When Brad Mendoza and Jessica Lin discover a traitor among their closest friends, they’re devastated. But they’re also on a mission to rescue a duke’s little sister, so they don’t have time to deal with it right now.
Until that mission proves to be anything but what they expected, and they find themselves caught between royalty, their sworn enemy, and a particularly annoying 17-year-old with visions of revolution. Now, the traitor in their midst might prove to be their only hope to get out this alive!
The exciting sixth novel in the fan-favorite Dumb Luck and Dead Heroes series, The Worst Traitors in the Confederacy takes our dead heroes on a swashbuckling adventure across enemy space. Humor mixes with military sci-fi and space opera to deliver an action-packed story that will keep you guessing.
Skyler grew up in Southern California, under the best weather that state has to offer. So, he's shown a little of his insanity over the years in moving to colder, wetter places: New York City; Provo, Utah; Bainbridge Island, WA. He now resides with his family in Texas, which (apart from the humidity) gives him that great weather once again.
Skyler has been and continues to be a leader and executive with multiple Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies, working across a variety of functions, both technical and non-technical. In other words, he's very much a jack-of-all-trades but master of none. Maybe that's why he has now decided to be an author as well. In it, he’s finally found the thing he loves to do most.
Mr. Ramirez currently resides in Texas with his wife, Lindsey, and their four children.
Ever since I discovered this series, I haven’t been able to stop reading it. I’m now on the sixth book, with three more already published waiting for me, and the tenth scheduled for September. It’s a story that has been keeping me company for weeks, and it still manages to surprise me.
After the shocking reveal of the traitor at the end of the previous book, Brad and Lin find themselves thrown into a new mission: tracking down the teenage sister of Duke Laraby Garrison, an old friend of Mendoza. The situation is even more delicate because the girl might become the spark that ignites a revolution capable of bringing down Promethean society and costing millions of lives. No pressure at all.
Once again, the mix of humor, action, and drama works incredibly well. The story flows quickly, the funny moments balance out the more intense ones, and the characters now feel familiar, each with a clear and well defined personality. Ramirez’s style keeps winning me over: he moves effortlessly from adrenaline filled action scenes to emotional or unexpectedly violent moments, and he manages to weave in the romantic side of Brad and Lin’s relationship without weighing down the plot.
The only element that convinces me a bit less is Haley Uvalde. The idea of a lethal assassin with multiple personalities she can switch on at will feels slightly exaggerated compared to the overall tone of the series.
Overall, though, I’m really enjoying this saga, and the five stars speak for themselves. I just hope the author manages to keep up this level in the next books. And now I’m left wondering: will the tenth book really be the last, or is there more to come?
This kindle novel is from my Kindle Unlimited account book 6 of 7.
Book seven coming November 30 2024
Jessica and Brad are on a mission to rescue a young woman 🚺. It is quite an adventure with lots of action, misdirection, and violence leading to the unexpected conclusion.
I would recommend this series and author to 👍 readers of romantic family and friends relationships space opera adventure novels 👍🔰. 2024
DR Crew of Perciphony the second takes on another undesirable mission in a way from their captains' ex-star nation. Retrieve Duke of Kepler's sister. Simultaneously dealing with a sudden discovery that one of their crew has been a spy all along.
Story is action packed and seamlessly transitions from one mission to another. What I find objectionable is that the usual means to overcoming challenges are introduced shortly before climax. That and major actors are introduced only when they enter the story in active role, i.e. ex-duchess of Kepler, The Guard, as opposed to more natural background exposition.
Conclusion: 3/5. Listened on Audible included in plus catalogue. Narrated by: Michael Murphy, Madeleine Brolly. There is a cross-book narrative line of political intrigue inside Empire's political class. Each overture protagonists get dragged in ties into behind the scenes real politik of the existing powers. However, the series suffers from lack of foreshadowing. Terrible value for the length of the book, buying it with USD- 2.57 $/hour (19.99 $ / 07 hrs 47 mins ).
This kind of writing is what draws me in - flawed characters with good intentions. Likable characters that pull you in so that you care about them. These characters are well developed by Mr Ramirez with many layers and interest back stories. They must seem real, and Mr Ramirez does just that. - intriguing plot line with references to past history; present joys, despair and hope; and both obvious and hidden threads to future escapades. This, too, is well done. It’s a bit difficult to read the books in the correct order as there are multiple series that weave plots and characters back and forth between series and/or if you want to follow a timeline or understand references to things that happened in another series from the one you’re reading. Say that 3 times fast. I hope you understand what I’m trying to say. All in all, well written books with well developed and interesting characters, and intriguing plot lines. Don’t expect a lot of roses and sunshine and the good guys to always win.
Again, they know what they are writing! Solid 4. Once again, I got Serenity- In-The-Navy vibes. Yet again, battered, bruised, and someone broken. Torture yet again. Multiple decks stacked against us. Betrayal, loss, heartbreak, etc.
I liked the real world power plays, but the blind obedience to monarchs seemed a little odd. The introduction of " Tottally not British but British" people is something. I wish we had more explanation of the doctor. The contrast between our intrepid band of heroes and those who would lie, steal, corrupt and be terrible people is especially acute.
The car reference did seem a little too much on the nose for either Agents of Shield or thr authors favorites. But it makes sense that after fleeing Earth That Was, that would happen.
I wasnt a fan of the last twist because at this point I don't know who has that much hold on Jessica.
I enjoy these books more with each one I read. Brad's first person viewpoint often sounds like a 14 year old. It was annoying at first but the exclamations have actually become endearing. He is not immature. He remains decent and principled and retains a full range of healthy character traits such as courage and self sacrifice for others. He freely expresses emotions from deepest grief to ridiculous humor as he and his crew deal with violence, betrayal, terror, death, and the terrible necessity to fight for their lives across the universe. These aren't The Expanse or similar good books, but the world building ain't bad. I care about the characters, there are lots of plot twists and turns, and overall these are well done and worth a read for someone who doesn't mind some light space travel fantasy fiction or whatever they call it.
As is typical in the military, Brad & his crew are often fighting pitched battles or fleeing from their enemies who are too powerful to fight against. The rest of the time they are just hanging around. However this book keeps their downtime to a minimum as they are constantly running into situations where some bad people or groups of people are trying to kill or capture them. In this story Skyler Ramirez has turned up the pressure even more through creative means involving various trusted people or groups that either double cross them or flatly turn out to be enemies hidden in plain sight. It should be interesting to see how things pan out…
Like a lot of these authors who put out these series, it's easy to see that the increased ratings are not because of increased quality, but due to the survivorship bias of the fans. That is to say, if you muddled your way to book 6, you are a fan already, and Ramirez doesn't really introduce elements that would turn off fans. So, the ratings go up as you go along.
Anyway, I find these fun enough but they are just fun. Sometimes you need that. I personally didn't like this one as much as I thought the longer format was actually a detriment and the story had maybe an entire middle section that wasn't needed and was used just to get to novel length. That's fine. Like if you got through 1-5 you will like this just fine. I probably will stop with this one though.
Another mostly fun read, continuing where the previous book left off.
This one has even more anachronisms. Why do characters in so many far future science fiction keep referring to 20th century history and culture? Has nothing changed in thousands of years? It makes no sense!
Writing quality has gone downhill a bit. There are many more grammatical errors than in previous books, including some repeated very simple ones that really should have been picked up by even an amatuer proofreading pass. There's also a rather large plot hole and some more inconsistencies again, too. But it is fun. Mostly.
Audiobook narration seems to have fewer of the volume normalization issues of the previous book, but the female narrator could still use a little de-essing.
It seems that no matter how hard they try to fail, they overcome their mistakes and prevail It humourous at times, romantic at others, but overall it's about the crew trying.to do the right thing, with just about every other group.they interact with having motives other than those they tell them It should be just a semi easy retrieval of a teenager, however it's anything but and everyone seems to have ulterior motives to them succeeding or not It's a good book, well written and well thought out, at times up beat, others less so, but worth every minute
Just finished books 1- 6 as part of an airplane read on a long vacation. Fun read, almost like the serialization of a miniseries or perhaps a multi season TV show (Pedro Pascal and Lucy Liu playing the leads perhaps?)
Character development is okay through the series if a bit one dimensional- you know what’s going to happen at the end of each book anyway.
Stories are well connected in the little universe and there are a few fun plot twists that keep you at least a little bit guessing. Personally it does read a bit more older YA than adult due to a little bit of angsty ternage drama, but other than that, a fun read.
I love reading for fun, and now have more time for it. The subtitle, Dumb Luck and Dead Heroes, is what caught my eye and got me started. I spent 30 years reading and writing technical manuals. That stuff is dry as dust. I'm so glad I found this new type of science fiction. Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and others of that generation are great pioneers, but the new generation adds more humanity and humor. I'm new to Skyler Ramirez and thrilled I found him. I rank him with my favorites in the new style; Jim Butcher, Jamie McFarlane, John Conroe, Michael Manning....
This one reads like a variant of a Firefly script. That’s not a bad thing! The action, maneuvering and intrigue all make for a good story, though look, I get it, Brad and Jess are in loooooove! Man, Ramirez, you don’t have to oversell that plot point. But the different setups and characters in this book made for a quick and enjoyable read. I also need to hand it to Ramirez that he didn’t have some third party come in and save the day at every turn. Letting these folks battle their way out of some situations is good for them. Character building. There was on unnecessary addition in the form of a vehicle, but to go into it is a spoiler.
The storyline is intriguing and it has some twists here and there. The ship has new crew members for their new ship but once again they’re off to do another dangerous job and we don’t get the chance to really get to know the new members. Hopefully that’ll happen in the next book, although as big as the crew is becoming, it’ll be hard for the author to do them Justice I think; having to focus on the mostly the same characters as before l with a few exceptions, like maybe “the twins” & Pilar. We’ll see. Major cliffhanger so I’m super excited for the next one.
Continuing on with the adventures of Brad, Jessica, and the rest of the crew. This time, we learn more backstory on Haley, rescue a kidnapped sister of a friend, get betrayed, space battles (multiple), space pirates, a really cool car chase in a '64 1/2 mustang that was transported from Earth and is thousands of years old and barely has any original parts remaining at this point. The usual action, sarcasm, and dry humor. Jessica and Brad trying to move their relationship forward while staying alive adds life to the series. Overall, another enjoyable read in this series.
Brilliant reading full of humour ,action and suspense. Have know read the series so far and cannot wait for the next book in the series. If you haven't read any of these books you are missing a treat each has its own story line with a continuing theme good strong characters and a story line that makes you want more, buy and thoroughly enjoy I can only recommend it very highly
Entertaining action and drama with characters that stick to you like glue. With many hair-raising yet exhilarating scenes and sad moments, this science fiction soap opera keeps getting better and better. This is good clean science fiction magic. Highly recommended for everyone, even teenagers.
Somewhere between a small rag-tag small crew of misfits hiding from the big bad authorities while doing good works and a full-on mil sci-fi book full of missile broadsides between fleets. About dead center, an intermediate size rag-tag crew of misfits and some missile broadsides. Much better dialogue and characters than is usual in either.
Sent on a Rescue mission to get back a 17 year old princess, our intrepid crew finds themselves in the middle of a new disaster, which could have gone better if they had more information at the beginning. Getting the girl out was hard enough but getting Brad out may turn into the harder part of the mission. Good Read.
Thee series has all the subtley of car crash. The title generally tell you the plot, The rest of the story is just expanding on the theme. The book out side of title is Brad dumb but lucky and Jessica beautiful smart who begins to love Brad.. They gather a crew to rescue a Dukes daughter and they end up finding a crewman who is not what she appears to be.
If you ever wondered if this genre exists, you’ve found it. It’s light and exciting like a Mission Impossible movie, except you get to sub in anyone’s face for stupid Tom Cruise, the story lasts you as long as it takes you to read, it’s all in space, and there’s actually a worthwhile ending. Oh, and you laugh!
Of the six books so far in this series this is my favorite! I really enjoy our all of the characters are developing and not simply two dimensional cut-outs. Still, not sure how I feel about the epilogue....
This just get more funner than the last one(yes. Funner?). I love these characters. The snarky humor. The action. The adventure. The good ole day of sci-fi. Can’t wait for the next one!
Just as it looks like Brad is finally going to get some stress relief as Jessica is feeling more comfortable something mysteriously happens at the end! dang these guys just keep getting taken advantage of … big surprise lol.
Betrayal, torture and rehashing of old tactics bring the story to a climax and new starts. Recommended for those who like space opera and space cowboys.
Fun quick space opera read and sixth in a series! This book works more on the characterization for the two main characters and supporting characters. It has an action oriented plot, evil villains, humor, etc. This story keeps you reading. Recommended
Brad and Jessica are back on the case, this time looking to rescue a kidnapped member of royalty. The format of alternating chapters, works well and makes this a fun series. Dealing with traitors, new crew members and double crossing, they manage to again save the day and prevent a war.