Ok, so this book kind of puts me off on this series as it’s developing. I know we’re into book 6 already, but a lot has changed. I also know that Rade Galaal wasn’t a MOTH at the beginning of this series and even that kind of turned me off. I liked his episodes as a MOTH, part of a military team, doing the right things. Now as a glorified mercenary, regardless of what he claims, he’s working for someone for money. Yeah, he can say he’s also working to save humanity, but that all gets put aside in this story for the most part.
One of the major problems with this series now, in my humble opinion, is that Rade and Shaw now have kids. That kills the story as far as I’m concerned. Rade is not the same person he was as a MOTH or the leader of the Argonauts. He’s become more protective of his personal life than those of his men or his mission. I won’t go into details here, but what he does in the book goes against everything he has previously sworn not to do. Oh, yeah, he makes up for it, but barely.
Why in the world are there little kids on the Argonaut? That is a starship that has been taken over at least two times by alien Phants and gets captured again in this book. While it is a heavily armed starship, the crew that remains aboard can’t seem to figure out how to defend the ship worth crap! And, it really bugs me that Rade and the Argonauts talk about their coming visit to a starbase knowing that it’s a trap! Yet, they still go in unprepared and stupid. Once deep inside this starbase, they are told by Surus to wait for her in place for 10 hours! That’s just not possible when you knew someone was going to be coming for you in just a short while. Yet, they sit there almost unarmed waiting for it to happen. When it does, Rade decides his crew, the Argonauts are not worth fighting for to the death. What a wimp!
We do have to deal with Phants now and also flying dragons and “buffaclams” which seems a pretty far stretch as evolution is concerned. I think a little more imagination is required in creating these alien creatures.
Everything turns out OK in the end as it usually does in these books, but it wasn’t easy! I know it’s probably not going to happen, but Rade and Shaw need to part ways with her taking the kids someplace safe, permanently! Some of the other Argonauts have kids back home, but they aren’t volunteering to bring them aboard the Argonaut and wouldn’t be allowed to even if they did want to. Rade and the Argonauts need to get back at being the ruthless, but militarily sound “protection service” they were in the beginning of this series. I hope that happens in “Rade’s Fury (Argonauts Book 7)”.