Ships of the Line

The Last Hunter, Book 9

By: J.N. Chaney, Terry Mixon

Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer

Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Victory belongs to the strong and cunning warrior.

Admiral Jack Romanoff and his crew have turned two enemies against one another, via misdirection and timing. That gives them the breathing room to get back to their feet, but as any savvy commander knows, the footing on any battlefield is treacherous. One misstep could cost a warrior everything.

Blood is the only coin that can buy victory.

With things falling apart in the Confederation proper, the future looks grim. All that can change for the worse in an instant, and only vigilance and courage can stop the enemies of humanity from extinguishing the flickering candle of the human species. Backed into a corner, he will pay the price for victory.

Let whoever wants to die first test their resolve.

©2023 Variant Publications (P)2023 Variant Publications

Wow!

This one had me on the edge of my seat. Well written and thought out. Keep up the great work.

Great book in the series

This is a great series of books. One of the most most action packed ones so far.

every series has a Rocky III

While I really love Cheney and Mixon, and this series.. this boom was a 7 ouy of 10 in a series of 10's or 11's out of 10. It waa too long on talk and too short on actuon with all of the obvious conclusions visible before the authors laid them out. At least it wasnt "Match Game" level disappointing, but it was just meh.. here's hoping this is just a wild blip in an otherwise great series.

Action packed 

The story progressed really well some more character development. Also, overall fine addition to the collection 

great read. great reader

love this series. great characters. plenty of action. and the cliffhanger ending leave me waiting for the next book.

Meh

I love the author, the series. Bit this book spent more time talking about a new technology, than anything else. if the end wasnt as good as it was id have been done with thia series.

Where Is The Conflict? I'm Done With This Series

The series started out like gangbusters. A really good protagonist with lots and lots of stuff going against him from *every* angle: personal, professional, and even just survival. He was easy to care deeply about,

I think the series peaked around book 3 or so. But now in the last two books it has fallen off a cliff, and sadly, this will be my last book in this series.

For nearly two complete books now, we've had little to no conflict. And when I mean conflict I'm talking about *any* conflict, not just fighting. Everyone loves each other and nobody gets in disagreements. Promotions for everyone! And no personal conflicts to overcome. Is this "The Love Boat"? Oh wait, even that had more conflict. People who used to not get along, suddenly do now. The main threats are nowhere to be seen, and the goodguys, again, are showered with gifts out of the blue. New tech, new knowledge, new allies. Heck, even a growing proportion of the ones that *were* villains are now allies. It's crazy!

I guess it's great being the goodguys in this story, because every day is sunny, love is in the air and even long forgotten family members are inexplicably re-united. The scary evil badguys, when they finally make an appearance, are quickly dispatched without a single casualty on the good-guy's side. To give you an idea, in a 20+ chapeter book, not even 2 chapters are devoted to the "big fight".

For the main character, everything is going *so* well that he's barely even a factor in the story any more. He defers everything to his subordinates, and when he does make a decision, they usually tell him he should be doing something different (and they're right). It's getting painful to read/listen to. Another weird thing is that arguably the story started with the main characters being Jack, the marine, the mechanic, the professor, the documentarian, and the judge advocate. Strangely, these have all been reduced to minor roles now, in fact many of them go books without even making a token appearance now. You'd be hard pressed to name another series where this was the case, and there's a reason for that: it's a terrible idea!

I've consumed over 200 audiobooks (and a respectible number of them from JN Chaney), and I've never seen (actually listened) to anything like this before. It's like the writer has no clue how to write a story, and each book gets worse and worse. Story is conflict, conflict is story, and your characters need to be developed. if you don't lay out nearly insurmountable challenges for your protagonist, you are basically now writing a cosy mystery... minus the mystery.