Mercenary

De: Piers Anthony

Narrado por: Basil Sands

Scourge of the Ecliptic

He was driven by violent injustice from his home moon of Callisto - and set forth to claim the epic destiny that would blaze across worlds and time. He saw his family destroyed, his sister carried off into sexual slavery, his beautiful lover killed - and he swore revenge against the murderous pirates who held the Jupiter planetoids in a stranglehold of terror.

Fired by raw courage, steeled by young might, he rose in the navy of Jupiter to command a personal squadron loyal to the death. And it was death they faced - against piratical warlords of the Jupiter Elliptic who laughed at the young commander's challenge...until they met the merciless fury of the warrior who would annihilate all obstacles in his path to immortal renown as the tyrant of Jupiter.

©1984 Piers Anthony, This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc. (P)2015 Audible Inc.

Buckle up, again. This time for more fun.

Unlike Refugee, this book is more military sci-fi and not nearly as dark and hopeless as. Many fun battles and interesting love interests (seriously Hubris pulls). In the life of Hope Hubris this is the "fun years". The writing and stories are still as entrancing as those in Refugee, with less doom & gloom. Just like Refugee you will not want to stop listening.

Great series

Read most of the books in the series in hardback form many years ago. Going back in Audible forma
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another great book

another great audio book from audible. Anthony's 2nd book in this series builds momentum for part 3

An Unpolished First Draft of Bad Fanfiction

I can't help but wonder if this was ghost written. Of my many gripes, the most egregious is that he tells, not shows. Instead of painting pictures or letting the work speak for itself, the novel breaks away from the action so the narrator can explain basic concepts like he is talking to someone in the 20th century. This is blatantly lazy story telling. I expect far more from a veteran author who has shown himself to be more talented than that.

Once you get past the laziness, you need to confront what Anthony described as "cutting social commentary". It isn't. Again, Piers was lazy and didn't put the effort in to attempting real commentary. What you get is 27th century people recycling lukewarm political takes from the 1980s. For no reason at all, the US stand-in from 2770 is made up of "Saxons" who discriminate against "Hispanics" in their space empire. What a load of tripe.

If you make the mistake of disregarding my warnings, just wait until they introduce "Emerald". If that character doesn't totally ruin the story for you, then you'll probably love any crummy modern sci-fi.