Stars Like Cold Fire —by Brent Nichols & Jake Elwood

 Fiction / Space Opera

published: October 15, 2021

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09FP1XJP4

2883 KB / 238 pages

$2.99 Kindle (Free for Kindle unlimited)

5 Stars

 

Yes, there are some clichés contained herein. But it’s a Space Opera, you should expect cliché, yes? Yes!

 

I don’t read space opera very often, but this is great fun. No gratuitous sex or violence. In fact, no sex.  Our protagonist graduates from the Academy and due to the status of his deceased father, young son immediately gets sent to a backwater sector of the heavens and is put in charge of a small “guppy” stealth craft with a crew of about 7, with a chief enlisted who makes life miserable for him until he wakes up and smells the (space) roses. Or equivalent.

 

It’s the first of a series, so we know right off that our protagonist will survive, but we don’t know if he gets to keep his crew near him as he goes on to bigger and better. I’m pretty sure, though, that the mark of his father will follow him across the stars.

 

My definition of a good piece of fiction is that I want to feel better when I put the finished book down than when I picked it up. I read it in a day. It was great fun. If you want great literature, read Shakespeare. If you want fun, read Stars Like Cold Fire!