This two-volume series is a very nicely done story of a young man who reluctantly joins the military but has an incredible flair for being in the wrong place at the right time. If you like adventure stories, read away. Love that the toughest soldier in the bunch is a woman. The pirate captain reminds me a great deal of Captain Hook. Thoroughly enjoyable.

good syfy - good world building - likable main character - interesting political machinations - the action seems a little over the top, especially for the first in a series but it could have been a lot worse - will probably read more by author. ( )

Free review copy, which is great because I wouldn’t have taken a chance on this military sf otherwise. Tanner Malone is Kip from Have Space Suit, Will Travel without the paternalism (and, sadly, without Peewee): he is intelligent, dutiful, hard-working, kind, etc. etc., and he is also too poor for college. (Part of the plot involves a future of far-flung colonies in which corporations make you pay for your own education so you start off hugely in debt.) He enlists in the Archangel space navy, and for half the book he trains while we get some others’ POV intertwined between his chapters, including a guy who accepts the recruiting pitch of a pirate crew. Then Tanner starts to see action, and it is bloody and leaves him devastated, but he also gets to be a hero on a large scale. This is power fantasy done right, with believable good guys who are very far from saints (except Tanner) and bad guys who aren’t bad guys in their own minds. Looks like the next book might involve more of the politics behind the space pirates and corporate oligarchs, and I’m looking forward to it. ( )

This is a great book, well worth anyone's time, money and effort.

I am impressed with Kay's tight story and outstanding action sequences. If you like military sci-fi, you'll like this book. The opening hook is great, most everyone takes on great amounts of debt at the end of high school. I wish we'd seen more of the corporate oppression in the book, as sci-fi is meant to comment on the present as much as look into the future.

There is one mistake that I must nitpick. Tanner says his friend is a midshipman at Annapolis, then later says she's at West Point. Yes, both are locations for 'the Academy,' but very different Academies: the United States Military Academy (West Point) and the United States Naval Academy (Annapolis). One trains people to play around in row-boats and the other trains officers to lead Soldiers. As a increasingly crusty Old Grad (USMA 2001), I have to point this out. This didn't affect my 4/5 star review.

I can't wait to read more from Elliot Kay. ( )

I'm pretty sure I loved this book. I ended up staying up an extra 3 hours on saturday night reading.

The synopsis of the book certainly does it justice (Though I rarely read those anymore, I just check out the samples on amazon). The story jumps around a bit between a couple characters. Its hard to tell who the main character is, but for whatever reason it seems to work out.

I had trouble keeping track of some characters. It didn't help that I was on an e-reader and wasn't really able to flip back a few pages quickly. One paragraph will be the main character, the next will be from the point of view of someone he's interacting with. It got ..distracting near the end of the book.

Its very obvious to me the book was self-published (I had to do a big of google searching to confirm). It defiantly needed a bit of editing.

That being said, I would still absolutely recommend it to other people. Especially since the book is only $2.99 on the kindle store. ( )