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Black Ocean #9-12, 12.5
Mission Pack 3: Missions 9-12
Being a criminal kingpin is more work and less fun than everyone makes it seem.
Carl Ramsey is the head of his own criminal Syndicate. With a hundred men and women and the resources of a tiny jungle moon at his disposal, life should have gotten easier, not harder. Infighting, politics, and a lack of income to pay everyone begin to tear the syndicate apart from the inside. And the last thing Carl needs is his father stepping in to try to help.
Mission 9: Adventure Capital
Carl sets out with some new recruits to earn some startup funds for his new syndicate. But when he discovers that his criminal enterprise doesn't have enough criminals to run it, he goes to recruit some old friends.
Mission 10: Collusion Course
While Carl and the Mobius are stranded, dead in space, Chuck Ramsey steps in to handle the day-to-day operations of the syndicate. Can Carl get his ship repaired and get home while he still has a syndicate left?
Mission 11: You, Robot
Wizards are all convinced that any thinking robot would be a threat to life as we know it. Robots are paranoid that wizards are out to get them. When the Mobius comes across a robot claiming to be a wizard, they don't know quite what to do with him. But there's a wizard who does, and he's not planning to play nice.
Mission 12: Stowaway to Heaven
With the aid of some inside information, the Mobius crew are ready to take on an old nemesis. Their goal: to infiltrate and hijack the Harmony Bay ship Bradbury.
Bonus Short Story: Voice of Reason
With Carl off being treated like a VIP, a job comes in for the Mobius. Roddy, Archie, and Yomin take on the assignment, but they have to manufacture a convincing impostor of Carl to do it.
Carl Ramsey is the head of his own criminal Syndicate. With a hundred men and women and the resources of a tiny jungle moon at his disposal, life should have gotten easier, not harder. Infighting, politics, and a lack of income to pay everyone begin to tear the syndicate apart from the inside. And the last thing Carl needs is his father stepping in to try to help.
Mission 9: Adventure Capital
Carl sets out with some new recruits to earn some startup funds for his new syndicate. But when he discovers that his criminal enterprise doesn't have enough criminals to run it, he goes to recruit some old friends.
Mission 10: Collusion Course
While Carl and the Mobius are stranded, dead in space, Chuck Ramsey steps in to handle the day-to-day operations of the syndicate. Can Carl get his ship repaired and get home while he still has a syndicate left?
Mission 11: You, Robot
Wizards are all convinced that any thinking robot would be a threat to life as we know it. Robots are paranoid that wizards are out to get them. When the Mobius comes across a robot claiming to be a wizard, they don't know quite what to do with him. But there's a wizard who does, and he's not planning to play nice.
Mission 12: Stowaway to Heaven
With the aid of some inside information, the Mobius crew are ready to take on an old nemesis. Their goal: to infiltrate and hijack the Harmony Bay ship Bradbury.
Bonus Short Story: Voice of Reason
With Carl off being treated like a VIP, a job comes in for the Mobius. Roddy, Archie, and Yomin take on the assignment, but they have to manufacture a convincing impostor of Carl to do it.
- GenresScience Fiction
499 pages, ebook
Published December 26, 2016
77 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
About the author
J.S. Morin
192 books611 followersI am a creator of worlds and a destroyer of words. As a fantasy writer, my works range from traditional epics to futuristic fantasy with starships. I have worked as an unpaid Little League pitcher, a cashier, a student library aide, a factory grunt, a cubicle drone, and an engineer--there is some overlap in the last two.
Through it all, though, I was always a storyteller. Eventually I started writing books based on the stray stories in my head, and people kept telling me to write more of them. Now, that's all I do for a living.
I enjoy strategy, worldbuilding, and the fantasy author's privilege to make up words. I am a gamer, a joker, and a thinker of sideways thoughts. But I don't dance, can't sing, and my best artistic efforts fall short of your average notebook doodle. When you read my books, you are seeing me at my best.
My ultimate goal is to be both clever and right at the same time. I have it on good authority that I have yet to achieve it.
Through it all, though, I was always a storyteller. Eventually I started writing books based on the stray stories in my head, and people kept telling me to write more of them. Now, that's all I do for a living.
I enjoy strategy, worldbuilding, and the fantasy author's privilege to make up words. I am a gamer, a joker, and a thinker of sideways thoughts. But I don't dance, can't sing, and my best artistic efforts fall short of your average notebook doodle. When you read my books, you are seeing me at my best.
My ultimate goal is to be both clever and right at the same time. I have it on good authority that I have yet to achieve it.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 9, 2018
This is the 3rd ‘Mission’ pack in the Black Ocean series, collecting Missions 9 through 12, and adding a bonus, Mission 12.5 into the mix.
As with all the others, these are a continued series, but Mission 8, 9 and 10 all have an underlying story arc, so before going on with Mission 9, you should really read Mission 8 for clarity.
These are excellent stories, make sure you read 9 through 12 before reading the bonus Mission to avoid any confusion as you need to have finished these for 12.5 to make sense. Following is a brief review of each of the individual ‘Missions’:
Mission 9
With the ship found, the crew located, and Carl now sort of in charge, it is time to put things into action. Carl decides to put a mission together and go into a rather interesting part of space Eyndar/ARGO Demilitarized Zone, full of planets with companies doing various bits of mining, research and other ‘interesting’ bits of research, some of it that might be legit, some of it that really isn't. The great thing is, that ARGO is contractually bound to stay out of the area. However, Carl has come to realise that his band of misfits that he has found with the Odysseus are not necessarily up to doing jobs of this type of nature, and he might need some help. With Amy’s help, he decides to pull together his old crew from his fighter days aboard the Odysseus. This introduces us to a new set of Characters, Hiroshi and July, Toshiro (Samurai), Niang, Jaxon and Rachel and their kids Jaxon Jr and Lisa and Yommin. Hiroshi has his own ship, which kind of covers his personality as well, the Hatchet Job, and it becomes clear pretty quick that the crew that Carl used to run, although some of the best fighter pilots in the galaxy, were also one step away from Jail or the Psych ward. Carl had basically collected all the misfits, saved them, and put them into a not so elite fighter unit. This is a fantastic bit of the story, giving us some real history of Carl, and introducing some new blood to the story. We have constantly heard about ‘Blackjack’ and we got to learn about how Carl has a bit of a magic trick of his own with his ability to split his personalities in multiple different ways, any time he likes any which way, a trick he learnt from Mort to deal with the PTSD he suffered from the war, and the mental scars he received.
Morin has taken it a step further, diving into the past, and brining all these characters to us.
What unfolds is a rather fascinating mix of personalities, some that have moved on and are quite ‘normal’, some that have made a life for themselves and are pretty good, and some that are just plain nut bag crazy.
And this is what makes the story really interesting as the crews of the Mobius and The Hatchet Job go off on an adventure to try and find themselves a prize worth more money than they have ever seen.
Morin has out done himself in this book with his characters, reaching new levels as he dives into the various psyches of not just the main characters, but the new comers as well. He is obviously doing some serious research to understand the people he is writing and it shows.
Further to this is the brilliance of Mort, and his magic, combined with the unique way that magic and tech both co-exist, but also mess with each other so disastrously.
Mission 10
The 10th book in the series sees Carl in a spot of bother with his new team.
They had a wonderful plan to get some bio-matter, and then sell it, raking in a bucket load of money. However, in the process of trying to ‘liberate’ the goods, the ships they were on received critical damage, and now, they are all linked up in space, whilst the ship with the goodies, floats happily away, full of holes, about to crash and explode and ruin all their fun.
And if that wasn’t enough to ruin their day, back at base, Don Rucker, notorious gangster, and Tanni’s Dad, has turned up looking for her, because he hasn’t heard from her, and what is even worse, he brought Carl’s Dad Chuck with him. Carl’s life just can’t get any worse.
That is until some of his old Navy buddies decide that maybe they have had enough and turn on him…
In the meantime, Mort, having run into Don and placated him for a short time, is off God Hunting again, and this leads to an epic show down.
This book is seriously full on. It is kind of the culmination of the serious of events that started with Book 8, and moved forward with the intro of Carl’s old crew in Book 9, and now, in this story, it is all coming together, in a storm of fury, and not everyone is going to survive, there are going to be changes (that’s all I'm going to say)
Again, Morin has done a magnificent job with not just creating an epic story that just continues to get better with each new episode (I mean this is book number 10, or 12 if you want to include the bonus stories, and it is only getting better and better, there are very few stories on this scale that can say that), and the other factor is still his amazing character work. I say this in pretty much every review, but again, not just with the Mains, but with the extras as well, Don and Chuck, and the old crew of Carls, they all have such depth to them, they are real people, it is like Morin has sat down and generated full bio’s for each of these people, or found an existing real life person, and just brought them to life on the page. It gives his stories so much extra credibility, and realism. There are a lot of this type of genre, with half decent storylines, but very few with this level of character work that bring the story to life like this, and that is what makes Morin such a standout, and stories like Black Ocean a must read.
As with all these books, they are also a lot of fun, Morin creates a fantastic universe that does take the story seriously for the most part, but he also has a lot of fun and humour throughout as well.
If you love a good bit of Sci-Fi, if you love Firefly, or if you been watching ‘The Orville’, this is definitely for you.
Mission 11
So what happens when you find a 106yr old Wizard trapped in the body of a Robot as a bad experiment gone wrong by Harmony Bay?
The crew keep getting thwarted by someone who constantly steals the bio-goop that they so cleverly stole, but have not been able to hang on to. Eventually getting hold of it again, and then finding a buyer, Carl is not only ripped off by the buyer, but also beaten up, looking like a total idiot for the crew, and he wants some serious revenge. Thankfully Niang and Mort were one step ahead of him and planted tracking devices (magical and technical) on the case, and eventually they locate who took it, but it is not what they expect.
What they find is none other than a robot, who is actually a human Wizard, who has been trapped in robot form, Archimedes Perseus Antonopoulos (Like seriously the best Wizardly name ever!), another victim of the thugs at Harmony Bay.
Funnily enough, he actually knows the Brown family, having known Mort’s Dad, although Archimedes is a ‘Harvard’ man himself, so looks down a bit on the Brown’s who went to hhmmmpppfff (sneer) ‘Oxford’.
In the middle of all of this, Esper, who has been desperately cultivating a plan to get Mort back into the good books with the Convocation, has been secretly speaking with one of their agents, having finally completed her work on the ‘Tome of Bleeding Thoughts’, the book that got Mort into all this mess in the first place.
However, when the identity of this ‘Agent’ is revealed, it sets in motion a new series of events that not even Mort can control and is the sort of chaotic mayhem that we have come to expect from Morin, making this just an absolute brilliant read, full of family history for Mort, some fascinating background on the Tome itself, and some very interesting reading about the Convocation.
Wrapped around all of this of course, is the story of poor Archimedes, and this leads to some new high-jinks for the crew as they plan revenge on Harmony Bay, not just for this poor Wizard, but for the Galaxy as a whole.
Morin continues to create magical masterpiece after masterpiece in his Black Ocean universe, and they continue to not only entertain, but intrigue, these are some of the best stories out there, and shouldn’t be missed by any Sci-Fi fan regardless of your specific genre. Pure Genius!!
Mission 12
On returning to the Odysseus, the crew of the Mobius find that Chuck has installed himself as the leader of the base, setting up security, establishing new routines, buying ships, and basically changing everything. One of these changes is that Chuck feels that Carl is no longer suitable for flying around the Galaxy as a Rogue, and needs to be at the base taking care of things, and in his enthusiasm to make sure this happens, he kind of enforces this, with armed guards, the grounding of the crew, the ship, and all sorts of other things that instantly make Chuck Ramsey enemy number 1.
Of course it takes about 2 seconds for Carl and the crew to be gone, and how they do it is hilarious.
What comes next is the revenge we have been waiting for, as the crew of the Mobius go after the Harmony Bays Bradbury, the cruiser that patrols the sector keeping things under control, making sure that experiments are run properly and planet hopping from one little colony to the next making sure each of their little projects is doing what it is meant to. It is also the ship that they have tangled with previously.
What unfolds is kind of like the Oceans 11, Black Ocean style, as they come up with a detailed plan, and then execute it step by step…
This is like a cross between a gangster movie, quick literally Oceans 11 at times, at others one of the older heist movies, and a Sci-Fi job. For fans of DS-9, this reminded me of the episode where the crew of the Station had to pull the Casino job inside the holo-suite to help out the Singer, it is that type of classic old style gangster hit, but with the crew of a well-known ship doing the inside jobs instead, adding a bit of a comical element to a somewhat tense and at times, highly intense story. Although this type of thing has been done hundreds of times before, Morin has put his own unique twist on it, and given it a really fantastic edge, making this a standout and certainly well worth the read as it is action-packed, fast paced and full of thrills, with an ending you will never see coming.
Mission 12.5
Whilst Carl is off playing one day, he gets a message on his data pad, which he isn’t around to read. Roddy is however, and decides to check it out. It is about a job. Now normally, Roddy would leave it, maybe tell Carl, but today, something is different. Today Roddy is sitting with Yommin and Archie, and thus begins their big job.
They decide to pull off the job, pretending to be Carl, using Archie to imitate Carl’s voice.
This one is a bit different, it doesn’t really include a lot of the main characters, just Roddy, Yommin and Archie, and it is a good insight into both Yommin and Archie and their relationship. It also gives you some insight into Archie and some of his more interesting capabilities.
Of course you can imagine how well the sting goes for the 3 of them… I don’t want to spoil it for you, you really have to read it to fully understand and enjoy just how good this one is, and I am not going to do it justice.
Morin is able to create some truly brilliant and inspired stories with that devious mind of his, and this is one of the best shorts to date.
This is a thoroughly enjoyable story and as with most of the .5s is worth buying the collection for, just to get the bonus story.
As with all the others, these are a continued series, but Mission 8, 9 and 10 all have an underlying story arc, so before going on with Mission 9, you should really read Mission 8 for clarity.
These are excellent stories, make sure you read 9 through 12 before reading the bonus Mission to avoid any confusion as you need to have finished these for 12.5 to make sense. Following is a brief review of each of the individual ‘Missions’:
Mission 9
With the ship found, the crew located, and Carl now sort of in charge, it is time to put things into action. Carl decides to put a mission together and go into a rather interesting part of space Eyndar/ARGO Demilitarized Zone, full of planets with companies doing various bits of mining, research and other ‘interesting’ bits of research, some of it that might be legit, some of it that really isn't. The great thing is, that ARGO is contractually bound to stay out of the area. However, Carl has come to realise that his band of misfits that he has found with the Odysseus are not necessarily up to doing jobs of this type of nature, and he might need some help. With Amy’s help, he decides to pull together his old crew from his fighter days aboard the Odysseus. This introduces us to a new set of Characters, Hiroshi and July, Toshiro (Samurai), Niang, Jaxon and Rachel and their kids Jaxon Jr and Lisa and Yommin. Hiroshi has his own ship, which kind of covers his personality as well, the Hatchet Job, and it becomes clear pretty quick that the crew that Carl used to run, although some of the best fighter pilots in the galaxy, were also one step away from Jail or the Psych ward. Carl had basically collected all the misfits, saved them, and put them into a not so elite fighter unit. This is a fantastic bit of the story, giving us some real history of Carl, and introducing some new blood to the story. We have constantly heard about ‘Blackjack’ and we got to learn about how Carl has a bit of a magic trick of his own with his ability to split his personalities in multiple different ways, any time he likes any which way, a trick he learnt from Mort to deal with the PTSD he suffered from the war, and the mental scars he received.
Morin has taken it a step further, diving into the past, and brining all these characters to us.
What unfolds is a rather fascinating mix of personalities, some that have moved on and are quite ‘normal’, some that have made a life for themselves and are pretty good, and some that are just plain nut bag crazy.
And this is what makes the story really interesting as the crews of the Mobius and The Hatchet Job go off on an adventure to try and find themselves a prize worth more money than they have ever seen.
Morin has out done himself in this book with his characters, reaching new levels as he dives into the various psyches of not just the main characters, but the new comers as well. He is obviously doing some serious research to understand the people he is writing and it shows.
Further to this is the brilliance of Mort, and his magic, combined with the unique way that magic and tech both co-exist, but also mess with each other so disastrously.
Mission 10
The 10th book in the series sees Carl in a spot of bother with his new team.
They had a wonderful plan to get some bio-matter, and then sell it, raking in a bucket load of money. However, in the process of trying to ‘liberate’ the goods, the ships they were on received critical damage, and now, they are all linked up in space, whilst the ship with the goodies, floats happily away, full of holes, about to crash and explode and ruin all their fun.
And if that wasn’t enough to ruin their day, back at base, Don Rucker, notorious gangster, and Tanni’s Dad, has turned up looking for her, because he hasn’t heard from her, and what is even worse, he brought Carl’s Dad Chuck with him. Carl’s life just can’t get any worse.
That is until some of his old Navy buddies decide that maybe they have had enough and turn on him…
In the meantime, Mort, having run into Don and placated him for a short time, is off God Hunting again, and this leads to an epic show down.
This book is seriously full on. It is kind of the culmination of the serious of events that started with Book 8, and moved forward with the intro of Carl’s old crew in Book 9, and now, in this story, it is all coming together, in a storm of fury, and not everyone is going to survive, there are going to be changes (that’s all I'm going to say)
Again, Morin has done a magnificent job with not just creating an epic story that just continues to get better with each new episode (I mean this is book number 10, or 12 if you want to include the bonus stories, and it is only getting better and better, there are very few stories on this scale that can say that), and the other factor is still his amazing character work. I say this in pretty much every review, but again, not just with the Mains, but with the extras as well, Don and Chuck, and the old crew of Carls, they all have such depth to them, they are real people, it is like Morin has sat down and generated full bio’s for each of these people, or found an existing real life person, and just brought them to life on the page. It gives his stories so much extra credibility, and realism. There are a lot of this type of genre, with half decent storylines, but very few with this level of character work that bring the story to life like this, and that is what makes Morin such a standout, and stories like Black Ocean a must read.
As with all these books, they are also a lot of fun, Morin creates a fantastic universe that does take the story seriously for the most part, but he also has a lot of fun and humour throughout as well.
If you love a good bit of Sci-Fi, if you love Firefly, or if you been watching ‘The Orville’, this is definitely for you.
Mission 11
So what happens when you find a 106yr old Wizard trapped in the body of a Robot as a bad experiment gone wrong by Harmony Bay?
The crew keep getting thwarted by someone who constantly steals the bio-goop that they so cleverly stole, but have not been able to hang on to. Eventually getting hold of it again, and then finding a buyer, Carl is not only ripped off by the buyer, but also beaten up, looking like a total idiot for the crew, and he wants some serious revenge. Thankfully Niang and Mort were one step ahead of him and planted tracking devices (magical and technical) on the case, and eventually they locate who took it, but it is not what they expect.
What they find is none other than a robot, who is actually a human Wizard, who has been trapped in robot form, Archimedes Perseus Antonopoulos (Like seriously the best Wizardly name ever!), another victim of the thugs at Harmony Bay.
Funnily enough, he actually knows the Brown family, having known Mort’s Dad, although Archimedes is a ‘Harvard’ man himself, so looks down a bit on the Brown’s who went to hhmmmpppfff (sneer) ‘Oxford’.
In the middle of all of this, Esper, who has been desperately cultivating a plan to get Mort back into the good books with the Convocation, has been secretly speaking with one of their agents, having finally completed her work on the ‘Tome of Bleeding Thoughts’, the book that got Mort into all this mess in the first place.
However, when the identity of this ‘Agent’ is revealed, it sets in motion a new series of events that not even Mort can control and is the sort of chaotic mayhem that we have come to expect from Morin, making this just an absolute brilliant read, full of family history for Mort, some fascinating background on the Tome itself, and some very interesting reading about the Convocation.
Wrapped around all of this of course, is the story of poor Archimedes, and this leads to some new high-jinks for the crew as they plan revenge on Harmony Bay, not just for this poor Wizard, but for the Galaxy as a whole.
Morin continues to create magical masterpiece after masterpiece in his Black Ocean universe, and they continue to not only entertain, but intrigue, these are some of the best stories out there, and shouldn’t be missed by any Sci-Fi fan regardless of your specific genre. Pure Genius!!
Mission 12
On returning to the Odysseus, the crew of the Mobius find that Chuck has installed himself as the leader of the base, setting up security, establishing new routines, buying ships, and basically changing everything. One of these changes is that Chuck feels that Carl is no longer suitable for flying around the Galaxy as a Rogue, and needs to be at the base taking care of things, and in his enthusiasm to make sure this happens, he kind of enforces this, with armed guards, the grounding of the crew, the ship, and all sorts of other things that instantly make Chuck Ramsey enemy number 1.
Of course it takes about 2 seconds for Carl and the crew to be gone, and how they do it is hilarious.
What comes next is the revenge we have been waiting for, as the crew of the Mobius go after the Harmony Bays Bradbury, the cruiser that patrols the sector keeping things under control, making sure that experiments are run properly and planet hopping from one little colony to the next making sure each of their little projects is doing what it is meant to. It is also the ship that they have tangled with previously.
What unfolds is kind of like the Oceans 11, Black Ocean style, as they come up with a detailed plan, and then execute it step by step…
This is like a cross between a gangster movie, quick literally Oceans 11 at times, at others one of the older heist movies, and a Sci-Fi job. For fans of DS-9, this reminded me of the episode where the crew of the Station had to pull the Casino job inside the holo-suite to help out the Singer, it is that type of classic old style gangster hit, but with the crew of a well-known ship doing the inside jobs instead, adding a bit of a comical element to a somewhat tense and at times, highly intense story. Although this type of thing has been done hundreds of times before, Morin has put his own unique twist on it, and given it a really fantastic edge, making this a standout and certainly well worth the read as it is action-packed, fast paced and full of thrills, with an ending you will never see coming.
Mission 12.5
Whilst Carl is off playing one day, he gets a message on his data pad, which he isn’t around to read. Roddy is however, and decides to check it out. It is about a job. Now normally, Roddy would leave it, maybe tell Carl, but today, something is different. Today Roddy is sitting with Yommin and Archie, and thus begins their big job.
They decide to pull off the job, pretending to be Carl, using Archie to imitate Carl’s voice.
This one is a bit different, it doesn’t really include a lot of the main characters, just Roddy, Yommin and Archie, and it is a good insight into both Yommin and Archie and their relationship. It also gives you some insight into Archie and some of his more interesting capabilities.
Of course you can imagine how well the sting goes for the 3 of them… I don’t want to spoil it for you, you really have to read it to fully understand and enjoy just how good this one is, and I am not going to do it justice.
Morin is able to create some truly brilliant and inspired stories with that devious mind of his, and this is one of the best shorts to date.
This is a thoroughly enjoyable story and as with most of the .5s is worth buying the collection for, just to get the bonus story.
May 30, 2019
Adventure Capital #9 (2 Stars)
I got a bit bored during this one. Might be this story is getting stale.. Or I just need a break. Either way this one felt more like a segway rather than its own story. Even up to the end where it just cliffhangs out, which has not been happening with these stories.. Which I very much liked.
Collusion Course #10 (3 Stars)
This finishes out what was basically set-up in the previous few books. I found it a good story. Mort finally really hits into some real wizard type stuff and some big things shift for the team.
You, Robot #11 (4 Stars)
Pulling back up - again a bit of a cliffhanger, but not quite as bad as before at all. I enjoyed this one as we are opening the idea of Mort and his kids, as well as a few other things. I think the series is finding its feet again.
Stowaway to Heaven #12 (4 Stars)
Some heavy hitting moments here. I liked the progress of characters. In a way I think the breaking off was pushing away from possible pathways in story... But really I liked that we got back to Carl, crew, and plans. Additions are interesting.. But I do miss those that have moved on before this.. Mostly the Azrin.
Spoiler after this....
Mort's change didn't really affect me until Carl hears it.. That broke me... Well written for that character.
Voice Of Reason #12.5 (4 Stars)
Great short story. Gets a bit of the side characters some room to move around - as well as drops a good bit of humor into the continuing story.
I got a bit bored during this one. Might be this story is getting stale.. Or I just need a break. Either way this one felt more like a segway rather than its own story. Even up to the end where it just cliffhangs out, which has not been happening with these stories.. Which I very much liked.
Collusion Course #10 (3 Stars)
This finishes out what was basically set-up in the previous few books. I found it a good story. Mort finally really hits into some real wizard type stuff and some big things shift for the team.
You, Robot #11 (4 Stars)
Pulling back up - again a bit of a cliffhanger, but not quite as bad as before at all. I enjoyed this one as we are opening the idea of Mort and his kids, as well as a few other things. I think the series is finding its feet again.
Stowaway to Heaven #12 (4 Stars)
Some heavy hitting moments here. I liked the progress of characters. In a way I think the breaking off was pushing away from possible pathways in story... But really I liked that we got back to Carl, crew, and plans. Additions are interesting.. But I do miss those that have moved on before this.. Mostly the Azrin.
Spoiler after this....
Mort's change didn't really affect me until Carl hears it.. That broke me... Well written for that character.
Voice Of Reason #12.5 (4 Stars)
Great short story. Gets a bit of the side characters some room to move around - as well as drops a good bit of humor into the continuing story.
February 26, 2018
The quality of the writing (and the narration from Mikael Naramore) is still excellent, even 9-12 books into the series. There are an unexpected series of twists in the main storyline and a large scale change of characters. I think it's good that things got shaken up, and there's some interesting things about these new guys that I can't wait to explore. However, I'm still a little sad that we've lost some of the crew to the big wide world, and I can't wait to see if we get to bump into them again.
I'm getting pressure from the wife to pick up the individual books 13-16 at the moment, but I'm holding off until I can get mission pack 4. I love the short stories included ('stowaway missions') in them.
I'm getting pressure from the wife to pick up the individual books 13-16 at the moment, but I'm holding off until I can get mission pack 4. I love the short stories included ('stowaway missions') in them.
August 26, 2018
Somehow I got sidetracked since I've read missions 1 - 8, so it took me a bit to get up to speed on where in the story exactly I had left the crew of the Mobius - especially since I managed to read the first Astral Prime missions since then... D'oh!
J.S. Morin's writing and storytelling is solid, as always, and I love the occasional snark and tongue-in-cheek-iness of both the characters and the story itself.
I was sad to say goodbye to some of the original Mobius crew, but since some of those departures practically scream "spin-off", I'm curious to see what's going to happen next. And after that.
J.S. Morin's writing and storytelling is solid, as always, and I love the occasional snark and tongue-in-cheek-iness of both the characters and the story itself.
I was sad to say goodbye to some of the original Mobius crew, but since some of those departures practically scream "spin-off", I'm curious to see what's going to happen next. And after that.
August 6, 2017
Mission Pack 3
I love these stories from the Black Ocean. This time Carl's own dad tries to ground him on the moon where he started the Carl Ramsey Syndicate. Trying to make money to pay the crew and live up to his liking as an outlaw, Carl doesn't take to dad's offer very well. Having lost a few crewmates and gained a few along the way, the stories are all I expect from the Black Ocean Series. It always seems that somehow Carl's tough guy image crumbles and lets his humanity show through.
I love these stories from the Black Ocean. This time Carl's own dad tries to ground him on the moon where he started the Carl Ramsey Syndicate. Trying to make money to pay the crew and live up to his liking as an outlaw, Carl doesn't take to dad's offer very well. Having lost a few crewmates and gained a few along the way, the stories are all I expect from the Black Ocean Series. It always seems that somehow Carl's tough guy image crumbles and lets his humanity show through.
December 5, 2017
Fun
An extremely fun fast read. Characters are developing nicely without getting stale. I like how the ships crew gets refreshed as needed
An extremely fun fast read. Characters are developing nicely without getting stale. I like how the ships crew gets refreshed as needed
July 5, 2018
Loved it!
November 13, 2018
I was surprised about the treatment of Mort The Brown in this section!
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