I hadn’t read one of these Star Force books in quite awhile. Not that I didn’t want to, but after reading several of them with Kyle Riggs as the guy who gets into all sorts of trouble, it’s a little strange reading about Cody Riggs, his Son doing the same things. And, yes, if didn’t know there was a whole series of books with his father’s exploits, you’d assume this all started with Cody Riggs. But, it didn’t so Cody is fighting the same battles as his Dad.
Still, there is some variety in Cody’s stories. Right now, he and his ship, the Valant, are at rest and making numerous necessary repairs. They have just fought some rough battles with the Lithoes and previous to that, some people eating Panda Bears! Now, as you know, these are all different species of aliens that the Valant has ran into flying from one ring to another. Riggs and his human crew are just trying to get back to the Sol system, but can’t find the right ring.
So far, almost every ring they have gone through his resulted in some really bad experiences. Even the last ring found them helping a race of Raptors who then decided they wanted the Valant for themselves. Riggs and his crew manged to convince them that the effort wasn’t worth the trouble so they finally decided to leave them alone. But Riggs and his crew aren’t out of trouble yet!
Of course, they have trouble with them by the name of Marvin. Yet, the obnoxious and very devious sientient robot is still around. He is just as much a pain in the backside for Cody as he was for his Dad. Marvin is definitely a part of the book I could do without. He causes so many problems that I would have dismantled him ages ago.
Then there’s Cody’s love interest, Adrianne! She is a big pain in the backside. I don’t know why the author had to make her such a jealous bitch. Cody can’t do anything without her getting upset and he acts like a wet puppy every time she throws a fit! It’s disgusting the way he lets her pull him around by the nose. I know Cody is just a kid, but good night, man, get a backbone! Sure would be nice if they could just have a relationship based on trust.
Ok, so they’re still trying to find the right ring to get home. They have to fight their way through a new ring with a huge Raptor battleship coming after them. They also are trying to rescue some friendly Raptors coming to the Valiant via a troop transport. The transport is unarmed and is getting blasted by the Raptor battleship. Once it gets close to the Valiant, the friendly Raptors have to move over to the Valiant. So, stupid Captain Cody Riggs can’t let them do this maneuver without him standing in the middle of everything instead of staying on the bridge where he should be. So, the majority of the books is about Mr. Stupid Captain trying to get back aboard his spaceship which he never should have left! These Riggs’ guys always have to put some stupid stunt that gets them into deeper trouble. Of course, if they didn’t, we’d have nothing to read about!
This is a well written book. The editing is excellent. No missing words or strange sentence structure. The story flows pretty well and it’s exciting. Very hard book to put down. I will enjoy reading the next book in the series because Cody Riggs and the Valiant aren’t home yet!