Mutiny at Vesta
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4.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Adda and Iridian have survived the murderous AI that tried to kill them in Barbary Station...but now they'll need all of their ingenuity to escape the evil megacorporation that wants to own them, in this second space adventure in the Shieldrunner Pirates trilogy.
Adda Karpe and Iridian Nassir have escaped the murderous AI that was trapping them on Barbary Station, and earned themselves a place on Captain Sloane’s fabled pirate crew. And now that they’ve arrived at Vesta, Sloane’s home base, they can finally start making a living stealing from well-off megacorporations.
Unfortunately, the political situation has deteriorated in Captain Sloane’s absence. Adda and Iridian find themselves trapped in a contract with Oxia Corp., one of the very megacorporations they'd hoped to prey on, forced to rob and intimidate targets they'd never have chosen on their own. If they're ever going to have the independent life together that they've always wanted, they'll have to free themselves from Oxia Corp. first. Meanwhile, the inhuman allies who followed Adda and Iridian from Barbary Station have plans of their own, which may be more dangerous than the humans involved could imagine. It will take not one but five heists, and every bit of ingenuity Adda and Iridian have to escape from Oxia and find the life they’ve always dreamed of…if they can survive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Stearns's second space opera is heavy on rousing action scenes, political intrigue, and high AI weirdness, but the book is bogged down by predictable interpersonal dynamics and an overemphasis on corporate skulduggery. Following the events of Barbary Station, Iridian Nassir and Adda Karpe have become part of the space pirate Sloane's crew, and they all head to Sloane's home base of Vesta. In Sloane's absence, Vesta has been taken over by a megacorporation, and the crew has to do the corporation's dirty work espionage, personnel coercion, intercorporate theft. This is not what young idealists Iridian and Adda signed on for, and it's made more complicated by the three secretly sentient artificial intelligences who've followed Adda from Barbary Station for inhuman reasons of their own. The cinematic qualities of the imagery and the personable protagonists only go so far to elevate the mood of this capably written but emotionally sterile novel.
