“Wayward Galaxy 2”

I don’t know why they just didn’t name these books “The Wayward Galaxy Series”, but they didn’t so I’m having a little trouble with understanding the titles. It also looks like there will be a Wayward 3, so this is definitely a series of very good books. Should have been the Wayward Galaxy Series. But, that has nothing to do with my review so why am I  writing about it? I don’t know.

Well, about this book. It’s got the same kind of action that the last book had with a good amount of humor thrown in. There’s this android/robot named “Brody” who’s got a few loose screws somewhere in this mechanical body. Still, he’s been around for a long, long time on Amir protecting the original humans who landed here many centuries ago. That landing shouldn’t have taken place more than 40 years since the starship Boone should have landed. The first group along with the Boone colonist should have given humans a good start on a new home for humanity. Things were not going well back on Earth and war could be breaking out anytime soon. The only problem with this new world was that the Boone took a lot more time than the originally planed 40 years to arrive. Yes! They arrived some 400 years late! They found the original settlers a few generations older, barely surviving in the remnants of their crashed starship and fighting to stay alive much longer. If it hadn’t been for Brody, they would have all died a long time ago.

Now that the crew of the Boone has arrived, they have resources to re-establish a normal colony or at least something resembling a normal colony. With this group was a young Marine, now civilian that found himself the focus of a lot of attention which he later found out was due to some very sneaky programming by the resident Doctor Ramon and his android named Alexa. While a lot of the colonist aboard the Boone didn’t survive the trip, those that did needed some strong leadership to get the colony established so Alexa had done some psychological manipulating of the minds of the surviving colonist so as to make one Jared Reach surviving leader who everyone looked to for advice and consent. He had also been medically treated while in stasis so that he was almost super human in strength. His abilities were almost a match for the android Brody!  All that was covered in the last book.

The Osay are the original colonist who now have to select a new leader. It kind of appears that Jared Reach might get the nomination as their new leader, but he doesn’t want the job. He also has another job to tackle and that needs his immediate attention. While they had thought the RUPAC soldiers had all been found and killed, something else was now lurking in the forest and it was scaring the heck out of all the Osay, especially Liana. She was absolutely terrified of this thing, whatever it was, and was having some serious mental issues with the idea that it could still be around. And it certainly was after the experience of the last hunting party. One Osay didn’t come back so Reach and Brody went out to find him. They did found a body, minus it’s skin and head! Whatever is doing this kind of stuff needs to be dealt with and swiftly.

So, that’s what this book is mostly about. The “Bangora” is a deadly killer and that’s about all they know about it. It has terrorized the Osay for years, but had gone away for quite some time. Now, the Osay may have strayed too far from their original territory and into the domain of this creature. It’s not know if even Brody can handle this thing since Brody hasn’t ever been quick enough to catch it in the act of killing one of the Osay. It always just remains out of his reach, yet he knows that he has shot it more than once to no effect. It’s hoped that Jared Reach and Brody can manage to trap the thing and between them, kill it. If they don’t, then more colonist and probably all of them will soon die.

I like the story because something always seems to happen to move it along. It will be interesting to see how things turn out in book 3, “Wayward 3”, but that won’t be available until October 2021.