!
I'm a firm believer that there is a market for books which are just plain fun to read! ...more
You had me at "found families". Although, I must say, Imperial Deserter was a rough read for me at first. I had been so excited to find this book thatYou had me at "found families". Although, I must say, Imperial Deserter was a rough read for me at first. I had been so excited to find this book that I had already purchased several of the sequels. So, I gritted my teeth and kept reading when the book wasn’t what I had expected.
I'm happy to say that maybe somewhere near halfway into this first book it started clicking for me and I have definitely enjoyed this series ever since. OK. It's not the greatest prose ever written but author Andrew Moriarty knows how to end every chapter with a cliffhanger! Shades of serials like Buck Rogers! This is definitely a fast AND entertaining read!
My worst problem is that I was handicapped by the notion that this was Firefly reborn, and I kept trying to map the various characters to the beloved Firefly cast. Nope. Big mistake. This cast of characters stands on its own and rightfully so.
Each character enters the ship for his/her own reasons. The group quickly agrees to overlook the past. Whatever happened before joining the crew of the Heart's Desire is no one else's business. At the same time, each character has a rich backstory to mine. No sense revealing all in book one!
Highly recommended for space opera fans, fans of found families, military science fiction fans, and series fans!...more
One of my favorite sf series has always been Sector General by James White. These books were published between 1962 and 1999.
The premise of Sector GeOne of my favorite sf series has always been Sector General by James White. These books were published between 1962 and 1999.
The premise of Sector General was a Galactic hospital, designed to treat aliens of all races and needs. (For example, the methane-breathers had their own floor.)
Each section of the hospital, in fact, is tailored specifically to a particular habitat for its extra-terrestrial patients. Hospital staff also come from all races, human included.
I'm pleased to say that the Sector General series has been so well-regarded that an omnibuses (most contain 3 books) have appeared so that the series remains in print. (At least available from Amazon.com. Unfortunately, not all are in eBook editions.)
I have no idea if author Patrick Chiles was also a reader of the Sector General series, but he has captured the heart of it in Interstellar Medic.
An Earth EMS (yes, she rides with the firefighters on their fire engines) Melanie Mooney accidentally comes across an alien crash scene and thinks it is some kind of experimental or military plane crash. Her EMS instincts & training serve her well when she boards the stricken craft.
Mel gets visited later by Emissaries (extraterrestrials who specialize in First Contact) and invited to join the Galactic Union's Medical Corps as a medic.
Seems that most of the alien races are uncomfortable providing medical care to anyone not of their race. Mel, on the other hand, treats any and all beings as best she can. The aliens were particularly impressed with her empathy and willingness to help beings she had never encountered before.
And I have not even mentioned that Interstellar Medic does intersteller travel without exceeding the speed of light (that is, breaking physics as we understand it). OK, the Galactic Union DOES have an advanced understanding of physics but so many space opera books I read and enjoy have their starships jumping to warp speeds left and right. It is refreshing to see a series which includes dealing with relativistic time dilation for near light speed travel.
The Long Run is book one. I dearly hope that author Patrick Chiles is already at work on book two. He DID refer to the Long Run as the "first installment" and he HAS written other series.
Highly recommended for Sector General fans, hospitals/emergency medicine in space, series fans, and fans of character-driven action & stories! ...more
Wow. Eighteen well-crafted hard sf short fiction pieces. Hard sf that respects physics. But still providing the wonder that truly good hard SF is capaWow. Eighteen well-crafted hard sf short fiction pieces. Hard sf that respects physics. But still providing the wonder that truly good hard SF is capable of.
I had had the privilege to hear a good number of these stories read by author William Ledbetter live during science fiction con author readings. Many cons only give each author 30 minutes (saving the author Guest of Honor who might get a 60-minute slot). So, I recognized many stories but had not necessarily heard how they ended until getting to read them in their entirety now.
But, at the same time, I had missed quite a few of these stories because they had previously been published in a wide variety of publications, including such respected magazines as Asimov's, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Fantasy & Science Fiction, etc. (17 previously published with one original just for this collection.)
I am pleased to report that "The Long Fall Up", for which Mr. Ledbetter won the Nebula Awards in 2016 for Best Novelette, is not only the cover piece but also the first short fiction work in this collection. Nebula Awards are voted on by peers, that is, other sf authors, as opposed to Hugo Awards, which are voted on by fellow sf fans (whether writer or just reader).
Highly recommended for people who enjoy speculative hard sf, subtle worldbuilding that tells you just enough to ground you in the story, and stories that really grab your attention and won't let go until the end! ...more
And now it is 15 years later. Abby (the main protagonist's four-year-old daughter) is now 19.
Abby has grown up with a foster family after being orphaAnd now it is 15 years later. Abby (the main protagonist's four-year-old daughter) is now 19.
Abby has grown up with a foster family after being orphaned when the Level Five AIs torched the world's cities. She has a best friend Julio whose foster parents are uneasy with technology.
Humans, in fact, are in two factions. There is a whole faction who grew up idolizing the man who actually launched the replicator attacks which destroyed the Earth's major cities (with only a few exceptions). These people are fanatics about trying to save humanity from the machines. The other faction, the one Abby and Julio appear to be in, is trying to get humanity into space and save the human race by becoming space habitat dwellers.
The book opens with Abby discovering her old HappyBag, just before her old home is scheduled for recycling. (Plenty of people died. Might as well reuse the building materials for the living.) She finds the computer drive with a program written by Victor Sinacola. The program had been meant as the last fail safe, as it will kill the Level Five AIs. Shortly afterwards, there is a massive EMP in her old neighborhood which wipes out that file plus all electronics for surrounding blocks.
Now Abby has a target on her back because, of course, she gave a copy of that file to Julio. Both of them are on the run from the Level Five AIs at this point. Abby also gets to meet Mortimer (the Level Five AI who had promised her mom that he would "keep her safe") for the first time.
I should not have been surprised that the Level Five AIs are still in two factions (as in the first book) - except now one side wants to help humanity recover and the other side only wants to create the NEXT level super AI. Fortunately for Abby & Julio, Mortimer is part of the helping humanity recover faction.
So, Level Six is another thriller as Abby, Julio, and their friends struggle to keep one step ahead of rampaging Level Five AIs.
Highly recommended for a well-thought-out thriller with plenty of character-driven action and near escapes all along the way! ...more
And another finely crafted (and extremely satisfying) outing in this long-running science fiction mystery series!
Village in the Sky is the ninth book And another finely crafted (and extremely satisfying) outing in this long-running science fiction mystery series!
Village in the Sky is the ninth book in the Alex Benedict series. Set in the future, this is NOT a murder mystery series per se, but these books always have a complicated puzzle/mystery at its heart.
Previously, humans had encountered only ONE other intelligent race out there in the stars. Known as the Muties, the species gained this nickname because they ONLY communicate via telepathy. And, as you can imagine, humans are uncomfortable in the presence of mind-readers.
Until a human explorer vessel returns to report an encounter with a SECOND alien race.
Star Trek has the famous Prime Directive. You don't make contact. You don't tell the aliens that they are not alone in the universe. You don't interfere. In this series, it is much the same except it is called the Spaulding Mandate. No contact, etc.
The returning ship had taken photographs and had watched the aliens from afar. Then, obeying the rules, they returned home to report their discovery.
Obviously a second human ship was dispatched.
Except when the second ship arrived, the village spotted by the first ship was GONE. Lock, stock, and barrel. The second ship, having no clue what happened [had the village been attacked & vaporized by an unknown third race?], returned home to report what they had found or rather NOT FOUND.
Our protagonist Alex Benedict and his archeological crew (think Indiana Jones) decide to make one more trip to the planet to try to solve the mysterious disappearance of the alien village. This book is the tale of that third ship and what they found.
Highly recommended for hard sf fans, space archeology fans, series fans, and, of course, Alex Benedict series fans!...more
This masterfully crafted, tightly plotted gem of a series is the best (or certainly among the best) space opera series that I have ever read!
Duty, honThis masterfully crafted, tightly plotted gem of a series is the best (or certainly among the best) space opera series that I have ever read!
Duty, honor, passion in spades! Star-crossed lovers one doomed to rule and the other doomed to never socially be her equal.
The entire Imperials Saga series revolves around Tracy, the common citizen and Mercedes, heir to the empire. And the first woman admitted to The High Ground (this society's version of West Point, the military academy). Mercedes had to attend the High Ground because that was a requirement for the throne after her father died. This society’s rulers were also required to be military leaders.
I also loved that this series assumes that the leaders of humanity look to Spain as their ancestor with the Spanish aristocracy and its titled nobility as the social hierarchy. And, of course, the Catholic Church.)
Mercedes totally loves Tracy but knows he would never be accepted by the hidebound aristocracy that runs the empire. Boho is a member of that aristocracy but is so narcissistic that he really loves no one except himself. He has plenty of hate, though. Hate for Tracy because Tracy has his wife Mercedes' heart.
Five book series, the last two of which had to be published by a small specialty publisher Prince of Cats Literary Productions because the traditional publisher Titan Books bailed.
Titan Books issued the first book The High Ground in 2016, the second book In Evil Times in 2017, and the third book The Hidden World in 2018. Then stopped. Evidently Titan Books felt like the books weren't selling well enough to keep going, no matter that the tale was barely halfway through. I was further shocked that my public library never bought the final two books. So far as the library catalog shows, the series was just a trilogy.
Prince of Cats Literary Productions published the fourth book Currency of War in 2021, followed by the fifth and final book Thucydides Trap in 2023.
I am so grateful that I now live in a time when after authors get dropped by traditional publishers that there are still ways to publish the final books in a series!! Other than specialty publishers such as Prince of Cats Literary Productions the last resort is for the author to just publish the book himself/herself.
So, I do end up reading self-published books. For the most part, these are authors whose career began with traditional publishing and then that traditional publisher said sorry. No more books from you because the sales did not meet our commercial expectations.
So the author either finds a small publisher or a specialty publisher or rolls up his (or her) sleeves and just does self-publishing. I DO have a few favorite authors who do self-publishing by choice. But not the majority of my favorite authors.
Book five Thucydides Trap is highly recommended for Imperials Saga fans, Melinda M. Snodgrass fans, all space opera fans, and fans of a thumping good story told exceptionally well!!
The chickens have come home to roost with a vengeance in A Catalogue of Catastrophe, Chronicles of St. Mary's book 13. During the entire series, our pThe chickens have come home to roost with a vengeance in A Catalogue of Catastrophe, Chronicles of St. Mary's book 13. During the entire series, our protagonist Max has been jumping willy-nilly back and forth in time. Many, many jumps.
Suddenly Max comes unmoored in time. Yes, she is in London but she can see London from several different time periods superimposed on her view. This is what happens if you don't give your body clock a chance to reset itself, a chance to spend some quality time in your OWN time period.
Max had been too busy to think about such things, rushing from one time to the next to save the day or prevent disaster, etc. Now it is all she can think about.
Yes, many other people who work at St. Mary's have also jumped through time over the years but nobody else had made AS MANY trips as Max had.
So, this is the new wrinkle which Max must solve in the latest installment of this terrific series.
Highly recommended for all fans of time travel, especially humorous British time travel tales, and longtime St. Mary's fans. This would not be the best book for a newcomer wanting just to sample this series. ...more
I have been happily reading science fiction since age 11. In all that time, I have read plenty of books about s Wow! What an impressive debut novel!!
I have been happily reading science fiction since age 11. In all that time, I have read plenty of books about ships in space and the people that live on them/crew them.
I have never before read a book about a generation ship, a slower-than-light ship, where the people currently on board were NOT the one who made the decision to take to the stars but rather were the sixth generation since that decision had been made. In fact, THEIR generation were the ones who would be finally landing on the destination planet.
So, what would that society look like, feel like? Today most everyone has a computer in his/her pocket. You could say most people are just about "augmented humans" because that smartphone takes care of turn-by-turn navigation, keeps up with one's email, keeps up with one's social media, allows one to browse/search the Internet, allows one to pay your bills and keep up with your obligations such as to pay your taxes & keep your car registration current, etc. etc.
And you can either do it with an external device (said smartphone) or you can have cybernetic implants (this is more science fiction now but you can see this possibility coming).
And maybe some folks on this generation ship LIKE their current life and maybe are not so interested in leaving the ship and starting a new life on a planet. After all, the ship provides your entire environment. On a planet you'd be subject to weather (including the need to grow crops, provide your own shelter, etc.), tend both food and service animals, build towns if not cities, etc. etc. And on a planet, not everyone would be part & parcel of the joint Mission (getting to said planet). People could choose what they wanted to do with their life (at least more than on a ship where everyone had to serve said ship's needs).
On the ship the crew, in particular the officers (after all someone will be needed as Captain), have their place and their duties. Serving as Captain could be a hereditary role (or at least the same few families might produce each generation's Captain). Once on the planet, potentially anyone could serve as the leader (or at least many more people could). Life on the planet would be AFTER the current Mission (again, getting to said planet) ends.
So, I was really impressed how thoroughly this first-time author had thought through what life might be like on a generation ship. Adam Oyebanji is going to be an author to watch. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next!
"What if?" This, of course, is my favorite phrase regarding the fiction I enjoy reading.
In particular, I enjoy hard sf space opera. You know, the boo"What if?" This, of course, is my favorite phrase regarding the fiction I enjoy reading.
In particular, I enjoy hard sf space opera. You know, the books and movies about people in space like The Expanse (which just finished streaming its sixth season), like Star Trek, etc. People in spacecraft whether military sf (like the Honor Harrington series by David Weber) or civilian (like C.J. Cherryh's Alliance-Union series, especially the Merchanter ships and space stations).
I was surprised and delighted to discover that the protagonist of Shadows of Eternity was a Librarian. Also, I had always had some interest in the SETI project (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence).
Since I had not noticed any such extraterrestrial aliens popping up in our solar system (Mars, anyone?) in the last week, it made sense to me that when (assuming we ever do) we receive a message from OUT THERE, it will most probably have been sent a very long time ago by an artificial intelligence (AI).
And the reasons given in the book as to why civilizations have their AIs send out messages range from "Well, we were here and here are our discoveries and what we have learned that we want to pass on to others who come after us..." kind of message to brief messages just posting their location (that is, where to "tune in" to their actual message). Which is helpful because then the main message does not have to go out of its way to be noticed but could then be packed with useful information, presumably.
So, anyway. I did enjoy this book. There were parts in the early going where it dragged some. But by about 40% through the book, the action picked up and totally grabbed me. Yes, I was up until the wee hours at least twice and I think I finished the book at something ridiculous like 3 AM.
Our protagonist is plucky and thinks outside the box. These are good traits. I don't want to tell you too much not least because I don't believe in spoilers.
I will say that author Gregory Benford is an "astrophysicist who is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine." (Wikipedia article on this author.) According to this Wikipedia article, he "tends to write hard science fiction which incorporates the research he is doing as a practical scientist." "With more than 200 scientific publications, his research encompassed both theory and experiments in the fields of astrophysics and plasma physics." (Same article.)
So, this is really cool. I also enjoy plenty of hard sf space opera from authors who have terrific imaginations but it is also cool to have a book from someone extrapolating on his actual professional research, too (and a long career as an astrophysicist as well).
And he knows how to write a good book.
Gregory Benford's work has been nominated for both Hugo Awards and the Nebula Award. And he has won a Nebula Award (that particular novelette had a coauthor). ...more
Book Two opens with Chelly starting at the Academy. Twelve is young to start at this military school but Chelly knows her own mind. With her are two Book Two opens with Chelly starting at the Academy. Twelve is young to start at this military school but Chelly knows her own mind. With her are two bodyguards that we met in Book One as well. The Second Battle of Canaris Rift involved unknown aliens but ALSO involved the Vivat, who became allies at the end of Book One.
The Vivat fight their space battles with ro. Ro are a slave race, each born trained for a specific task. Like how to be a Fleet Admiral and conduct space battles. (No rising through the ranks for ro.) Ro are literally considered cannon fodder by the Vivat.)
These ro were offered the opportunity to take human bodies and learn about our world. These two bodyguards are physically twelve-year old girls when they enter the academy with Chelly. Mentally they had been twenty to thirty years old. They look twelve but retain the maturity of their actual age. (Except when they NEED to play the role of squabbling twelve-year-old spoiled brats to further the mission.)
Some four thousand additional ro also accepted human bodies and all of these ro are about to enter puberty and the human teen years. (It also turned out that these ro were all actually female.)
I enjoy books about military (or magical schools, in this case just a military school). So, like Harry Potter at Hogwarts, minus the magic.
Our protagonists realize that they need to increase their number of SC. (Don't say telepaths. They are "Special Communicators" and they can hear each other even if light years apart. And instantly.) SCs give our side an incredible advantage.
I'm also happy to say that this is the regular kind of series where all of the main characters we met in Book One show up in Book Two, even if Book Two is primarily Chelly's tale.
Highly recommended for all who enjoy series books, hard science fiction, space opera, having both new alien allies and trying to anticipate the unknown aliens who we have now battled twice at the wormhole Canaris Rift. We KNOW that the unknown aliens will be back. We just don't know if we have ten years, sixty years, or when exactly to expect them....more
Here Be Monsters, indeed! And such a fine monster tale!
Esen and Paul certainly have their hands full this time! Veya Ragem, Paul's mother, never returHere Be Monsters, indeed! And such a fine monster tale!
Esen and Paul certainly have their hands full this time! Veya Ragem, Paul's mother, never returned from her last trip into deep space. As a Starship Navigator, she was away on space missions frequently.
At the very least, this monster is a hazard to the spacelanes, pulling starships out of translight and their crews are never heard from again, either.
Ms. Czerneda certainly pulled out all the stops for this one! Esen and Paul will need not only all of their friends, and whatever resources they can obtain, but will even need to call on their enemies for help with this threat!
Highly recommended for series readers as this is book seven in the Web Shifters series (counting the prequel), space opera fans, deep space exploration fans, and Julie Czerneda fans! New fans will still be able to read Spectrum but longtime Czerneda readers will enjoy this book the most!
In book two, Fergus (the Finder) returned to Earth and found out that he had a sister, born a few months after Fergus had ruThe best Finder book yet!
In book two, Fergus (the Finder) returned to Earth and found out that he had a sister, born a few months after Fergus had run away from home as a teen.
He's staying with his cousin and trying to live what passes for a normal life in Scotland. So, of course, he accidentally finds a piece of an alien artifact broken up into a number of pieces when it fell into Earth's sky.
If someone else gathers all of the pieces before he can get to them, then BOOM and DOOM for the human race. The only way to save the solar system is for Fergus and his friends to collect all of the pieces and then have alien friends help him return them to sender (that is, to the aliens who had originally built the artifact in the first place).
One of my favorite aspects about the space opera genre is seeing what aliens different sf authors come up with. Ignatio the alien mophead is one of my all-time favorites, now. Also, Fergus' sister Isla adds herself to the adventure and turns out to enjoy doing the math underlying physics with Ignatio (give me just the overview, thank you, every time!).
Yes, of course I was up until 3:30 AM this morning finishing Scavenger Door! I was enjoying it so much that I couldn't wait to see what happened next and before I knew it, ta-da, 3:30 AM rolled around.
Only the best books keep me up late once I'm anywhere near the end (and 80% completion [thank you, Kindle] is close enough).
Thank you, Ms. Palmer for your alien Ignatio and the rest of the cast of the Finder Chronicles! I read a lot and it means so much when I happen on books which totally are my cup of tea!
Highly recommended for series readers, Finder Chronicles readers, and sf fans who enjoy scavenger hunts (and, yes, the military and an evil corporation are also competing to find these same alien artifacts for their own reasons), even when the protagonist is a reluctant hero who had been not at all looking to begin a new adventure! ...more
This is a very imaginative book. Speculative fiction writ large.
It's on me that I never wondered where the open land for New York City's Central Park This is a very imaginative book. Speculative fiction writ large.
It's on me that I never wondered where the open land for New York City's Central Park came from. Obvious to me now that this great rectangle with its four long lines at right angles is definitely artificial.
I had had no idea, even though I was a history major in college, that African American and white Irish people had once lived there. It is all right there in the Central Park, NYC Wikipedia article: "...existing structures, including a majority-Black settlement named Seneca Village, were seized through eminent domain and razed."
It is also on me that I never thought about where the vast amounts of real estate came from which was also (most likely) seized via eminent domain to build the great interstate highways flowing through America's major cities during "Urban Renewal" in the 1960's.
Greenwood, Tulsa, OK's "Black Wall Street" was shrunk to barely two blocks, from its forty+ block of original grandeur. During segregation, African Americans could not stay in public hotels or eat in public restaurants.
So, if you were an African American major Hollywood star or a fabulous musician and you wanted to tour America, you got out your copy of the Green Book, which listed individual African American homes all over the nation willing to act as bed-and-breakfasts and welcomed Black travelers needing a place to stay overnight.
The Green Book directory is now a catalogue of lost African American places and people.
And sometimes you just have to publish it yourself. Or, as in this case, go with an independent publisher.
Melinda M. Snodgrass's action-packed space And sometimes you just have to publish it yourself. Or, as in this case, go with an independent publisher.
Melinda M. Snodgrass's action-packed space opera series Imperials began with The High Ground (this series’ equivalent to West Point Military Academy) in 2016 followed by In Evil Times in 2017 and Hidden World in 2018.
And then nothing.
Yes, of course Ms. Snodgrass had written book four The Currency of War but evidently the series publisher had said thanks, but no thanks.
It is almost impossible to get any new publisher to pick up and publish book four when said new publisher will not have the rights to books one through three. A number of my favorite authors have found themselves suddenly in this unenviable situation.
Fortunately, in this case, author Melinda M. Snodgrass's agent was finally able to claw back the rights to the earlier books and now we have book four The Currency of War.
Also, fortunately, it was totally worth the wait!
At the end of book three, the Solar League is suddenly beset by an unknown alien race who was causing considerable loss of ships as well as loss of Solar League citizen lives.
The Solar League was perfectly aware that humans were not alone in this universe as humans had met, fought, and conquered a number of alien races some time back, leading to the practice of high-ranking human officers having bat-BEMs.
Yes, you heard me right. Instead of human valets or gentleman's gentlemen, members of the subjugated races serve as bat-BugEyedMonster personal servants (and did an excellent, civilized job of it!).
The problem with the new set of aliens was that they not only seemed to hold their own in battle with the humans but they destroyed their own ships rather than submit to surrendering when things did not go their way.
Worse, the Solar League had no way to talk with (rather than shoot at) these aliens. No way to figure out what the new aliens wanted or why they were so viciously attacking.
Highly recommended for plenty of character-driven action, space battles & tactics, plus good old-fashioned "betrayals, ambition, and secrets" (Amazon.com blurb)!
The Galaxy and the Ground Within is a fascinating character study.
The Five Hop One Stop on the barren planet Gora is indeed your average galactic t The Galaxy and the Ground Within is a fascinating character study.
The Five Hop One Stop on the barren planet Gora is indeed your average galactic truck stop, meant for a brief stopover refueling, taking on supplies, getting your transit permits in order, etc.
When three travelers (all different alien races) are marooned with their host [and adolescent child] of yet another alien race for who knows how long, it becomes something more. Who are these strangers? Strangers forced to interact and reveal their biases and prejudices have been the heart of good stories since the beginning of time.
One of the things I like best about Space Opera is well-drawn alien races & characters. We have that in spades in Becky Chambers' Galactic Common series.
Each of the four books has the Galactic Commons setting but, unusually, the main characters from the first book are not continued as the main characters/crew in each of the following adventures.
Ms. Chambers, however, makes it work.
Highly recommended for fans of Space Opera, character-driven action (which indeed is the main action here!), and series fans for a well-told story in just this one Gora setting!...more
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