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Backyard Starship #29
Splinter Faction
Money and power.
Van knows it makes the stars go around, but in the wrong hands, it can lead to disaster.
Armed with new ships, new fighters, and an iron will, he'll lead the Fist of Orion to one last fight against an ancient enemy—the Stillness.
For three generations, the Tudors have battled an organization dedicated to power at any cost, but as the war heats up, the Stillness have partnered with a race who regard humanity as more than an enemy.
Humans are. . . an opportunity.
It's going to take more than ships and guns to beat the Stillness—the job requires money. Lots and lots of money. But the Fist has a friend in the banking industry, and with Dayna, and Tor, and Kay, earth will enter a second kind of war.
A war to control the economy of the stars.
Using their new comms, their old ways, and their own grit, the crew of the Fafnir enter a final desperate battle to keep Earth free from tyranny— -- If they can convince the leaders of Earth to play fair.
It's a tall order, but Van is used to big jobs, and this time, he's not playing defense. For the Fist, it's time. . . to attack.
Van knows it makes the stars go around, but in the wrong hands, it can lead to disaster.
Armed with new ships, new fighters, and an iron will, he'll lead the Fist of Orion to one last fight against an ancient enemy—the Stillness.
For three generations, the Tudors have battled an organization dedicated to power at any cost, but as the war heats up, the Stillness have partnered with a race who regard humanity as more than an enemy.
Humans are. . . an opportunity.
It's going to take more than ships and guns to beat the Stillness—the job requires money. Lots and lots of money. But the Fist has a friend in the banking industry, and with Dayna, and Tor, and Kay, earth will enter a second kind of war.
A war to control the economy of the stars.
Using their new comms, their old ways, and their own grit, the crew of the Fafnir enter a final desperate battle to keep Earth free from tyranny— -- If they can convince the leaders of Earth to play fair.
It's a tall order, but Van is used to big jobs, and this time, he's not playing defense. For the Fist, it's time. . . to attack.
- GenresScience Fiction
350 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 28, 2025
About the author
J.N. Chaney
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
January 31, 2026
The Backyard Starship series continues to be an entertaining and tremendously fun series that has a surprisingly consistent character and worldbuilding. The enemies are frequently the same but like a Spider-Man comic, you enjoy their return. The comedy is also always entertaining as well.
October 4, 2025
Another great read from JNC and company.
As always a home run and his references to Pink Floyd, brought memories to this old guy! As always I was riveted to my reading chair and lamp. I appreciate a good story and the continuing saga of the Farmer and crew is worthy of my time and my anticipation for the next installment!!
As always a home run and his references to Pink Floyd, brought memories to this old guy! As always I was riveted to my reading chair and lamp. I appreciate a good story and the continuing saga of the Farmer and crew is worthy of my time and my anticipation for the next installment!!
June 11, 2026
After twenty-nine books you’d think the author might be running out of bad guys for Van Tudor and his crew to go after. Well, you’d be mostly right. The only group that Van and company have not defeated to date is the Stillness. Yes, that’s the name of this long-time gang of criminals that seem to do what they do in the background and not draw attention to themselves. Yet, Van feels something is stirring with the Stillness.
They have already made an effort to attack the *AnaDarko* where several of the children of the Tudors and others were in-training. The Stillness also sent agents to Bogalusa to disrupt the training site for new Peacemakers including another child of one of the *Fafnir’s* crew. These attacks throughly pissed off the Fist of Orion organization which means Van Tudor and his crew were highly upset with the Stillness. Yet, where were they supposed to find the Stillness? Space was vast and not giving up any secrets it didn’t have to.
Van got one lead that he decided to follow even though it took him a long way from Earth to a place in the middle of nowhere. Here is where he finds some interesting residue of the Helem Gauss and the BeneStar Corporation. Yes, it seems that Gauss was messing with Calamity back in the day with the latter infecting everything it could come in contact with. Well, there happened to be a small, insignificant planet out in the middle of nowhere that was building luxury runabout spacecraft. These small were AI or Create Person spacecraft which just happened to have their programming corrupted by Calamity! These isolated spacecraft had formed kind of their own civilization all the while the automated factory was producing more of them.
So, when Van and the *Fafnir* approached their planet he was met initially by a trio of small but deadly spacecraft identifying themselves as the *Fo’rhalm Ansivar*. And not only did that small group of three show up, but another 400 came speeding from their planet towards the *Fafnir*! Van and his crew had to think fast as to how to handle this surprisingly large group of seemingly hostile starships. The key to this encounter turns out to be Fun Boy!
Oh, yes! Fun Boy has a major role in getting the “Fo’rhalm Ansivar” to clam down hopefully become friendly towards Van and company. Fortunately, this tiny spaceship didn’t have access to antimatter therefore they couldn’t twist long distances and were stuck in their system. But Van Tudor saw the significance of having over four hundred small, but deadly spacecraft as allies. They will play a major role later on in the book.
There’s also the interesting side story in this book about Van and the *Fafnir* needing to rescue some idiot human who took his personal workboat sized spaceship out towards Jupiter and got caught in it’s gravity well. The *Fafnir* has to do some pretty intricate work to get that spaceship out to a reasonable orbit. That work almost results in the demise of none other than Perry!
This part of the book has no connection with anything else so I’m wondering if the author was just filling up pages for the heck of it.
We also get involved in the Fist of Orion desiring to set up it’s own banking system. To do so they need to have a large sum of bonds and that would be based on finding a large deposit of an element not usually found in large deposits. Yet, they find a surveyor who had found such a thing and was willing to lead Van and company to it. Isn’t it interesting how things just always seem to work out for Van Tudor and his friends.
And lastly, there will be a big, very big battle at the end of this book. I think you’ll be surprised when you find out what target of the battle was supposed to be. Things are changing rapidly for planet Earth and Van Tudor doesn’t know how long he can keep Earth safe and secure.
There’s more to come with book 30, “Birds of Prey”, already available on Amazon and it’s looks like this series continues all the way to book 33, so we’ve got lots more reading to do.
[Note 1 (12/23/2025): I’m no longer associated with Amazon and will no longer provide any links to books from that website. You can usually find books that you like at your usual source.]
[Note 2: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be posted on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. ]
They have already made an effort to attack the *AnaDarko* where several of the children of the Tudors and others were in-training. The Stillness also sent agents to Bogalusa to disrupt the training site for new Peacemakers including another child of one of the *Fafnir’s* crew. These attacks throughly pissed off the Fist of Orion organization which means Van Tudor and his crew were highly upset with the Stillness. Yet, where were they supposed to find the Stillness? Space was vast and not giving up any secrets it didn’t have to.
Van got one lead that he decided to follow even though it took him a long way from Earth to a place in the middle of nowhere. Here is where he finds some interesting residue of the Helem Gauss and the BeneStar Corporation. Yes, it seems that Gauss was messing with Calamity back in the day with the latter infecting everything it could come in contact with. Well, there happened to be a small, insignificant planet out in the middle of nowhere that was building luxury runabout spacecraft. These small were AI or Create Person spacecraft which just happened to have their programming corrupted by Calamity! These isolated spacecraft had formed kind of their own civilization all the while the automated factory was producing more of them.
So, when Van and the *Fafnir* approached their planet he was met initially by a trio of small but deadly spacecraft identifying themselves as the *Fo’rhalm Ansivar*. And not only did that small group of three show up, but another 400 came speeding from their planet towards the *Fafnir*! Van and his crew had to think fast as to how to handle this surprisingly large group of seemingly hostile starships. The key to this encounter turns out to be Fun Boy!
Oh, yes! Fun Boy has a major role in getting the “Fo’rhalm Ansivar” to clam down hopefully become friendly towards Van and company. Fortunately, this tiny spaceship didn’t have access to antimatter therefore they couldn’t twist long distances and were stuck in their system. But Van Tudor saw the significance of having over four hundred small, but deadly spacecraft as allies. They will play a major role later on in the book.
There’s also the interesting side story in this book about Van and the *Fafnir* needing to rescue some idiot human who took his personal workboat sized spaceship out towards Jupiter and got caught in it’s gravity well. The *Fafnir* has to do some pretty intricate work to get that spaceship out to a reasonable orbit. That work almost results in the demise of none other than Perry!
This part of the book has no connection with anything else so I’m wondering if the author was just filling up pages for the heck of it.
We also get involved in the Fist of Orion desiring to set up it’s own banking system. To do so they need to have a large sum of bonds and that would be based on finding a large deposit of an element not usually found in large deposits. Yet, they find a surveyor who had found such a thing and was willing to lead Van and company to it. Isn’t it interesting how things just always seem to work out for Van Tudor and his friends.
And lastly, there will be a big, very big battle at the end of this book. I think you’ll be surprised when you find out what target of the battle was supposed to be. Things are changing rapidly for planet Earth and Van Tudor doesn’t know how long he can keep Earth safe and secure.
There’s more to come with book 30, “Birds of Prey”, already available on Amazon and it’s looks like this series continues all the way to book 33, so we’ve got lots more reading to do.
[Note 1 (12/23/2025): I’m no longer associated with Amazon and will no longer provide any links to books from that website. You can usually find books that you like at your usual source.]
[Note 2: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be posted on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. ]
October 3, 2025
Preparing for battle!
The first peacemaker, Alex, puts in an appearance with grave news, a new ally is identified, a Stillness fleet is uncovered, twist capable ships are being built and launched from Earth and a target for the Stillness fleet may have been identified and it is clear that battle will commence at some point...
Intrigue, suspense, mystery, humor, detective work, and planning occur before a great battle... But what's the target? What's real and what's a feint? What will be the cost and who will emerge the least 'unscathed' and 'win'...
The first peacemaker, Alex, puts in an appearance with grave news, a new ally is identified, a Stillness fleet is uncovered, twist capable ships are being built and launched from Earth and a target for the Stillness fleet may have been identified and it is clear that battle will commence at some point...
Intrigue, suspense, mystery, humor, detective work, and planning occur before a great battle... But what's the target? What's real and what's a feint? What will be the cost and who will emerge the least 'unscathed' and 'win'...
October 13, 2025
Endless Morass of Navel-Gazing Continues
“Splinter Faction (Backyard Starship Book 29)” continues the endless morass of navel-gazing by the ‘soft’ protagonist, a hallmark of this series and other Variant Publishing content. The authors and their apparent AI-driven writing software templates have also rediscovered their italics coding from earlier books as “Splinter Factor” is infested with italics.
Read fully via KU with some observations via Notes & Highlights on Goodreads.
“Splinter Faction (Backyard Starship Book 29)” continues the endless morass of navel-gazing by the ‘soft’ protagonist, a hallmark of this series and other Variant Publishing content. The authors and their apparent AI-driven writing software templates have also rediscovered their italics coding from earlier books as “Splinter Factor” is infested with italics.
Read fully via KU with some observations via Notes & Highlights on Goodreads.
January 13, 2026
Exciting
I am always happy to get a new installment to the Backyard Starship and this one does not disappoint. Van is still being plagued by the Stillness. Just the baddest of the bad. While dealing with all the day to day problems that a Master of the guild has to deal with, he has this uneasy sense of impending doom. Well, a little luck and a lot of planning and hard work pay off when Van finds a Stillness stronghold. What are they up to and how will the Fist of Orion respond. And who will help? Action packed and a great read!
I am always happy to get a new installment to the Backyard Starship and this one does not disappoint. Van is still being plagued by the Stillness. Just the baddest of the bad. While dealing with all the day to day problems that a Master of the guild has to deal with, he has this uneasy sense of impending doom. Well, a little luck and a lot of planning and hard work pay off when Van finds a Stillness stronghold. What are they up to and how will the Fist of Orion respond. And who will help? Action packed and a great read!
November 17, 2025
Unending great story telling.
I don't know what I expected when I started this series, 29 volumes ago, but it wasn't such a great time as I received. How in the world can these two keep up with the pace, such great plots, innovations, quirks, and all the rest. And the characters. How can they make them so consistently great. Keep it up guys, I like to read, and you make it hard to stop.
I don't know what I expected when I started this series, 29 volumes ago, but it wasn't such a great time as I received. How in the world can these two keep up with the pace, such great plots, innovations, quirks, and all the rest. And the characters. How can they make them so consistently great. Keep it up guys, I like to read, and you make it hard to stop.
July 30, 2026
As always, the usual suspects continue to entertain. I burst out laughing when Perry made mention of the "watery tart." I love it when humor is clever.
One big surprise: I am in the midst of going through the series The First Peacemaker. Imagine my surprise when Alexander Hawke appears here!
Jeffrey Kafer, you are amazing. This series would not be what it is without you.
p.s. But you still need a proper British accent!
One big surprise: I am in the midst of going through the series The First Peacemaker. Imagine my surprise when Alexander Hawke appears here!
Jeffrey Kafer, you are amazing. This series would not be what it is without you.
p.s. But you still need a proper British accent!
October 8, 2025
Unexpected.
Never a dull moment for Van. New life changing, world threatening disasters, all the time. It's catching up to him. But he's still the wise-cracking, hard fighting Peacekeeper he's always been. There's one for the record books coming up, soon. Well they all seem to fit that description.
Can't wait.
Never a dull moment for Van. New life changing, world threatening disasters, all the time. It's catching up to him. But he's still the wise-cracking, hard fighting Peacekeeper he's always been. There's one for the record books coming up, soon. Well they all seem to fit that description.
Can't wait.
October 23, 2025
This is a cracker
Non stop action. New and old characters. This episode canters along at a pace and brings with it quite a few storyline threads. Enjoy. I have loved every book in this and the spin-off series. Do yourself a favour. Go start at Book one and join us on this great journey
Non stop action. New and old characters. This episode canters along at a pace and brings with it quite a few storyline threads. Enjoy. I have loved every book in this and the spin-off series. Do yourself a favour. Go start at Book one and join us on this great journey
December 4, 2025
There will soon be a clearance sale
I wish I could cite happenings in more detail when I write these reviews, but spoilers are just wrong.
Let me just say that this latest installment only took me a few hours to read (hint hint, you guys. Make them twice as long!).
It was very good.
I wish I could cite happenings in more detail when I write these reviews, but spoilers are just wrong.
Let me just say that this latest installment only took me a few hours to read (hint hint, you guys. Make them twice as long!).
It was very good.
December 12, 2025
frustrating and boring
I am getting frustrated and bored. Authors can’t help injecting more and more mystery boxes into the plot. Over 30 books they are tying up one plot every ten books but each book introduces a handful more plots. The rest of the content is side quests which do little in moving things forward.
I am getting frustrated and bored. Authors can’t help injecting more and more mystery boxes into the plot. Over 30 books they are tying up one plot every ten books but each book introduces a handful more plots. The rest of the content is side quests which do little in moving things forward.
October 17, 2025
This was a great read
So many different players involved as earth ships begin twisting out of Sol for the first time ever. Love that the bad guys are being more elaborate and the battles and rescues are I tense.
So many different players involved as earth ships begin twisting out of Sol for the first time ever. Love that the bad guys are being more elaborate and the battles and rescues are I tense.
October 31, 2025
Thourough Fun
Really enjoyed reading this episode and knew it was going to be different from some of the story line. This was a good mixture of characters that make up the difference between a great story and what ever is not possible.
Really enjoyed reading this episode and knew it was going to be different from some of the story line. This was a good mixture of characters that make up the difference between a great story and what ever is not possible.
December 4, 2025
The continuing saga
Strange how Van and his group devastated the whole Stillness fleet but didn’t show interest in finishing the job by taking out their main base.
Must be a prelude for another book
Strange how Van and his group devastated the whole Stillness fleet but didn’t show interest in finishing the job by taking out their main base.
Must be a prelude for another book
December 16, 2025
Strong as always...but miss more characters' personalities!
Having a bit of battle fatigue... It all feels inevitable, of course, but it crowds out the great characters and their uniquely individual personalities, interacting...
Having a bit of battle fatigue... It all feels inevitable, of course, but it crowds out the great characters and their uniquely individual personalities, interacting...
January 17, 2026
It's never dull for Van and his crew. Earth is getting into space, but the stillness is out there waiting. But as a new threat been awaken? I've read all the available books in this series. This continues to remain one of my all time favourites.
October 2, 2025
Top Notch Science Fiction!
October 2, 2025
as good as space battle as I’ve ever read
I’m really quite impressed. It’s exciting. It’s pretty heart pounding. I’d go for it. Says here I need six more words so there’s seven.
I’m really quite impressed. It’s exciting. It’s pretty heart pounding. I’d go for it. Says here I need six more words so there’s seven.
October 5, 2025
Great read...
I always enjoy getting to come back to Van and the gang. The Swens are a great addition. I can't wait to see how they're going to add to the story line.
I always enjoy getting to come back to Van and the gang. The Swens are a great addition. I can't wait to see how they're going to add to the story line.
October 5, 2025
the saga continues
Great writing and the twist at the end left us wanting more…for readers of the series this one integrates the next generation in a wonderful manner.
Great writing and the twist at the end left us wanting more…for readers of the series this one integrates the next generation in a wonderful manner.
October 18, 2025
another great read
Here we go again, another great story that keeps us coming back for more. The never ending challenges they have to overcome.
Here we go again, another great story that keeps us coming back for more. The never ending challenges they have to overcome.
October 19, 2025
The Saga Continues
Van keeps pulling rabbits out of his hat and succeeds with the help of his many friends. This is a great read for the triumph of good over evil.
Van keeps pulling rabbits out of his hat and succeeds with the help of his many friends. This is a great read for the triumph of good over evil.
October 24, 2025
29 Books In…
… and still earning 5 stars with each one.
I’m looking forward to assigning 5 stars to the next one as well.
… and still earning 5 stars with each one.
I’m looking forward to assigning 5 stars to the next one as well.
October 25, 2025
AI
Seems to be. Who knows what is Chaney doing to release so much at once. If if if who knows or cares?
Seems to be. Who knows what is Chaney doing to release so much at once. If if if who knows or cares?
November 3, 2025
Good Read as always
This did not seem to move as fast, but Van and his crew and his family were spread a bit thin.
This did not seem to move as fast, but Van and his crew and his family were spread a bit thin.
November 10, 2025
Well one thing is sure J.N. Chaney has me Hook Line & sinker. Great book now I'm waiting for Book 30.
November 16, 2025
Awesome!!
Hey book. Story flows great, and it ties a lot of things together. Definitely worth reading if you've liked his old books.
Hey book. Story flows great, and it ties a lot of things together. Definitely worth reading if you've liked his old books.
December 1, 2025
Battle closer!
Deadly space battle to save Earth was jarring and darkly exciting. The patches on the ship must almost outnumber the original Hull. Looking forward to the next book.
Deadly space battle to save Earth was jarring and darkly exciting. The patches on the ship must almost outnumber the original Hull. Looking forward to the next book.
December 1, 2025
"Known space. The Final Frontier."
The continuing saga of Van Tudor and his crew, family and associations, keep me interested.
Just like serial TV used to be.
The continuing saga of Van Tudor and his crew, family and associations, keep me interested.
Just like serial TV used to be.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews