Lost Fleet, Outlands, books 1 & 2
4.0 Stars
2-10-2023

Kind of good? These are books number ~16 and ~17 in a long running series. Years ago I had read the first book in the series and bounced off of it, but I found myself liking these later books to a surprising degree. The world and the characters are way more developed, there's some light humor, and for the most part the focus has shifted from space-fighting to space-administrating, as the protagonist deals with political, diplomatic, personal, and espionagal hurdles while trying to manage an expedition sent to solidify diplomatic relations with an alien race. It's not brilliant work, but it is solid beer and pretzels stuff and I was disappointed that there's not another dozens audio books lined up for me in this series. I'll probably go back to the start of the series and see if I like them better on the second try, and now that I know that they improve over time. Oh right another note, for whatever reason I have basically an infinite appetite for space opera and mil-space opera stuff, for some reason my brain categorizes as important information that will be useful some day. The struggle though is that so much of this stuff is written by people with hard-right views, to the point where I can't even choke down their beer and pretzels any more. This series though is pleasantly liberal-centrist, which is a relief.