Rachel Bach

Devi Morris isn't your average mercenary. She has plans. Big ones. And a ton of ambition. It's a combination that's going to get her killed one day - but not just yet. That is, until she just gets a job on a tiny trade ship with a nasty reputation for surprises. The Glorious Fool isn't misnamed: it likes to get into trouble, so much so that one year of security work under its captain is equal to five years everywhere else. With odds like that, Devi knows she's found the perfect way to get the jump on the next part of her Plan. But the Fool doesn't give up its secrets without a fight, and one year on this ship might be more than even Devi can handle. If Sigouney Weaver in Alien met Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica, you'd get Deviana Morris -- a hot new mercenary earning her stripes to join an elite fighting force. Until one alien bite throws her whole future into jeopardy.

Fortune's Pawn

Sheila

^^^ IT ME WHILE READING THIS BOOK ^^^

Usually when I see that a book has gone for the use of first person, I groan. It's soooooooo easy to get it horribly cringy & wrong. NOT SO FORTUNE'S PAWN. This whole book is like Farscape & Firefly wrapped into one (a lot more Farscape than Firefly it has to be said) with one of the best damn MC's I've ever read in sci-fi! It checks off all of my crazy sci-fi draws: insane non-humanoid aliens? CHECK. rift between humans connected to Earth & humans off-world? CHECK. mercenaries with insane weaponry? CHECK. bizarre conspiracies? CHECK. Throw in a dash of hot sex with an even hotter love interest that doesn't come across as super cheese & holy crap I want to marry this book I AM 100% GOING TO STEAM THROUGH THIS TRILOGY ESP WITH HOW THIS BOOK ENDED OMG

Jessica Smith

I came across this book after reading the first two instalments of the author's DFZ series, Minimum Wage Magic and Part-Time Gods. This series was written earlier, under a different nom de plume, and belongs to a slightly different genre (action sci-fi as opposed to the dystopian science-fantasy mix of the DFZ series). There are definitely some similarities though – a young female protagonist doing a dangerous job, with the same writing style.

Fortune's Pawn follows Deviana "Devi" Morris, an ambitious mercenary who accepts a security job on a notoriously dangerous ship to try to fast-track her path into some kind of elite paramilitary unit. Aboard, she meets an array of curious characters, including the devilishly handsome cook, Rupert, the ruthless captain with unclear objectives, Caldswell, and Caldswell's quiet, chess-obsessed daughter, Ren. And of course, once the crew's journey is underway, mysterious things start happening: on one stopover, Devi's attacked by an invisible creature; aboard another ship, she falls under attack only to be saved by a mysterious black scaly alien; and she discovers that the video recordings her armour makes are being tampered with…

There are plenty of things that I enjoyed about this book. I definitely got engrossed in the mystery and kept reading hoping to find out more (except most of it clearly won't be revealed until later in the series). I liked the romantic subplot between Devi and Rupert. There were some hints of interesting world-building.

Unfortunately, there were also some aspects that weren't quite to my taste. I tend to zone out if an action scene goes on too long – I feel like long action scenes are better suited to movies – and this book definitely has a few long ones. It was also hard to read this book without comparing it to the DFZ series, with Devi here being a very similar character to Opal there, down to the recklessness and anthropomorphising her equipment… and I felt like the setting and the storyline were just a bit better in that series (although, in turn, I think I preferred the characterisation here). The world of this book is definitely not portrayed as vividly as the Detroit Free Zone.

Honestly though, the thing that probably cemented me giving this book three stars instead of four was the ending. (view spoiler)[After Devi gets a bit of context about what's happening from a villain, Caldswell wants to kill her for “knowing too much”. Rupert decides instead to save her life by getting Ren to wipe her memories from the day, and instilling in her a deep, automatic revulsion to seeing him. It felt like it didn't quite work with the first-person, past tense perspective – she fluidly goes from describing events she should have forgotten to explaining how she didn't remember any of the events she just described – and also, I dunno, seemed a bit ill-fitting. The whole manoeuvre seemed very presumptuous on Rupert's part – not just manipulating Devi's mind, but also assuming he can change the facts to get the captain to cancel orders he's aleady issued – and I don't know what this event will mean for Devi's character in the next instalment, but it does seem to have undermined her strength. (hide spoiler)]

Overall, if you loved everything about the DFZ series and are looking for something similar, this is a reasonable choice. In my opinion, though, it doesn't benefit from as awesome a setting, and the plot is a bit more generic and action-heavy. If you haven't looked at the DFZ series yet I'd recommend you check that out first.

Sarah Escorsa

Michael Cowell

Greg Copeland

rex chekal

A promising young mercenary's future gets thrown into jeopardy after a fateful encounter with an alien in the start to a propulsive space opera series perfect for fans of Firefly and Killjoys. "Devi is hands-down one of the best sci-fi heroines I've read in a long time." RT Book Reviews Devi Morris isn't your average mercenary. She has plans. Big ones. And a ton of ambition. It's a combination that's going to get her killed one day -- but not just yet. That is, until she just gets a job on a tiny trade ship with a nasty reputation for surprises. The Glorious Fool isn't misnamed: it likes to get into trouble, so much so that one year of security work under its captain is equal to five years everywhere else. With odds like that, Devi knows she's found the perfect way to get the jump on the next part of her Plan. But the Fool doesn't give up its secrets without a fight, and one year on this ship might be more than even Devi can handle.