M. D. Cooper

Honestly, this reads like a pretty good checklist for story items that seem to be very popular these days, all or mostly encapsulated in the flashy cover:

Hot Chick who's a Badass. A couple of thousand years in the future, with all the military hardware that'll bring. Terrorism. Military life. Spaceships. Snarky AIs. Fast-plot, episodic, steady increase, new challenges, cliffhanger.

If it hadn't been for the fact that it was a fine read, I'd also say it was pure boilerplate. I mean, it show more basically has all the checklist I'd look for in a grand 'ole space opera done to today's specifications, and so it is. It seems to be popular, too.

So why didn't I give it 5 stars? Because while it was entertaining and fast and popcorn fiction, there wasn't really anything to it that screamed originality.

Fun. Yes. Stand-out? I don't really think so. Fine to waste a lazy afternoon, but nothing I'd scream at people to read as if this is the second coming of whatever. Still, it's flashy and fast and snarky and that is the name of the game these days. show less

It's a collection of comedic space operas. Okay, see, this wasn't bad, but I do think it was unbalanced. There were things like hilarious stories that were poorly written, or well written stories with distasteful attitudes, that sort of thing. Fortunately it was more the former than the latter, and the funny stories were funny. Here's the thing: I am here for any and all other anthologies coming from this group because I feel like they're trying to do something good here and that they may be show more stumbling a bit but that's growing pains and they'll get there. (NOTE: I read an ARC. They may well have changed some of the things I didn't like.) [I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.] show less

The start is a bit slow with the character-building and the tangential romance, but once the action hits, it never lets up. Rika’s augmentation was detailed but the rest of the tech was pretty vanilla. Although I felt that Rika's big decision didn't have enough consistent build-up, she otherwise works well as the heroine and tears did come to my eyes for her various predicaments. Here's to military sci-fi with heart!

Damnit, NO!!

Did no one proofread this?

Cargo "manifesto"; he pulled his jacket "taught"; the mafia boss liked to "matriculate" with the lowest common denominator. I don't even know what word to use in place of matriculate so it makes sense in the paragraph.

Not to mention how often the sentences are garbled with extra or repeated words.

I demand a certain level of professionalism when I am spending money. The characters were weak and the plot far-fetched, but I liked the universe and was hoping show more things were going somewhere interesting. Repeated errors that should have been caught by a competent editor or proofreader, or simply reading it yourself before publishing, rose to the level of unacceptable.

The first novel in the universe was better than this. Stop being lazy or cheap. show less