oddamn, but I loved this book.

We start with a down-on-his luck hero who is wandering a spaceport, scruffy, worlds-worn, looking for any sort of ship work if only to get passage to move along. A ship opens up for him. He goes in, calling “Hello…. Hello?” and suddenly the door slams shut and an AI bot starts talking to him. Frightened, scared, he tries to get the lock open and suddenly it does, to reveal the crew of the Ambit, a merc-looking guy and a tufnut female engineer. But the merc the drifter knows and freaks, trying to make a run for it and only getting a riot round in the back, disabling him.

Turns out he’s a fugitive. He and the merc might have been comrades-in-arms (unclear). The merc might have left him behind, locked him out of following him (also unclear), and then he deserted (further unclear). Meanwhile, the ship’s AI (a smug collective of code), the merc (known as “Saint”) and the tufnut (“Nash”) (and the ship’s cat, “Bodie”) discuss what to do with him. Odds are he’s going to face justice for his desertion. But first, there is that distress call they picked up from a decommissioned planet whose artificial atmo has crashed leaving nothing but ruins. Gotta check that out first. Of course.

As I said, I loved this book. I might fault it for some of the lengthy dialog sections but even with that, the dialog was laugh-out-loud funny. The action was great. I’ll admit that occasionally the tactical settings were a bit confusing. But really, the book flowed and a fourth character later added even made the whole party even more funny through their various interactions.

And the overall driving adventure-narrative? It was actually horrifying. When I finally figured out what the real evil was they were up against, that was a rock-back-on-my-heels moment.

So a great novel, already blessed with a follow up (Gravity Lost) – but don’t worry, Cascade Failure is its own stand-alone. You can read it, enjoy it, and decide if you want to see what this delightful crew gets into next.

I’m not the first to say this, but if you liked Firefly, you’re going to love this new series.

>>>AND, AS ALWAYS, MY BOOKS FOR SALE HERE<<<