I’d read the first three in the Jani Kilian series because i had them on storybundle, I think. Having mostly enjoyed them, I got the fourth, fifth and sixth. Since I was aiming to complete them this year in my Finishing the Series Challenge, you can have a round up of the last three, rather than individual reviews.
Contact Imminent (Jani Kilian #4)
For a long time (60%) I was having doubts about this. It was tedious. Lots of politics between the idomeni (aliens) and their Haarin sect (also idomeni) and humans. And May this year was not a comfortable time for reading political shenanigans. We has plenty of our own (both sides of the Atlantic). But I had bought not only this book, but the final two to boot, so… rather than waste that money, I waded through the boring stuff, and the distasteful stuff, and what seemed like flat characters, and pressed on. It came together really well, and I ended up enjoying it. Gave me a lot of trouble trying to work out how many stars to give it, but Kristine Smith writes well, even if I didn’t enjoy it until she got back to getting the characters all tied up in more understandable knots. The ending left me with the feeling the next book might be more fun.
Endgame (Jani Kilian #5)
It started well enough, with some mysterious people who appeared to be on clandestine government business hanging out in space stations, waiting for transport.
Then we go on to the political wrangling we have become used to, and Jani’s old flame/current lover (who leaves me more than cold) gets into trouble with threats of financial ruin. Then her other old flame (who I also hate, but has slightly more personality, even if he turns it whichever way he needs) turns up. This is not getting interesting, not to me, at any rate.
The trouble is, I no longer care what happens to Jani, and the alien guru has turned prophet like. And the person from the space station who is now casing the joint is obviously out to assassinate Jani.
And that’s when I stopped reading, and told the assassin to go ahead, good riddance.
Echoes of War (Jani Kilian #6)
Since Endgame was listed as Book 5 of a 5 book series, it may be surprising to find book 6, written several years later. I gather from other reviews that if you read the prequel, book one, then book 5, you have a really enjoyable time.
But I’m done with this series, and with the author, too. And it started so well…
I’m sorry that the series went so far sideways. Sometimes these things work, sometimes they don’t. I’ll give this a pass.