Finder

Fergus is a Finder - his job is to find stolen items and return them to their rightful owners. This time he's out to reacquire (rescue?) a starship that has been stolen (or kidnapped? - the ship has an AI) by a local strongman in a space settlement. Fergus is very talented in improvising plans - which is good because right from the start, nothing seems to go his way.

A rollercoaster ride told with a good sense of humour and with really likable characters. It was really hard to put this book down. I'm definitely going to be watching this author!

I had a good time reading this book. It's a romp of a space opera with some fun hooks for the series, interesting aliens, and a cinematic cast of characters. It honestly feels like reading a movie. I would probably rate it a little lower, but it stands out to me for A) Not cramming in a romance plotline where one doesn't belong and B) pretty great world building that never feels like an exposition dump. I'm not sure that I loved it enough to continue the series, but if you are looking for something fun and action packed but where things just keep going wrong (Coen Brothers do space opera?) this one will work for you.

This is a difficult book to evaluate. It's fluently written, and once it gets going the story is gripping: it's a page-turner. The world-building is quite good: it's not a very original future world, but the details are carefully and plausibly filled in.

On the other hand, it lacks any scenes that I particularly enjoy, and there isn't much characterization. The hero comes over as vaguely well-meaning, ingenious, prone to getting into trouble; but he doesn't make a big impression. The other characters are only lightly sketched.

We visit space habitats and stations, and also inhabited Mars; we travel through space on spaceships, cable cars, and flysticks; we meet people of various kinds and a mysterious race of powerful aliens whose motives are unintelligible.

Rather unusually these days, there's no sex in this book at all; I can't say I missed it. I mention it only as an afterthought. In this story, I think sex would be superfluous, a pointless distraction. There is violence, and violent death, although I think both are at a fairly normal and tolerable level for this kind of story.

Executive Summary: I thought this was a relatively light and quick read. I enjoyed it well enough, but wasn't blown away by it.Audiobook: Joe Hempel does a fine job as a narrator. Nothing special, but since I'm an audible subscriber I was able to listen to this one for free, so you can't beat that price.Full ReviewThis book wasn't on my radar, but it was chosen by Sword & Laser for their October pick. The premise sounded interesting enough and getting a free copy made it easy to give it a try. I ended up listening to this in two parts because I hadn't quite finished it before [b:Battle Ground 23106013 Battle Ground (The Dresden Files, #17) Jim Butcher https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1587778549l/23106013.SY75.jpg 42654036] came out, so I put it on hold for a few days. That shows that I wasn't partitarily off put by walking away from it.This year I've been reading a lot less and favoring lighter reads, and this one fits that bill. I thought the main character was OK, but not great. I found some of the supporting characters to be less interesting/enjoyable however.The world building is probably the best/most interesting part to me. Things felt lived in, without getting into a ton of detail or exposition. The plot felt somewhat standard. Fergus is a bit of an anti-hero who takes a job that winds up with him getting involved in larger events than anticipated. Overall this was a decent read, but I wasn't blown away. I likely won't continue with the series, although if future books are included with my audible subscription I might reconsider.