Read Time: 2 Minutes
The third book in the ShipCore series is a bit of a mixed bag. Following on from the action-packed finale of book two, a banged-up Alex watches over her friend Ellis as she recovers in the med-bay. Foregoing any interaction with the crew, she finds this was not an ideal choice as once she begins to get a grip on her surroundings, she’s multiple jumps away from home base.
While a lot of this book is as good as the first two, there are large amounts of what feels like filler. Many chapters devoted to Alex going through boot camp with the marines, most of which should have been edited down to maybe a chapter. There is an important connection made at boot, but the rest of the day-to-day trials and tribulations of getting through it… when I relisten to the series I’ll be skipping these chapters.
There’s also a lot of focus on Alex’s sub-cores who have been left to their own devices back at home base. Much of this too felt like filler and could have been edited down to something much tighter. I’d say eight hours or so could have been shaved out of the book to no detriment to the story.
That said, we do get an interesting look at what’s out in the wider galaxy of post-singularity humankind. We get more insight into the other NAIs controlling the core worlds, plus other subservient NAIs and what they put up with. But with all the extra guff in this one, it felt like was an afterthought a lot of the time. I want more of what the first two books delivered!
Narrated by one of my favourite narrators, Reba Buhr. An excellent job as always with no production issues.
So overall, while not the best addition to the series, it’s still one that I enjoy listening too. As mentioned, on a re-listen there will be many chapters I’ll be skipping right over since they added no real meat to the plot. The core narrative though and the world-building will keep me coming back, and I am looking forward to the next one.