Emissary

Kris Longknife, Book 15

By: Mike Shepherd

Narrated by: Dina Pearlman

Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Kris Longknife has discovered that this desk job is not at all what she expected. Being desk bound hasn't even decreased the number of assassination attempts! Then Kris gets home to find her two kids playing with an Iteeche. Ron has come back to human space with a request. Should Kris take it? Can she finally get some straight answers for her Grampa Ray, King Raymond to most? Does she risk taking the kids into a situation with a whole lot of unanswered questions? Oh, and what can go wrong? Kris knows something will go wrong. Something always goes wrong.

©2017 Mike Moscoe (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Good plot setup for next book series.

Not as good as previous books but a good lead into our next experiences with Kris Longknife. Dina did her usual exceptional performance.

Mike Shepherd and Dina Pearlman deliver

Mike Shepherd and Dina Pearlman deliver again.
the Longknife saga continues to deliver. is there anything Kris cannot do?

Book 15, And STILL Buying!

This is Book 15, and I'm STILL Happily Buying! If "Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is" means anything, my money is saying A LOT about this series!

Seems like a prelim for a new arc

^Title^ this book is a setup for the new arc. Kris is in an old position with a new challenge

A brand new arc with old friends and new!

Kris and Jack are back to take on a new adventure. Despite Kris' meteoric rise in the ranks of the US Navy, Shepherd is careful to limit her resources and sharpen her mission to ensure she's still at the tip of the spear and not relegated to some boring place just giving orders. She's in middle of the action which is important to keep the series exciting! For those who have followed the series since the beginning you'll be happy to see just a few old faces as well as some new ones. Shepherd wisely changes Kris' Scooby Crew to keep things fresh while still maintaining some familiarity. While other reviewers are correct when they say this is a 'setting up' book, there's still a space battle handled on a fresh way as well as several assassination attempts, one of which turns into full-on urban warfare with tanks. A very satisfying start to a new story from an author showing no signs of losing his touch.

Kris as Ambassador

Kris now has two children. She has been working at a desk job for King Raymond for the past five years on the home world. The assassination attempts have continued leaving Kris to wonder why. Ron arrives from Iteeche asking if Kris will be the Emissary to the Iteeche world. When Kris arrives on the Iteeche home world, she finds the kingdom is in civil war and she has been called in by the King to solve their problems.

This is apparently a transitional book and the first part of a trilogy. I have discovered that Shepherd has decided to break away from this long-time publisher and self-publish. The book is slow in getting started and there is more filler than in prior books of the series. I was hoping for more information and descriptions about the Iteeche home world, but maybe that is coming in future books. I miss a number of the old gang, but Abby and Kara are busy taking care of the children. The characters have continued to develop and have aged and evolved with the story. My favorite is Nelly, Kris’s artificial intelligence computer. It is taking me some time to adjust to Kris’s new role as Ambassador and diplomat. The diplomatic game is interesting, but there is still plenty of non-stop action both in space and on land.

The book is just over nine hours long. I am pleased to have the same narrator that has read the entire series, Dina Pearlman. Pearlman is an actress and award-winning audiobook narrator.

Promising start flounders.

Maybe it's me but the last two of the authors books lack the plot excitement and story development of the previous books in the series. I found myself daydreaming and distracted through most of this one.

This series is dying a slow death

I think its getting time for this series to end. The author has made Kris into such a Mary Sue that the twists he has to come up with to make anything seem like a challenge for the main character is ridiculous. For example the computer garbage he comes up with to escape/scar away an enemy fleet is ridiculous. How could their supposed allies trust an intelligent computer they don't control to "forget" the tech they are to had over when they are done? Get real. Also the "entourage" she is carrying around with her is ridiculous. Its like the excuses they come up with for worf to zhow up in a star trek movie but for like 4 or 5 characters. Put a fork in it Mike if you want to keep something going in this universe start with a new character and not admiral Santiago. That book mentioned or talked about Kris more than Santigo and Kris was barely in the bloody book.

Quality of the recording is bad

The audio quality is really bad, it is almost impossible to listen to, it's a real shame, it makes it hard to listen to the story.

Below standard for the series

Without giving away spoilers, i will say that I was disappointed in this latest book in the series. It wasn't so much because this is a bad book, it's not. Frankly it is a decent book. It's just that previous books in the series were far better and it is very disappointing when quality goes down rather than remains the same or improve.

There are a number of areas things do not make sense to me in terms of the internal logic of the world that has been built. Additionally it felt like I've gotten half of a book. Rather than getting a sense of a cliffhanger it was more of a sense of this book being incomplete.

Finally, in terms of the audio presentation there is an irritating poor quality echo. Somebody needs to invest in a better recording studio setup. It sounds kind of like somebody recording into their laptop microphone rather than a professional recording. With that being said, I found the quality of the delivery in other respects to be decent.