Dark Sky by Mike Brooks

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Space Opera, Sci-fi
Content: Strong Language

 
When Ichabod Drift and the Keiko crew sign on for a new smuggling job to a mining planet, they don’t realize what they are up against. The miners, badly treated for years by the corporation, are staging a rebellion. Split into two groups, one with the authorities and one with the rebels, Drift and his crew support their respective sides in the conflict. But when they are cut off from each other due to a communication blackout, both halves of the crew don’t realize that they have begun fighting themselves…

I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as I did the first book in the series. I feel like there is just a little something missing here to make this series really good. It reminds me a lot of the Tales of the Ketty Jay series, but just pales in comparison. The characters are mildly interesting but lack some depth. I wasn't crazy about Drift in the beginning but he has grown on me as I've read these and I like the rest of the crew as well, I just don't feel like I know them as well as I would like to. Apirana and Jenna are probably my favorites, and I enjoyed the evolution of their relationship, but also was annoyed that every time Apirana was mentioned in the book the author felt the need to mention his size. This wasn't the only character this repeatedly occurred with, but it was the most obvious. I feel like this is rather lazy story telling. Instead of developing the characters more and giving us more information about them we just get the same repeated information over and over.

The plots are also mildly interesting in this series but lack something as well. I really didn't feel like the ending was satisfactory because I wanted to know what the information was that they were hired to obtain in the first place and we never find out what it was or why the person that hired them wanted it. Maybe we will find out in the next book.

I know I'm sounding very critical of this book, and although I'm mildly disappointed in it, I do want to point out that I did still enjoy it. I enjoyed it just enough that I will read the next book in the series, but I doubt I will read beyond that if the author publishes more.