If my life was on the line and I needed a fictional character to rescue me, Joe Ledger would have to be near the top of my preferred list. This ex-Baltimore cop is the stereotypical killer that fights on the side of good, and he is more than willing to do some very evil things to make sure he accomplishes the mission. He never monologues with the bad guy, he just gets the job done no matter how bad the odds are. So it's always an exciting day when a new Joe Ledger book comes out and offers a chance to spend more time with Joe and the rest of Havoc Team as they save the world from yet another existential threat. This time a number of old threats are back to sow chaos and it is going to take all of RTI's resources to keep them at bay. Is there anything new to be found here or this just old material that's been recycled to feed the hungry fans of the series?

Makk had the misfortune to be born on a day believed to be so unlucky that his parents barely paused long enough to get him tattooed with the outcast mark before dumping him at an orphanage. The stigma of that mark is so strong that before becoming a cop Makk considered joining the House, planet Dib's religious organization, simply because some of the monks wear concealing robes that would hide it. The city of Velon's best detective also grew up in an orphanage and is therefore familiar with their compound when a scholarly monk is found murdered. Almost from the beginning this isn't a typical case. The monk, Orno, is the younger brother of Velon's most notorious criminal. Orno had recently stolen a priceless ancient religious text that no one can read, but it appears to discuss the Culling, when the god known as the Outcast will return and bring about the apocalypse. Then, just to really annoy Makk, he gets saddled with a shiny new detective as a partner. Everyone wants the case solved without any secrets being revealed, but in a world where independent reporters record everything with drones and conspiracy theories are more common than facts, Makk will have difficulty distinguishing the possible from the impossible.

Originally published back in 1959, and winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1960, Starship Troopers is a classic sci-fi novel that has been considered controversial from the day it was first published. It bears little resemblance to the 1997 movie with the same name and there are many different takes on why it is controversial. Set 700 years in the future, it's a coming of age story for Johnny Rico, who joins the military upon reaching his 18th birthday. Boot camp is no picnic and I frankly love the writing about Johnny's experiences after signing up. He goes through hell, even earning himself a few lashes for disobeying an order, but in the end he learns to respect and trust those around him. Unlike the YA coming of age stories of today, the adult leaders are not portrayed as morons, and they seem to be people worthy of their rank. A quality that definitely gets passed down to Johnny as he struggles to find his own path in life.

After languishing in a brutal enemy prison for twenty years, Captain Faulkner is finally freed but he immediately finds himself the target of assassination attempts and political conspiracies. Instead of a quiet retirement where his broken mind and body might have a chance to recover, he finds himself back where he was during the war twenty years ago, commanding the Confederate battleship Mantis. Like its Captain, the Mantis is being rebuilt and forcibly brought into the modern era with unpredictable results, which wouldn't matter much if a series of puzzling events wasn't reigniting the flames of war again. After a generation of peace, and officers who rose through political connections rather than merit, the last hope of the Confederation might be a broken man, an antiquated patched up warship, and its crew of random misfits.

Early on in this series, Donut received a magical crown and of course she put it on before reading the description. The warning on the crown stated that the wearer would become a member of the Blood Sultanate and would not be able to leave the 9th floor of the dungeon without killing every other member of the Sultanate. This was a permanent liability as removing the crown does not negate the effect. She eventually replaced the crown, but that too was a mistake, because it allowed that same crown to be forcibly placed onto the head of fellow crawler Katia in a later book. At that point there was no way that both Donut and Katia could both reach the 10th floor, but it was a problem for another day. No longer. The 9th floor, known as Faction Wars, is finally here and it is one of the most deadly floors in the dungeon. Add on the Donut/Katia situation and there is no way that Carl makes it to the 10th floor without losing someone he loves.

Dalton Greaves agreed to join a Unity scout ship after a humiliating break up. Those who sign up to work for the galactic organization either come back to Earth rich or just don't come back. His job is to go down to newly discovered inhabited planets and explain that Unity is there to help them just like they helped Earth. His predecessor was eaten by a potential new member species, so he doesn't expect to survive his ten year contract. Their current assignment doesn't look promising since the horrifying looking insectoids live on a planet teeming with wildlife, so vicious even they stay behind city walls at night. But things start to go wrong even before they land when a rival galactic organization, the Assembly, shows up and the two ships destroy each other stranding their representatives on the planet. Dalton's counterpart is an alien whose race is famed for slaughtering Unity soldiers including humans and considers all humans to be conniving manipulative liars. Since it wastes no time convincing the local hive queen of this, Dalton thinks he's lost all touch with reality when she informs him that she's taking him as a husband, her Fourth Consort.

To nobody's surprise, when your stuck on a backwater planet, you can't afford to buy fuel when the only thing of value you have are some fancy geese. To be fair, Mal never intended to do a job in exchange for some supposedly rare geese, but that's how things worked out, and that's actually quite a problem. Serenity does not have enough fuel to leave the moon, which means they can't get to a location when they can cash out the unwanted geese, and the locals are not about to sell them fuel in exchange for the geese. The only way out of this predicament is, of course, to take another job. Luckily the owner of the fuel refinery is a former acquaintance of Shepherd Book, and he is willing to hire Mal and the crew to help him out of a labor dispute. But in typical Firefly fashion, this new job is not about to go to plan either, especially with Jayne out of commission due to a goose-related injury...

It's been a while since a Riyria book was published, five years in fact, and fans of the series have watched lots of others books be published in the world of Elan, but none in the timeline of the originals, until now. This is of course a prequel story because Michael J. Sullivan is happy with where he ended the original series, but any Riyria story is better than none. This story takes us back in time to a mission where Royce and Hadrian are contracted to go on a road trip to stop a disgruntled Dwarf from destroying an entire city. This ancient dwarf has spent his entire life keeping Drumindor operational, and since it sits on top of a volcano, that's a good thing for everyone. When he is fired from his job for cost cutting reasons, he decides to use his knowledge to turn Drumindor into a massive bomb that will surely destroy the resort city of Tur Del Fur. It's up to Riyria to stop him.

In honor of the 10th Anniversary of his first book, Starship's Mage, Glynn Stewart has gone through and updated the earlier titles according to all he's learned as a writer. The stories are unchanged but he's smoothed out the rough edges so the writing style matches the great storytelling. Since I originally reviewed this series, the focus has almost fully shifted to Roslyn Chambers, the young mage whose career took off during the battle with the UnArcana worlds. Mage Queen Kiera has entrusted Roslyn with hunting down Nemesis, the shadowy organization that has working to destabilize the Martian Protectorate in order to force them into better arming themselves against the aliens that first bred mages into humanity to harvest their brains. Now the leader of Nemesis is set out to find the aliens and prove that their terrorism and massacres were justified, but Roslyn fears that if he succeeds they will return their attention to humanity.

Wulfric is the son of the village's First Warrior, and in the northern societal structure that makes his father the leader of the village. Might makes right in the north, but Wulfric's father is still an honorable leader, in addition to being a fierce warrior. Everyone expects Wulfric to be much the same; however, that is not the case. Wulfric is overweight and rather timid, and he finds himself bullied by the sons of merchants, who have little standing in the village. The entire situation disgusts his father, who can't understand why Wulfric doesn't stick up for himself. Then one day the bullies choose to pick on Adalhaid, who Wulfric has had a crush on for his entire life, and he finally chooses to fight back. Of course, he goes too far, and that single act sets off a coming of age story that doesn't resolve itself until the very end of the trilogy. So is this a worthy take on the all too familiar coming of age trope or is this a series you should pass on?