The Ambit is an older ship, and only well known because its captain is the AI named Eoan. Not many people are willing to take a chance on an AI captain, so there are only two crew members, Saint and Nash, who are basically outcasts themselves. They work for the Guild, that neutral entity that keeps the peace between the big corporations and their settlements on the Fringe of human space. Guild Rangers are known for their fierce loyalty to their missions, so Saint is willing to greet his old friend Jalsen with a bullet in the back when he is wanted for desertion. It isn't looking to be a pleasant ride back to the Core Spiral to turn Jalsen over to the Council of Captains when the AI captain, Eoan, picks up a distress beacon. It comes from a failed terraform planet and investigating it results in finding a whole lot of dead bodies before finding the dying programmer who sent the signal. Anke was here to gather information about the failed terraform because she suspects it was a viral code used to kill the colony by the corporation who owned it. If she's right, this is at least the third time the Deadworld Code has been used, and she begs the crew of the Ambit to help test the code fix she's working on. It really shouldn't take long and then they can take Jalsen in, but would there really be a whole book if everything went that smoothly?

Charlie's life has been going steadily downhill for several years. When he sees a report that his wealthy uncle has died, he doesn't expect it to impact his life since he hasn't heard from the uncle since his mom's funeral decades ago. But when he has to stop the guests from stabbing the corpse at the funeral to make sure it's actually dead he begins to suspect that not all of his uncle's wealth came from owning parking garages. Before he knows it, he has inherited a private island complete with volcano and hidden base. Charlie's first crisis as a new supervillain comes as soon as the plane lands. It seems some of his minions feel that their working conditions are unfair, so he's forced to fake his way through negotiations with supersmart asshole dolphins. The supersmart cats are management, so they don't have any complaints. Then he has a crash course in supervillain 101 because in less than a week he's due to meet the other dozen supervillains. All of which hated his uncle and see him as easy prey.

After surviving the horrors of humans and robots corrupted by alien ruins in Network Effect Murderbot is more than ready to take it's humans back to Preservation where they belong. Sadly it's humans, along with ART's humans, are determined to save the colonists from the greedy corporation trying to lock them into labor contracts in return for resettling them on a safer planet. Translation: the corp is trying to lock them into slavery and get them out of the way so it can exploit the planet's resources and sell the illegal alien material on the black market without disclosing the horrible corruption of bots and humans it causes. If only the idiotic colonists weren't still determined to disagree with anything another faction wants. At least they've quit killing each other so now it's only the remaining corrupted bots that Murderbot has to fight until the idiotic colonists finally remember that there might be another settlement hidden on the planet in yet another potentially infected pre-corporate bunker. Somehow life continues to live down to Murderbot's expectations.

This story is all about the question of how and why an alien species might divide a planet so that one half remained in its natural state while the other half was terraformed. With help from scientists and her own imagination Czerneda pulls together threads of cryogenic colony ships, strange worlds, artificial intelligence, and alien minds so different from ours that every interaction is a puzzle. Even the human civilization of New Earth, the first and only known settlement of Original Earth, has some unexpected aspects. The characters and plot tend to take a backseat to the unique and strange possibilities of the universe in this speculative sci-fi story.

Serenity has a hold full of unknown cargo and is on the way to the planet Kerry, where Inara also happens to have a client waiting for her. The delivery is for an Alliance nobleman, not Mal's favorite kind of person, but when the coffers are low, one can't be too choosy about who they work for. For once though, the delivery goes without issue and the Duke turns out to be a pleasant man, despite being Alliance and all. He is even so kind as to extend his hospitality to the entire crew, offering them all good food, entertainment, and comfortable lodgings. It's a great opportunity for each of them to enjoy some time off the ship, and with the promise of more work, things seem to be looking up for everyone. That is, except for Zoe, who feels like something is off about the whole situation. Mal knows enough to trust Zoe's gut feelings, plus with everything going so well it is obvious the 'verse is getting ready to throw them a curve ball...

It has been a while since the last Rogue Team International book, Relentless, and it is finally time to find out if Joe Ledger's psyche has found a state of equilibrium. Joe Ledger has always been one of the most dangerous people in the world, with his fractured mind enabling him to do what needs doing without losing himself to the evil within him. He has always fought on the right side of the war against evil, but now that The Darkness exists within him, he has becomes a threat to everyone, including his own team members. Any return to the field carries a lot of risk, but that isn't going to stop Mr. Church from using his best weapon when the stakes get high. Dr Sanchez thinks Joe should retire, and he isn't alone in his opinion, but Joe and Church don't see it that way. Then a discovery in Cave 13 falls into the wrong hands, and it raises the threat level enough to mark Joe's return to leading Havoc Team. To the peril of everyone on both sides of the war.

Light Bringer is book six of the Red Rising series and it's a good one; however, if you were hoping this would finally lead to a resolution of the rebellion then you will be disappointed. After the last book, it felt like the series was set up to be resolved in a final battle for control of the solar system, but Pierce Brown decided that Darrow needed to go on one more side quest before that ultimate battle. I must admit that when I understood the direction this book was taking I was disappointed, but by the time it was over, I definitely felt differently. This was yet another solid book in the series and it delivers some meaningful events, even if it felt more like a side quest than progress in the main campaign. It does set things up for an even bigger finish in the next book, which I am definitely looking forward to.

At Alpha Centauri, the United Nations of Earth made their last stand against the Medari Council. Humans would have been willing to consider joining if the dominant race of the Council, the Medari, didn't demand that all races convert to their religion. The war was going poorly until humans produced the new phase cannons and establishing a policy of destroying their ships to ensure the enemy never gets one. At Alpha Centauri, the phase cannons almost carried the day but instead it ended with the Japanese fleet heroically sacrificing themselves to cover the evacuation of civilians to Sol. Among the broken remnants of humanity, grandparents and parents pass on the stories of those heroes, the few ark ships hiding deep in space, and the legend of a ship that was supposed to save them all. Excalibur.

Mage-Captain Ivan Halloway managed to retire from the Royal Martian Navy without seeing combat. He's a coward, so better to be retired rather than serving in the coming civil war. Back home in the Xanth system he's uncertain what he wants to do with the rest of his life, so he agrees to help an old friend. He should have gotten more details before he agreed! Karl is deeply in debt following a divorce and mid-life crisis that saw his entire crew resign so he's going to enter the illegal Black Pulsar Race, an obstacle course around a binary pulsar system run by crime syndicates. One reason it's illegal is that twenty-five percent of ships don't survive to the end, but Karl is confident the Restoya can win. The prize money will allow him to pay off his debts and keep his ship. Ivan's not a fan of this plan, but he does want to help Karl until the mob threatens to kills both of them unless Ivan helps them take the Restoya during the race. He agrees on the condition they don't harm Karl and forgive his debts, but he still has a bad feeling about this.

After the events of the last book, it is a miracle that Hadrian Marlowe is still alive. Or is it? Since Hadrian is narrating the story of his life as an old man, it is a foregone conclusion that he won't die, so every situation comes down to how he survives the events that threaten his existence. Things were so dire in Kingdoms of Death that any way out alive for Hadrian would have to border on ludicrous, and it did. It made me wonder if Christopher Ruocchio had fundamentally undermined this series by giving Hadrian a reality-shifting ability that was just too powerful. At the time it seemed that Hadrian could use this ability to get out of any situation without consequence, but there are also a few hints that things are not exactly as they seem to be. Only time will tell which side of plausible this series winds up on, but either way it continues to get more dark and foreboding.