My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Have you ever known an intelligent person who routinely made stupid decisions because it seemed as if actually trying to think was painful to them? Meet James McGill, one of the smartest dumb-asses you’ll ever run across in science fiction. He’s just in the Earth Mercenary Corp because everyone has to have a job, and it might as well be this one. Despite the fact that he’s a voluntary soldier, he really hates taking orders that he finds to be stupid, which are most of them. That always gets him into trouble with almost every side of every situation he encounters… which of course means he up for promotion!
There are flaws in this book. I don’t care about them. It was fun to read, just like the others have been. There is just the right amount of intrigue mixed with ass-kickery to satisfy. The only slow parts (to me at least) were the agonizing self-manufactured woman troubles that McGill allows to happen.
The flaws that I chose to ignore are mostly the characters decision making processes. As soon as you think you know how McGill will react, nope… he does something else. He’s tends to be overly forgiving of some pretty hellish grievances from others, and he is lucky almost to a Mary-Sue fault.
The major flaw in this book which cost it the 5th star from me is the fact that two of the main antagonists were known to be in collusion by McGill at about 2/3 through the book, but at the very end it was stated that he only suspected it. This was an editorial mistake, but it was very glaring, because many of McGill’s decisions were based off that collusion being a fact, not a suspicion.
Still, I don’t want to just talk about the flaws. The action and world building were detailed without getting overly bogged down. The galactic, as well as human, political intrigue is still intense, and widening. The series is definitely going places, and intend to keep following it.
I give this book four stars and call it a Just Shut-Up and Enjoy The Ride Read.
View all my reviews
Words from the Wampuscat 