Book Review | Star Nomad by Lindsay Buroker

The Blurb

They have her daughter. She will stop at nothing to get her back.

When system-wide civil war broke out, fighter pilot Captain Alisa Marchenko left her family and accepted a commission in the Alliance Army to battle the empire’s tyranny. Four years later, the empire has been toppled, but chaos and anarchy now rule the system. Alisa, after being injured in the final battle, is stranded on a dustball of a planet billions of miles from home. She learns that her husband died during the bombings, leaving their daughter on Perun, a planet that has become the last imperial stronghold.

Alisa must find a way to Perun, even if she has to steal a dilapidated ship from a junkyard overrun by murdering savages to do it. She’s ready for the challenge. She did not, however, count on finding an elite imperial cyborg soldier squatting in the ship and planning to use it for a mysterious mission of his own. Alisa can’t let him or anyone else stop her, or she’ll never see her daughter again.

My Review

I’m a fan of Lindsay Buroker, as you may realise from the number of reviews she’s already had on this blog – the Emperor’s Edge series, the Flash Gold series – she’s a prolific writer (and she only started a year before me).  I keep learning from her.  This new series, Fallen Empire, is straight scifi, space opera, even, and rocks along at a great pace with plenty of cool twists and humour as you’d expect.

If this was the first Buroker book I’d read, I would be raving about it.  Lindsay’s style continues apace in this new setting, and it’s a great plot and really enjoyable read.  There’s one thing that keeps me cool, though, and that’s only because I’ve read five of the Emperor’s Edge series: her heroine is a dead ringer for the feisty and independent Amaranthe, and the love interest (oh, come on, it’s definitely going that way, with a hot cool guy who’s unapproachable) is as near to Sicarius as it’s possible to be with a non-human. The assorted sidekicks that will turn into the team are also very alike. It’s a lovely set-up, and they are great characters. But it just reminds me of what has already developed in the Emperor’s Edge.  That makes me wonder about my own characters.  Are Fred and George really the same as Lars and Pete;  the charismatic leader one and the studious engineering type sidekick?  Well, there are similarities.  I must work harder to make sure they don’t both morph into my two elder brothers.

So if you want a convoluted, pacey scifi adventure, it’s great.  If you want more in the style of Amaranthe and Sicarius, it’s great. If you don’t want to mix up Amaranthe and Alisa Marchenko you may have problems.

But if you enjoy scifi, you’ll enjoy it, and yes, I may even read the second in the series.

Please note: Star Nomad is in the first round of nominations for Goodreads Book of the Year awards, so if you haven’t voted for it yet, or it gets through to the next round, please vote for it!