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Solar Clipper Trader Tales SciFi series

sparkchaser

sparkchaser

Administrator and Stuntman
Staff member
The other day I bought REAMDE and I saw this on my suggestions. It looks interesting. Has anyone read it?

Quarter Share (Solar Clipper Trader Tales)

The Golden Age of Sail has Returned -- in the Year 2352

When his mother dies in a flitter crash, eighteen-year-old Ishmael Horatio Wang must find a job with the planet company or leave the system--and NerisCo isn't hiring. With credits running low, and prospects limited, he has just one hope...to enlist for two years with a deep space commercial freighter. Ishmael, who only rarely visited the Neris Orbital, and has never been off-planet alone before, finds himself part of an eclectic crew sailing a deep space leviathan between the stars.

Join the crew of the SC Lois McKendrick, a Manchester built clipper as she sets solar sails in search of profit for her company and a crew each entitled to a share equal to their rating.
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I haven't bought it yet but on my next Kindle buying spree it will be at the top of the list.

Next one in the series is Half Share (Solar Clipper Trader Tales).
 
Hiro Protagonist.

I am ashamed to admit I didn't get the pun until I was almost done with the book and I was describing it to someone and said his name. Ooops.
 
I finished the first book. The writing is a bit pedestrian (this guy is no Clarke) but over all I enjoyed the departure from the normal let's go to war with an alien race that looks just like us and speaks English formula.

I the early chapters of Half Share the author uses the unword co-conspirator. I went into my customary red RAGE and haven't read a line since. Maybe tonight...
 
I'll let you know. If I see the unword irregardless in the next chapter I am done with him.
 
I have finished book two and I can tell they originatated :) as pod casts. The first one was entertaining enough to get me to care about the characters, but about half a share through book two I was starting to smirk a bit.
Me thinks the author is a little too optimistic about the psycho-sexual maturity level of a group of breeding age single folk crammed together in a close space for weeks on end and his economic modeling is more simple minded than Marx ever concocted. The most irritating thing to me is the story is hawked as being about a normal Joe in the futuristic Merchant Marine, but he is starting to look like some sort of young hero with superhuman sexual prowess and the IQ of Einstein.

Remember the episode of Babylon 5 where we follow the two maintenance guys around for a day while all hell is breaking loose due to an alien assault on the station? They talk about inane things, blue collar philosophies and speculate about just how stupid the "brass" can possibly get. In other words, everyday Joe stuff. Regrettably, this everyday Joe is not so veryvery ordinary. It is beginning to annoy me.

It can in no way be considered hard scifi but I spent my fiver on book three, so something must be working in the authors favor. I think it is the price and the Buy button Amazon so thoughtfully provides at the end.
 
sparkchaser said:
Awesome. I'll let you know when I am ready.
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I am at your service, good sir.

I finished book three which is, thankfully, the last one currently available in this series. Hopefully I will have forgotten about it by the time they get 'round to publishing the rest.

Three is better than two, by a long shot, but I still think the author's idea of a 'regular guy' has been skewed by the Ian Fleming induced fantasies of his youth. The protagonist reads like a young combat engineer from Hubbard's Invasion Earth in that he's just a wee bit too good to be believable. Add to that his pervasive charm and ability to make women of all ages, social stature and demeanor swoon with the mere arch of an eyebrow and I begin to think that our everyday hero needs a good swift kick to his ego. There is a female character available to do just that, and I held out high hopes that she would eat the young bucks lunch for him at some point. Alas, our writer decides that no woman is immune to the charms of this ensign Casanova and it made me nearly hurl. It's just annoying, the story is a great concept but at least in print form the execution is poor.

Yes, I will finish reading the series. I always do.
 
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