Wayward Galaxy 6

So this is the first Wayward Galaxy book that I’ve reviewed. Why, you ask? Simple, I enjoyed the previous instalments so much that I smashed through them too quickly and never actually left myself enough time to write a review. That should say a lot for how much I enjoyed this series. So, after I caught up with the release schedule, I was determined to actually write a review for one of these books, especially as it may end up being the end of the series (so far unclear but I really hope not).

So the basic premise of the books are simple. Earth is in the middle of WW3 between the US and its allies and RUPAC, an alliance of Russia, China, and a couple other countries. America launches a pair of colony ships to try and colonise a far-off world in case we nuke ourselves into oblivion. One of the colony ships gets lost and arrives at the destination planet of Amir several centuries late and finds the survivors of their follow-up colony ship living as hunter-gatherers in Amir’s deadly jungle whilst periodically being attacked by technologically advanced remnants of RUPAC. The newcomers then spend the next five books beating the crap out of RUPAC and uplifting their comrades’ descendants from their basic tool use to awesome high-tech Rangers in one of the most addictive and fast-paced book series that I have stumbled upon in recent years. I love these books, and if you haven’t read or listened to any of them, I highly recommend you stop reading this review now so you avoid any spoilers and go and buy them. I am a huge Jason Anspach fan, but this series may be my favourite for his. I lay much of that love at the feet of Brody, the hilarious warbot that has replaced sections of his deteriorated AI programming with 80s action movies. He’s one of the main characters and his insane antics genuinely never get old.  

So, what to say about Book 6. First of all, it gets started pretty swiftly. The previous novels have had a bit more lead-up to the buckets of bullets and blades, but this one more or less jumps straight in. At first I wasn’t the biggest fan of this because one of my favourite aspects of this series has been the development of the Ranger and Osay colony, and that aspect is painfully missing from this book. However, I feel like this negative is largely counteracted by one simple fact: we finally get to go to space! Now I know that is a little bit of a spoiler, but we’ve known for some time that there is a secret moon base and I personally have been dying for Reach, Brody, and the rest of the Rangers to finally get there arses up above the atmosphere and get their Starship Trooper on. We finally get it in this book. Expect an avalanche of Star Wars references from Brody that made an avid Lucas nerd like myself get all excited over.

As I have said, this book is lacking a bit in character and universe development when the last couple of books in the series have had that in spades, but it more than makes up for it in amazing action. The first half of the book is a little lacklustre if I am being honest, but the second half comes in swinging and never stops. There isn’t a vast amount of detail or dissection of nuance to delve into here because the book simply doesn’t have all that much of it, but what it does do (that being amazing action), it does superbly. I mean all the books in this series are good, but this one turns it up to eleven. And I will also say that the way that Reach and Liana’s relationship has grown since they got married at the end of the last book has been done very well. Liana is both Reach’s wife, a bad-arse soldier, and the leader of the Osay nation. Balancing all three of those hats upon her highly competent head was handled brilliantly in this book and added some much-needed depth to the overall story.

 Now, I would have given this book a solid 4.0 stars due to a lack of further fleshing out this amazing world that I have come to love so much. However, the ending nearly made me cry. Seriously, I got very emotional and that really doesn’t happen all that much even with novels from other authors who are largely regarded as the best in their genera. But this did get me. I won’t give anything away or say if it was happy crying or sad crying, but it very nearly got me, and any novel that can get that kind of deep, true emotional response from me deserves better than just 4.0 stars. In short, this book was a non-stop action-fest with an emotional kicker to end on. I loved it. I got through it in less than three days, and now I am left praying that there will be more from this series. There is so much that we don’t yet know about the wider world of Amir and the state of the galaxy that I think finishing this wonderful story here would be a crime. This book didn’t try to be anything other than what it was, and what is was was a fast-paced, entertaining, and often hilarious ride. I loved it.

As for narration, as ever, R.C. Bray knocked it out of the park. When it comes to fast-paced sci-fi narration, this man is not only the go-to but also in my opinion the very best. I always know that if I see his name as narrator, I am going to have a good time.

Score: 4.5 stars

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