Completely Satisfying! Book Review: Heaven's Queen

Heaven's Queen by Rachel Bach
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Rachel Bach (Rachel Aaron) has done it again: brought a fantastic series to a completely satisfying conclusion.

I'm kind of disappointed the series is over (as I usually am when a great series ends), but the end here successfully wraps up the story. Other adventures in the this universe could be told, but Devi's story is at a good place to leave her; happily ever after, as it were.

Devi's story starts out in Fortune's Pawn and seems pretty straight-forward and simple: mercenary on a new ship making her way. But things quickly escalate and by the end of that first book we know there's much more going on than that. The second book finds her on the run from people who think they're saving the universe and want to make a weapon out of Devi. This third book finds her quickly captured and she struggles to convince all the players she knows what needs to be done.

This series has space combat, powered armor, lots of gruesome hand-to-hand combat and gunfights, crazy-interesting aliens. It even has some romance, which becomes a crucial part of the story and Devi's character development as the series ends.

Good stuff!



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Oh yeah! Book Review: Honor's Knight

Honor's Knight by Rachel Bach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is good stuff!

I love it when a story does things I don't expect, and this book doesn't disappoint! Honor's Knight is not your ordinary space marine story. Devi is a female mercenary who just wants to survive her current assignment long enough to get accepted into the Devastators elite special forces team. But her current captain has a bad habit of getting his mercenary security guards killed in the line of duty, and he's definitely no ordinary trading captain. Devi's only been on a few months, but has seen plenty of action, and inadvertently stumbled into a war she didn't know existed. And she's become a weapon all the sides either want to use or suppress. And Devi doesn't even know which side she's supposed to be on.

There's so much more to this novel; you have to experience it for yourself!

Honor's Knight is the sequel to Fortune's Pawn, part of the Paradox trilogy. The next book is due out later this year. (I love that Orbit Books is putting out complete series within months instead of making us wait years between books.)

The author, Rachel Bach, also wrote a fantastic fantasy series under the name Rachel Aaron. That's the Eli Monpress series and I highly recommend that too!

Fans of awesome military space fiction will love this. Read it!



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GAH! Too Many Good Books!

It's a curse! But a good curse to have, yeah?

I just finished reading what I thought was the final book in the Eli Monpress trilogy. Turns out, it's a series! There's more to come! I read the first book, The Spirit Thief, awhile back for IJustFinished.com. When I finished it, I promptly went out and bought the next two books thinking that was it.

Then I got busy, and kept putting off reading them. I finally picked up the second book in the series, The Spirit Rebellion, a few days ago. I devoured it, and grabbed the third book, The Spirit Eater, off my shelf and tore through it, finishing up last night.

It's a fantastic series. It's a bit of a different take on normal fantasy. It's fun. No, it's rip-roaringly fun. It is a blast to read. It's not just fun, it's funny at times; it's also sad sometimes. It could have romance, but never goes there. The series hits the right notes on everything.

Throughout the stories, there's this background to the world tossed in almost like you're expected to know what's going on, but leaves you thinking to yourself in a loud voice, "Explain that! I want to know more!" There's a whole mythology within the stories that is really only hinted at right up until the end of the last book. In fact, the last book - well, the third book - gives answers left and right about things I've been wanting to know about. Of course... as soon as the answer is there, the answer has to be explained, but isn't. Answering the questions only leads to more questions.

I'm glad there's more of this series coming. It's just that good. But dang it! I don't want to wait!

When's the next one? Gimme!