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.

Compared to Damien, who's career we followed from a freshly graduated Ship's Mage to fugitive then Hand of the Mage King and eventually Regent for Mage Queen Kiera, Roslyn is more action oriented with less investigation and politics. Roslyn pursues Nemesis to the Chimera System where humans live alongside some of the Reezh, the aliens who experimented on humans. Negotiating peace with Chimera brings in a new character, diplomat Connor O'Hannigain. Unfortunately, they have indeed been noticed by the fanatic Reezh Kazh and Chimera is facing a massive fleet set on reconquering their historical territory.

Although the focus has shifted, this is still a great series. I can't point to exactly how the first few books were altered, but my general impression is that they seem more cohesive somehow. I liked Roslyn as the young Navy mage struggling to keep up with her rapid promotions in wartime and her shift into a confident warrior is even better. Away from the other characters she needed a foil, and Connor fills the role nicely. The Reezh remind me of Star Trek aliens, they look different and have their own culture but think and act similarly to humans. Overall, this remains one of my favorite ongoing series.

The 10th Anniversary edition updated books are also updated on Audible with Jeffrey Kafer continuing to narrate. These continue to get five star ratings on Audible (except book 2 for some reason). The full series is still available through Kindle Unlimited.