Star Nomad by Lindsay Buroker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Space Opera
Content: Strong language, An attempted rape



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.

This was great fun! It reminded me a lot of Firefly, and there was definitely a nod to it which made me smile. What I liked most about this book were the characters. I really liked all of them, but especially Leonidas, Alisa, and Mica. The rapport between Alisa and Mica was great right from the beginning. Mica and her pessimism was amusing.

“Pessimism is an admirable quality in an engineer. Pessimistic people check their work three times, because they’re sure something won’t be right. Optimistic people check once, trust in Solis-de to keep the ship safe, then blow everyone up.” “I think you’re mistaking the word optimistic for inept.”

Beck with his portable grill and BBQ was also amusing, as well as Yumi and her chickens. I came to care about every one of the characters, except for maybe Alejandro. I'm not sure about him or his motives yet. And there is a certain item that he has in his possession that had me thinking of Gollum in Lord of the Rings. I could see him petting it and saying "My precious!"

This book wasn't all humor. It had its tense moments. The beginning especially had me on the edge of my seat. There was also another part with space pirates that had me really worried about a couple of the characters. I thought it was the perfect balance of tense storytelling and humor.