The Other Hoffmann Sister
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Gripping historical fiction from the prize-winning author of The Spring of Kasper Meier Shortlisted...
historical fiction fiction
Listening Through the Noise: the Aesthetics of Experimental Electronic Music
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Contemporary electronic music has splintered into a dizzying assortment of genres and subgenres,...
Operator Down: A Pike Logan Thriller
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Former Special Forces Officer and New York Times bestselling author Brad Taylor delivers a...
thriller
Gravity Is The Thing
8.0
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The adult debut from bestselling, award-winning young adult author Jaclyn Moriarty--a frequently...
On the Count of Three (Brandon Fisher FBI #7)
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And they thought prison was hell… When a woman’s disappearance ticks off all the same boxes...
Crime Mystery Thriller
Thin Air
7.0
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An atmospheric tale of corruption and abduction set on Mars, from the author of the award-winning...
Science Fiction Mars
Still Lives
1.0
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Kim Lord is an avant-garde figure, feminist icon, and agent provocateur in the L.A. art scene. Her...
The Big Kahuna
Janet Evanovich and Peter Evanovich
3.0
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A stoner, an Instagram model, a Czech oligarch, and a missing unicorn. Nick Fox and Kate O'Hare have...
David McK (3600 KP) rated No Free Lunch (Hal Spacejock #4) in Books
Jan 27, 2023
The fourth in Simon Haynes Hal Spacejock series (following A Robot Named Clunk, Second Course and Just Desserts), and the first where Harriet Walsh (from the author's other 'Peace Force' series) cross-overs with Hal.
As I knew that 'going in', I read the first three Hal Spacejock novels before the four Harriet Walsh novels (Peace Force, Alpha Minor, Sierra Bravo and Foxtrot Hotel) before reading this.
Which, unfortunately, proved to be a mistake as I spent a good portion of this novel - well over the first half! - wondering where Harriet's 'sister' Alice or even some of the other characters (with the notable exception of Bernie) had gone, or even why they weren't mentioned at all!
I only found out later that, whilst set beforehand, the Peace Force novels were actually prequels, written later than this one but set before (think like the Star Wars prequels, compared to the original trilogy).
Once I got past that, uhhh, 'disassociation' - once the action primarily moved off the planet of Dismolle to the neighbouring planet Forzen, things did pick up a tad, with Hal and Harriet (and a hint of romance between them) both getting caught up in a murder mystery whilst investigating the disappearance of a wealthy citizen of that planet.
I don't want to give anything away, but I could definitely see elements of the later seasons of Stargate SG-1 here. If you know, you know!
So, yeah, all-in-all, a pleasant enough read but not one that, for me, matched the earlier novels in the series or even the Peace Force novels.
I'll still probably read more of these.
A Bright Celestial Sea by Chani Lynn Feener
8.0
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Pryor Oro came to the Olympus to find a missing Imperial, not fall for one. On the space station...
MM Science Fiction Romance