Whoop! Whoop!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Yes, it is light on science, but that is a good thing. A reader doesn’t have to dig through pages of technobabble to find a half-naked girl or a gunfight, and a reader doesn’t have to try to understand the writer’s theories on hyperjumps in order to get to the next planet to read about a pretty girl’s boobs or escape the bad guys. Yes, there is some sex, but it’s not graphic. There is some violence, but it’s not graphic either. Some of it is silly, some is not. Some of it is unbelievable and some is not. All of it is enjoyable. This is a space opera in its best incarnation. It is science fiction with an emphasis on fiction, story and character.

Alexander Outland leads his crew around the galaxy going from job to job. If some of those jobs are less than honest, well, so what! His ship is populated by the best of the best, but those same people wouldn’t fit in anywhere else, as genius often doesn’t. Fleeing one planet, Outland and his crew barely escape a pirate armada, landing on the most highly militarized planet known to man. Hunted, arrested, and trying to escape, this small band of pirates search for the truth behind the armada and a freshly brewing military coup and maybe, just maybe save the galaxy in spite of themselves.

G.J.Koch has a wild and wicked imagination and if she thinks about sex half as much as her characters, then her husband is a lucky man. Her writing is smooth and flows from page to page with a nice easy pace, rolling though action and dialogue with skill and precision.