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Kris Longknife #16.5
Kris Longknife's Successor: Grand Admiral Santiago on Alwa Station
This is the third book with Grand Admiral Sandy Santiago serving as Kris Longknife's Relief, then Replacement, and now Successor on Alwa. She has all the challenges a gal could ask for. Granny Rita is on the rampage, and the cats have gone on strike. Leaving the Colonials to deal with Granny Rita, Sandy heads off to work with the cats, only to discover she is not the only one who has a bone to pick with them - alien monsters have a vendetta as well! Sandy has to work to find a way of peace among the Alwans, feisty cats, and a new alien race.
302 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2018
55 people are currently reading
201 people want to read
About the author
Mike Shepherd
78 books564 followersA pseudonym used by Mike Moscoe.
Mike was born in the Philadelphia Navy Yard Hospital -- and left that town at the age of three days for reasons he does not presently recall. But they had to draft him to get him back there. He missed very little of the rest of the country. Growing up Navy, he lived about everywhere you could park an aircraft carrier.
Mike was one of those college students who didn't have to worry about finding a job after graduation. In 1968, his Uncle Sam made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Two days into boot camp, the Army was wondering if they might not have been a bit hasty. Mike ended the day in the Intensive Care Unit of the local Army hospital. Despite most of Mike’s personal war stories being limited to "How I flunked boot camp," he can still write a rollicking good military SF yarns.
Mike didn’t survive all that long as a cab driver (he got lost) or bartender (he made the drinks too strong) but he figured he could at least work for the Navy Department as a budget analyst. Until he spent the whole day trying to balance the barracks accounts for paint. Finally, about quitting time, a grinning senior analyst took him aside and let him in on the secret. They'd hidden the money for refitting a battleship in that little account. Slowly it dawned on Mike that there were a few things about the Navy that even a kid who grew up in it would never understand.
Over the next twenty years, Mike branched out into other genres, including instruction memos, policies, performance standards and even a few labor contracts. All of those, you may notice, lack a certain something. Dialogue ... those things in quotes. In `87, Mike’s big break came. He landed on a two year special project to build a digital map showing where the trees, rivers, roads, Spotted Owls and other critters were in western Oregon. The list went on and on with no end in sight and two years became ten.
Since there was no writing involved in his new day job, Mike had to do something to get the words out. He signed up for a writing class at Clark Community College and proudly turned in a story ... Star Wars shoots down the second coming of Christ.
Two years later, Analog bought "Summer Hopes, Winter Dreams" for the March, 1991 issue. Four years later he sold his first novel. In the ten years since then, Mike’s turned in twelve novels and is researching the next three.
Mike's love for Science Fiction started when he picked up "Rocket Ship Galileo" in the fifth grade, and then proceeded to read every book in the library with a rocket sticker on its spine.
Mike digs for his stories among people and change. Through his interest in history, he has traces the transformations that make us what we are today. Science launches us forward into an ever changing universe. Once upon a time, the only changes in peoples lives came with the turning of the seasons and the growing wrinkles on their brows. Today, science drives most of the changes in our daily lives. Still, we can't avoid the pressure of our own awakening hormones or hardening arteries. Mike is happiest when his stories are speeding across thin ice, balanced on the edge of two sharp blades, one anciently human, the other as new as tomorrow's research.
Trained in International Relations and history, salary administration and bargaining, theology and counseling, Mike is having a ball writing about Kris Longknife ... coming of age while the world her grand parents built threatens to crash down around her ears. These are books I think you’ll love ... and my granddaughter and grandsons too!
Mike lives in Vancouver, Washington, with his wife Ellen, his mother-in-law and any visiting grandkids. He enjoys reading, writing, watching grand-children for story ideas and upgrading his computer -- all are never ending.
Mike was born in the Philadelphia Navy Yard Hospital -- and left that town at the age of three days for reasons he does not presently recall. But they had to draft him to get him back there. He missed very little of the rest of the country. Growing up Navy, he lived about everywhere you could park an aircraft carrier.
Mike was one of those college students who didn't have to worry about finding a job after graduation. In 1968, his Uncle Sam made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Two days into boot camp, the Army was wondering if they might not have been a bit hasty. Mike ended the day in the Intensive Care Unit of the local Army hospital. Despite most of Mike’s personal war stories being limited to "How I flunked boot camp," he can still write a rollicking good military SF yarns.
Mike didn’t survive all that long as a cab driver (he got lost) or bartender (he made the drinks too strong) but he figured he could at least work for the Navy Department as a budget analyst. Until he spent the whole day trying to balance the barracks accounts for paint. Finally, about quitting time, a grinning senior analyst took him aside and let him in on the secret. They'd hidden the money for refitting a battleship in that little account. Slowly it dawned on Mike that there were a few things about the Navy that even a kid who grew up in it would never understand.
Over the next twenty years, Mike branched out into other genres, including instruction memos, policies, performance standards and even a few labor contracts. All of those, you may notice, lack a certain something. Dialogue ... those things in quotes. In `87, Mike’s big break came. He landed on a two year special project to build a digital map showing where the trees, rivers, roads, Spotted Owls and other critters were in western Oregon. The list went on and on with no end in sight and two years became ten.
Since there was no writing involved in his new day job, Mike had to do something to get the words out. He signed up for a writing class at Clark Community College and proudly turned in a story ... Star Wars shoots down the second coming of Christ.
Two years later, Analog bought "Summer Hopes, Winter Dreams" for the March, 1991 issue. Four years later he sold his first novel. In the ten years since then, Mike’s turned in twelve novels and is researching the next three.
Mike's love for Science Fiction started when he picked up "Rocket Ship Galileo" in the fifth grade, and then proceeded to read every book in the library with a rocket sticker on its spine.
Mike digs for his stories among people and change. Through his interest in history, he has traces the transformations that make us what we are today. Science launches us forward into an ever changing universe. Once upon a time, the only changes in peoples lives came with the turning of the seasons and the growing wrinkles on their brows. Today, science drives most of the changes in our daily lives. Still, we can't avoid the pressure of our own awakening hormones or hardening arteries. Mike is happiest when his stories are speeding across thin ice, balanced on the edge of two sharp blades, one anciently human, the other as new as tomorrow's research.
Trained in International Relations and history, salary administration and bargaining, theology and counseling, Mike is having a ball writing about Kris Longknife ... coming of age while the world her grand parents built threatens to crash down around her ears. These are books I think you’ll love ... and my granddaughter and grandsons too!
Mike lives in Vancouver, Washington, with his wife Ellen, his mother-in-law and any visiting grandkids. He enjoys reading, writing, watching grand-children for story ideas and upgrading his computer -- all are never ending.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 2, 2018
Admiral Santiago is getting comfortable in her command of the Alwa Station. I have enjoyed the great variety of problems from space battles with an alien species, business conflicts to the huge problem of various alien species attempting to work together. And of course, there is Granny Rita. My favorite character is the ultra-smart computer, Nellie, and all her kids and now grandkids. Admiral Santiago has one of Nellie’s grandkids which she named Susie. Susie was getting smarter and smarter as Mitzie fine-tuned her matrix. The story ranges from high life and death drama to wise cracking humor. This story is easy to read and a fun space opera. It sure makes a nice change from the serious reading I have been doing. I am looking forward to the next installment.
I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. Vanessa Chambers does a good job narrating the book. Chambers is an actress and audiobook narrator.
I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. Vanessa Chambers does a good job narrating the book. Chambers is an actress and audiobook narrator.
February 4, 2018
I'm giving up on this series. If it's "Kris Longknife, #16.5", I've presumably enjoyed the series enough to read sixteen-or-so predecessor books, so what has changed?
The characters have changed, for one thing. This is a spinoff series, tied to the original by continuity of background and a few secondary characters. The secondary characters were peripheral to the original stories, and have remained two-dimensional in the spinoff. Mostly, they are convenient caricatures - the computers are cute, the scientists have the answers, the officers are efficient. It's hard to care about them.
The space-combat action has not changed, unfortunately. The author has written himself into a numbers-game corner. The enemy has enormous resources, so if our heroes can just-barely defeat them at ten-to-one odds, the author can ratchet up the tension by sending twenty-to-one. (The good guys will still win, of course.) If the good guys win by pulling a new technology out of a hat, the author can compensate by having the next wave of attackers show up with two new technologies. At an important level, the victory is never in doubt and the victory achieves nothing - so the space combat stops being interesting.
The writing was replete with errors that a copy-edit pass should have caught, such as spelling mistakes (in these days of spell-checkers, spelling mistakes manifest as bad homonyms, misplaced-or-missing words, etc.), which have the effect of jerking the reader out of the moment.
I didn't enjoy this book enough to wish to read its sequel.
The characters have changed, for one thing. This is a spinoff series, tied to the original by continuity of background and a few secondary characters. The secondary characters were peripheral to the original stories, and have remained two-dimensional in the spinoff. Mostly, they are convenient caricatures - the computers are cute, the scientists have the answers, the officers are efficient. It's hard to care about them.
The space-combat action has not changed, unfortunately. The author has written himself into a numbers-game corner. The enemy has enormous resources, so if our heroes can just-barely defeat them at ten-to-one odds, the author can ratchet up the tension by sending twenty-to-one. (The good guys will still win, of course.) If the good guys win by pulling a new technology out of a hat, the author can compensate by having the next wave of attackers show up with two new technologies. At an important level, the victory is never in doubt and the victory achieves nothing - so the space combat stops being interesting.
The writing was replete with errors that a copy-edit pass should have caught, such as spelling mistakes (in these days of spell-checkers, spelling mistakes manifest as bad homonyms, misplaced-or-missing words, etc.), which have the effect of jerking the reader out of the moment.
I didn't enjoy this book enough to wish to read its sequel.
August 23, 2018
Another fun nail-biting installment in this Kris Longknife spinoff.
While Kris looks after things on the other side of the galaxy, Grand Admiral Santiago keeps an eye on the bug-eyed monsters. A reasonable division of labor.
I suppose if you're looking for the final confrontation with the big bad, you might be getting impatient here, but then you'd be missing the point. You can't build up and fortify two different planetary systems overnight. It's a slow and laborious process with many battles of all kinds to keep it interesting. The bad guys are definitely learning, so I imagine the alliance of humans, birds, and cats are going to have to come up with some new tricks in the next few books. That should be interesting.
If you accept it for what it is this series can be a lot of fun. I'll be looking forward to the next one.
While Kris looks after things on the other side of the galaxy, Grand Admiral Santiago keeps an eye on the bug-eyed monsters. A reasonable division of labor.
I suppose if you're looking for the final confrontation with the big bad, you might be getting impatient here, but then you'd be missing the point. You can't build up and fortify two different planetary systems overnight. It's a slow and laborious process with many battles of all kinds to keep it interesting. The bad guys are definitely learning, so I imagine the alliance of humans, birds, and cats are going to have to come up with some new tricks in the next few books. That should be interesting.
If you accept it for what it is this series can be a lot of fun. I'll be looking forward to the next one.
April 11, 2018
Cats and Birds
In this installment, Kris’ replacement again finds herself dealing with problems from the home worlds (who owns what and has control of what), the people in Alwa, and then the Cat’s. Ultimately it comes down to visiting the Cat’s and the defending them against an invasion. Sandy quickly discovers that the alien space invaders have learned a few new tricks and are proving to be more troublesome. That does not prove to be a show stopper and the Human/Cat/Bird alliance moves forward. More diplomacy at the Cat home world, trying to get them to agree…tech transfer, combined defense, etc. Overall a nice installment that was fast paced and provided some new wrinkles.
In this installment, Kris’ replacement again finds herself dealing with problems from the home worlds (who owns what and has control of what), the people in Alwa, and then the Cat’s. Ultimately it comes down to visiting the Cat’s and the defending them against an invasion. Sandy quickly discovers that the alien space invaders have learned a few new tricks and are proving to be more troublesome. That does not prove to be a show stopper and the Human/Cat/Bird alliance moves forward. More diplomacy at the Cat home world, trying to get them to agree…tech transfer, combined defense, etc. Overall a nice installment that was fast paced and provided some new wrinkles.
April 15, 2019
I've been reading Shepherd's universe now for 15 years and, sadly, I'm done. The last number of books have been far too repetitive, too much like paint-by-numbers clones with the same scenarios and conversations repeated ad naseum. This is the first one I couldn't even finish, it was so dull and uninteresting.
I'm also tired of the annoyance of the trademark after Smart Metal. I guess he thinks nobody ever heard of Heinlein because the author didn't get around to trademarking Waldos.
The book almost received a 1-star rating, but I gave it two for nostalgia.
I'm also tired of the annoyance of the trademark after Smart Metal. I guess he thinks nobody ever heard of Heinlein because the author didn't get around to trademarking Waldos.
The book almost received a 1-star rating, but I gave it two for nostalgia.
December 23, 2020
Things are too exciting. Admiral Santiago needs more Sasquans to man the ships protecting them and another planet. Thing is, the cats aren't quite at peace among themselves to equitably manufacture weapons and ships nor are they willing to send more of their own to train on the ships. Then some ships from the scheduled convoy catch sight of omnicidal enemy alien ships far too close to Sasquan, and Adm. Santiago has to divide her fleet looking for where the enemy is and where they could be, then fight them and win. She has sworn along with Adm. Kris Longknife that the aliens would not get another planet. What remains to be seen is how the Sasquans will react.
As usual for this author the book is well-paced and indeed hard to put down. There is a lot of action including battles, politics, and some scary sociology.
As usual for this author the book is well-paced and indeed hard to put down. There is a lot of action including battles, politics, and some scary sociology.
February 3, 2018
Another fine addition to this series. I particularly enjoyed the further development of the Cat Planet's culture and the switch to different Admirals' battle perspectives in the back half of the story. Best of all, I was pleased to read at the back of the book that Mike has scheduled another robust year of publications!
February 10, 2018
Another great story in the saga
This story adds another great tale to the Kris Longknife universe. Would recommend to anyone reading the series. If course today reading probably already know that. While this could be read as the second in the newer series I recommend starting with the original Kris Longknife series.
This story adds another great tale to the Kris Longknife universe. Would recommend to anyone reading the series. If course today reading probably already know that. While this could be read as the second in the newer series I recommend starting with the original Kris Longknife series.
February 5, 2018
Interesting, but not up to the Kris Longknife series BEFORE her successor.
February 12, 2018
Another great story in the saga
May 2, 2018
Strong 4. Will post youtube later today.
March 4, 2023
3.5 stars.
Mar 2023 - re-listened. Sandy's fight with the BEM has escalated with the aliens upping their game. I hope we get to some resolution before too much more bloodshed! It's getting very gory and sad.
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May 2021
The BEM aliens are learning some new and nasty tricks! This one definitely had space fights galore and quite a high death count!
GR has included this trilogy as part of the Kris Longknife main series, but I'm wondering if this should be considered as a spin-off similar to the Vicky Peterwald series since it looks like we haven't seen the last of these aliens or Sandy and the cats and birds?
Mar 2023 - re-listened. Sandy's fight with the BEM has escalated with the aliens upping their game. I hope we get to some resolution before too much more bloodshed! It's getting very gory and sad.
____________
May 2021
The BEM aliens are learning some new and nasty tricks! This one definitely had space fights galore and quite a high death count!
GR has included this trilogy as part of the Kris Longknife main series, but I'm wondering if this should be considered as a spin-off similar to the Vicky Peterwald series since it looks like we haven't seen the last of these aliens or Sandy and the cats and birds?
April 10, 2021
Facing off against an enemy that won't stop until it is the last race in the universe is no easy task. Especially with limited resources and scant knowledge about the foe. The Viceroy in charge tries her best to balance the demands of building up the economy of two new races and funding their defense. A new expedition to the alien menace's homeworld might bring new answers if she and her fleet can survive long enough. Trouble mounts and the tension builds as this ancient alien race is slowly adapting to our hero's fighting styles/capabilities. Another good book in the series.
May 3, 2018
Strong 4 stars. If you haven't read the whole series it's worth it.
Click: https://youtu.be/cWTBTu_9rcg
I want Sandy to be built out a bit. I really wish more from her world and her cast. I really miss penny.
Click: https://youtu.be/cWTBTu_9rcg
I want Sandy to be built out a bit. I really wish more from her world and her cast. I really miss penny.
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May 17, 2018petty good
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews