Any Job Will Do

The Grand Human Empire #1

by John Wilker, Christina Short (Editor)

Jackson ”Jax” Caruso inherited a ship from his parents.

They’re dead, they don’t need it.

The unification wars happened a while ago, Jax’s parent’s fought for the losing side. Now he takes the jobs he can get; smuggling, bounty hunting, hauling cargo. If it pays, he’ll do it.

When Jax is approached with a job that seems too good to be true, he should have known better, he should have walked.

He didn’t.

Now he and a few friends are in it deep; Imperial entanglements are the least of their concerns with organized crime on their tails.

Will Jax and his friends finish the job without getting caught, or killed? Only one way to find out!

Genres: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Space, Fiction

310 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 25, 2021

About the author

John lives in Denver with his amazing wife, and two nutty little dogs, where he enjoys patio beers, gardening, and camping.

He's been writing since he could but made the leap to sharing with the public in 2017 with his Space Rogues series.

John is an active member of the SFWA as wells as a board member of the Colorado Authors League.

He also writes under the pen name J. Beckett.

Reviews

[Michelle]

The MC tries to be Han Solo, but he's not. The two 'droids are trying to be R2D2 and BB8, but they're not. Modern slang is used, even by the AI and 'droids. The so-called humor isn't funny. Did I miss anything? Oh, the writing style seems to be too simplistic. I'm bailing at 9% because I can already tell that I will be DNFing this, so I might as well save myself the trouble and do it now.

[Si Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jax owns his own ship. He has android crew that work with him on jobs. Most of the time, that’s good enough. But then along comes a job that needs him to bring in a human crew — two out of three of whom happen to be his exes.

This is somewhat different to the author’s Space Rogues series. It’s similar to Becky Chambers’ Wayfarer series. But much like Space Rogues, it’s loaded with geek culture references.

Half a point off of I could because the plot did kind of meander. Still a thoroughly enjoyable read, though.

[Barrie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crazy but brilliant

Great storyline amazing characters action snark lots of humor, follow our hero and his diverse crew as they stick it to the man the bad guys, and pretty much everyone else. An unputdownable romp through space and space stations and planets you get the picture absolute chaos but in a good way. Keep an eye out for the sarcastic ship A I and the ever-helpful droid who has definitely never heard of the laws of robotics, a great read highly recommend a must read, Baz.

[The Mysterious Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up John Wilker’s Any Job Will Do (The Grand Human Empire, Book 1) on a whim. The cover was interesting and the blurb had a Firefly feel to it (always a plus in my opinion), so “what the heck, why not?” I’m glad I took the chance as this was a fun, well written tale. I’ve not read anything by this author before, but I’m sure I’ll do so now - and am definitely looking forward to book 2. As for this one, it should be no surprise that I highly recommend it.

[Andria Potter · Rating 3 out of 5]

It tried really hard, but just didn't grab me. I liked the premise and the characters tho. 3.5 ⭐

[Asiaman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had no idea what this book was going to turn out to be about but the writer John Wilker has a way with words that make you like the book no matter what genre. Where so many writers write and their writing reads like it came from a computer. No so with John. I think any book by him will be worth a read.

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sci fi, needs some editing, but a decent story.

It’s a sci-fi action adventure story that is quite original. It could use some editing, but was better than I expected.

[Sibil]

This book is a fun adventure/action book in space. With robots. And you just will love the robots! Sure, it may not be one of those books that will remain with you for ages after the reading is done, but the time you’ll spend with it will fly by, and you will have a lot of fun along the ride! It is the ideal book if you want to read something that is not demanding, but that has some good characters, a lot of action, and an interesting world-building.

We follow Jax around the universe, while he is trying to complete some jobs, and things get complicated. There is more to the plot, this is really the shortest summary ever, but the basics are there. And truth be told, the plot is not the best part of this book. I mean, it is not bad, and it is fun going around with Jax and his crew, but there is not really a lot of time to appreciate it, because the pace is super-fast, and you are thrown here and there, following along. And since the pace is so fast, the worldbuilding is not the most accurate out there, too. That’s true, but still, we get some interesting glimpses into a fascinating and rich universe, and I’d love to explore more of it. But the best part, what is really worth your time is the characters. And more specifically, the robots. Sure, Jax is a good MC, and the other characters are interesting. And we have a lot of banter, but the robots simply still all the lights. We have three of them, Skip, the AI of the spaceship, Rusty and Baxter. Baxter was my favorite, I needed more of him (it?) around because I loved him to pieces. But all three of them are great, and their interaction moved the whole book from fun to hilarious, at least in some parts. If the general banter is good, the banter when one of the robots is involved is even better! And I had just so much fun with this book! I totally recommend it, if you want to take it easy and have some fun with a space opera kind of thing!

[Roberta · Rating 4 out of 5]

It honestly was not what I was expecting. The characters were hilarious and I actually laughed out loud a couple of times. Most "space operas" take themselves too seriously. This one definitely did not.

[Nancy Foster · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am one of the judges of the special hybrid team Epic Space Stars for the SPSFC3 contest. This review is my personal opinion. Officially, the book was cut by the team.

Status: Pending
Read: 100%

I certainly liked the start of this novella. It protagonizes a space smuggler named Jax who shares vibes from Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop meets Han Solo but with a reasonably normal childhood. Instead of a level headed Jet Black or Chewbacca, Jax has 3 different robots with AI instead: a cynical space ship AI named Skip, an easily annoyed companion robot named Rusty and an ancient military robot named Baxter that is the most serious of the three robots. One of the things that the novel does very well is the banter between Jax and his robot crew. I certainly liked that.

The worldbuilding is unfortunately sparse and we only get tidbits some kind of oligarch empire called "The Empire" conquers new inhabitable planets to extract resources now that warp drive travel is widely available (and cheap).

Most of the early portion of the plot is Jax has been offered a quick & easy human rescue job from a planet rife in civil war. Things march off ridiculously well until... (spoiler) I certainly enjoy the positive aspects of the novel including the writing style and the occasionally crude humor. At only around 40,000 words, I do feel the worldbuilding was way too lean considering the number of habitable planets that all are culturally the same. I feel the book could have benefitted greatly with at least a bit more time to learn more about planet Mariposa.

One other thing that would have made the book better was that it was all action, hurry up, speed, NOWWWWW! The scene where Jax was at his home spaceship maintenance station was going so fast that he barely had any time to enjoy his alcoholic beverage. I constantly got the same vibe the entire portion of the story that I sampled. Sometimes infodump and slow chapters can feel annoying. But I really enjoy seeing characters change as a story advances. We get no sign of that in any character in the 25% point. In fact, the people Jax is assigned to rescue... we don't really know anything about them at all.

Jax suspects they are not ordinary peacekeepers, and the reader likely doesn't either. But it felt odd to me none of them were trembling out the wazoo as bullets were raining everywhere. Maybe the book later on confirms they were all sus. Even if that were true, a professional spy would have good acting skills to keep Jax's guard low.

The book picks up every now and then, only to slog at variable intervals. I liked Naomi (the mysterious woman that Jax rescued by 'accident'). We are never given an official explanation how she hacked into the client's face recognition system to fool Jax, but given her unique special ability (which is a slight spoiler), I would surmise she pretty much tricked Jax.

There is a problem I see in the novel, and it is once you learn the whole story, most of what happens in the story is well, kind of filler. Yes, Jax gets paid for the rescue gig which proves helpful to pay some gambling debts, but most of the book sort of wanders around. Even Naomi's surprise return to Jax's ship is never really explained. She didn't need to continue hanging around, but we never understand why. I never got vibes of strong sexual tension (Jax is pansexual and would sleep with pretty much anyone so I don't think he considers Naomi special in that way). Maybe platonic friendship? She might have discovered Jax's past and their mutual disdain for the Empire might prove useful to her ulterior plans. Quite frankly, I like them more as friends and not as a couple.

As for the heist, the book quietly reaches the big thing and... well, there certainly is a bit of a plot twist, but of the more quiet kind. I don't feel it was bad per se, but there were other books in the competition with heist stories. And whoa, some of those heist books are BEASTS. From the frantic sense of imminent danger in Pallas Lost to the immersion and strong characters in Memoirs of a synth, this book is fun, has some good moments. But the strongest heist books in the competition had great scenes throught pretty much every chapter of the book and this book only shone every now and then.

Even so, this book ends with a few nice loose ends, and I might consider reading the sequel sometime just to alleviate my curiosity to see what Naomi really wants from Jax.

[Penelope · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for a review. I am a big fan of John Wilker's Space Rogues series and that is mostly due to the relationships between the main characters. For similar reasons I really enjoyed this book. Although the first couple chapters were written a bit clunkily, the book soon picked up in both character development and storyline. Like Gabe in the Space Rogues series, I found my favourite characters in Any Job Will Do were the droids, and in particular Baxter. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in this series.

[Mr Geoffrey Bowlt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rip roaring adventure , will defo be following this series !

[Jefrois · Rating 1 out of 5]

.
In my opinion this main character Jax — a Han Solo type Ripoff — is trite, HACKNEYED, OVER-USED, overdone, and predictable.

I have looked at dozens of these kinds of books and this character is in every single one of them.

He is a devil-may-care nonconformist who owes money, “sips” his coffee, beer, and stronger stuff — “munches” his “burgers” and moans like a munchkin, sleeps a lot when he should be working, keeps his “room” disheveled and full of old dirty clothes, is a Menace to whatever group currently controls the government, has an older starship with dangerous “modifications,” has an AI for a ship, is a known smuggler, wears a gun, has multiple girlfriends, seems to know nothing, inherited something or other, sometimes he “pads” across a room, hangs out in seedy bars in seedy space stations, and etc. etc. etc. etc etc etc….

This particular Character Jax is somewhat different, however; he is more “modern;” he is apparently bi-sexual, having had a stated, “fling” with “Stevie (Steve.)”

AS A Japanese CLIENT STATES, “…I guess I am the only one on this ship to have not slept with our captain��.”

This book is boring, full of Mexicans, half-whatevers, Hindi-Indians, Gentlemen and Gentlewomen Of Couleur, droids, and all sorts of mixed races and sexes.

I HATE THIS TRITE, PREDICTABLE, HACKNEYED, OVERDONE, BADLY WRITTEN, RECYCLED, REDONE, REPLAYED, P O S BOOK.

I quit reading at Page 147. Too much for me.
.

[Deven Marincovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book

I found the story to be interesting and fun to read. It was a entertaining book I can't wait to read the next book

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book in a new series. I’ve read all the other books by this author and was looking forward to this one.

Overall I liked the story and the characters. The characters interact well and have abilities to support each other. The best characters however are the droids. They’re fun and have some snark. I enjoyed the plot although to my mind, it wandered a bit at times. There was back story for the main characters family near the end. I would have preferred it to be earlier in the book.

So, overall, I thought it was a good book and I will definitely be reading the second book when it comes out in a few months. I would have given it 4.5 stars if I was able to.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fun adventure from John Wilker!
Bumbling main male character surrounded by amazing, kick butt women!
I found the story fun, with a moralistic twist! Always good to have those!
Can't wait to see what the next place Jax heads to and to hear more about his history and how the universe got in the shape it is currently in.

[Norman Hirschman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read with plenty of action, humor and some emotion. A human pilot with 2 SI droids find plenty to do in trying to find work but there seems to be enough available even if it does ruffle some feathers. well worth reading.

[David Griffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad

A good adventure with a bit of humor mixed in to spice up the story. It kind of reminds me of the television series Firefly with its odd ball crew.

[Alison Shanahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun Read

This is a light hearted, fun read. Something you can pick up and relax with. It lost a star for editing errors.

[Mayhem-RW · Rating 5 out of 5]

He went by the name of Jax, a nickname that was short for Jackson. Jackson Caruso is his full name, but to his friends, it’s just Jax. He owns an intelligent ship that his parents left him when they died in the war, along with some smart bots. The ship, the Osprey, a Valerian Co-op Infiltrator, which fits directly into the scout ship class, has an artificial intelligence installed on it that went by the name of Skip. As a child, Jax could not say ship, and it came out as Skip, and so it stuck. As for the bots, one is a fully functional battle droid from the war that goes by Baxter, and the other is Rudy, a navigational droid that could calculate a wormhole jump faster than Skip could. Sometimes, those few seconds gained by Rudy doing the calculations could save lives, their lives. Which this is a good thing, considering the cargo bay of the ship was not that large, and so this relegated them to smaller specialty items that, most of the time, needed to be smuggled past the alliance. The ship also had a small crew area, and he could take on a small crew for other specialty jobs. Jobs like the one he just accepted, where a small band of small mine owners wanted him to steal back what belonged to them. They wanted him to rob a train and get back their ore from a big corp trying to muscle in and force them to sell. But is the guy who hired him telling the truth?

This story describes a very interesting reality for the reader. The physical world-building is adequate. The ethereal world-building is personal. The character’s interaction feels true. The character’s history is short and not so sweet.

This tale has the advertised genres, but Jax the MMC is bisexual. A case could be made for adding the LGBT genre. I give this read five stars out of five stars.

[Mr. Bear · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Wilker continues to tickle me with this first book in his "The Grand Human Empire" series. As a rule, I wait for a series to be complete, or neatly so, before I begin reading. Having read the first ten books of his "Space Rogues" series, I knew I had to delve into more of his writings.
Mr. Wilker's style leans heavily toward a satirical homage to classic or iconic sci-fi stories. There are loads of pop culture references, and while you may recognize what original story, movie, or television show he draws his inspiration from, he makes changes to it and adds twists you probably won't see coming.
This book, "Any Job Will Do" will feel familiar but something happens to change where you thought it would end up going. The characters are distinct, and very diverse. They live in a societal universe that I wish we lived in now. Race, gender, preferrence, and origin of intelligence are not reasons to discriminate. Jabs and zingers abound, but they are shared amongst entities who know each other well and you, the reader, know that underneath, it comes from a stance of respect.
The book itself appears to be well edited as I failed to spot typos or continuity issues. The cove art is, in my opinion, beautifully done. It captures the overall vibe of the book and gives a taste of what happens inside, without spoiling anything from the story.

So over all, my personal rating ftom 0 to 5 is 4.3 stars. Pretty darn respectable on my scale. I definitely recommend "Any Job Will Do" to lovers of humorous space opera, and pop culture references liberally sprinkled about providing a bit of an Easter Egg hunt. Have fun readers. I know I did.

[Trike · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a lightweight gormless nothing-burger of a story. It has stock characters performing rote actions in a tropey sci-fi universe. The plot is basically just the episode “The Train Job” from Firefly with a couple minor details changed, certainly not enough to disguise it. If you’re going to swipe from another universe, at least make it an obscure one, not the second most beloved one this century.

It also features several repeated cliches, such as the omnipresent “he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding” and “moved fast for something that size”. One never feels like anyone is in danger, and the overall effect is that these are well-off people driving around a suburb in 2014. Everyone has a version of the iPhone and trouble never sticks to the motley crew, even when they straight up kill people. Traveling between planets they kick back and watch Fringe.

Honestly I don’t know why this book exists. There doesn’t seem any point to it. Even the fact that Mal Han Jax is bisexual doesn’t move the needle thematically.

The audiobook narration is fine.

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jackson (Jax) Caruso and his droids, Skip, Rudy, and Baxter excel at the jobs their hired to do, whether it’s rescuing people, transferring contraband cargo, or becoming involved in even more nefarious activities. His latest contract is to steal back large containers of goods from a mining company who stole the goods from smaller mom-and-pop operators. This highly dangerous job requires more manpower and a whole lot of nerve. Needless to say, things don’t go quite as planned.

The droids are funny, competent characters with personalities. Jax’s human colleagues, with their hidden agendas, are understandably more complex. The world portrayed in this book is an uneasy one as rebels constantly battle the Empire, and neither side is particularly friendly to Jax.

This first installment in the series is a great introduction to what I’m sure will be many adventures. I like that the story’s not depressingly dark, sinister, or gory. If you’re looking for a fun science fiction read, then Any Job Will Do is a great choice.

[Betsy · Rating 2 out of 5]

[19 Dec 2023]
This book was okay, but it struck me as rather juvenile. I don't know if this is the author's first book but I wouldn't be surprised. The protagonist owns a small spaceship and survives by doing odd jobs, not always legal. His crew consists primarily of droids, but he ropes some of his human friends into helping him when a new client hires him to steal back a consignment of ore which he says was stolen from some small operators.

There is a lot of action in this book, some of it rather unbelievable, but ... oh, well, it's space opera. Most of the tech is not explained at all and again doesn't hold up. For instance, the ship can call up a wormhole within minutes of leaving a space station.

Also, the author does not do a great job of building characters and relationships. The characters I liked best were the droids, mostly because they were independent and sarcastic, but dependable.

This is the first of a series, but I doubt I'll read any more installments.

[Roy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really 3.5 stars.
This is a fast paced novel that is mostly entertaining. It follows a standard type of trope of a hero who is a kind of good hearted space rogue. He is accompanied by a few intelligent robots in his ship, his battle droid, and his navigation droid and he picks up compatriots for the bulk of the book each with their own skills. I suppose it is a bit like Han Solo without the whole Star Wars shtick.
Anyway, they go on a couple of difficult and hair raising adventures and come back for more in the next book of what will probably be a long series of books, given an audience.
It was certainly fine to read, but felt a bit like empty calories.

[Erin Penn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took seven months, but finally completed the book. Picked up book while free on Kindle.

An okay science fiction book that is about "any job will do" - really a connected group of short stories and novellas than a coherent whole. Has robots, combat bots, ship AI, a train heist, space stations, ex-romantic relationships coming on board the space ship, hackers, and lots of fun-ish things.

If you need a book you can read a bit at a time, this could work for you. Not a great opus to change the world - but fills in the "any book will do" pile just fine.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

The basic story is fairly good. There are too many platitudes and cliches though. Actually the Robin Hood ideas kind of fits in with those. Still, the scenes and descriptions are compelling, but the fictional science is nothing new. I liked the characters, mostly, some I feel sure will be brought out in more detail as the series progresses. The action is fun and filled with luck, so there are surprises rather than thorough planning. I suppose I will look forward to the next episode, just to see how things are going with this crew. Is it a motley crew, or is that another cliche.

[Stephanie Bolen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much what I sign up for

Space Opera, oh like Firefly? Yep, exactly like Firefly. Smugglers, civil war and fighting on the losing side, evil empire with science experiments and doing what's right. Did I miss a moral compass or voice of optimism maybe but, I got three droids with the power of clap back. He got a defunct battleship so in essence he's running around in a 90's era coast guard cutter with full weapons. He's a mixture or Captain Kirk and Hans Solo with a dad bod. Which I find hilarious.

[Mark J. McArthur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Devil may care Captain Jax Caruso finds trouble and adventure.

Jax Caruso is a loner ship captain with a small ship crewed by sentient intelligent droids. He gets a fantastic job that requires a bigger crew, then things go sideways. After some hair raising escapes, they do the right thing and are in the clear … or are they.

I received a no cost copy and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Beach Bum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not riveting but entertaining

Not the best book I have read by Mr Wilker, but entertaining enough
It starts off with Jax doing a few odd jobs, avoiding the authorities and friends being acquired
After that it's on to the main event, no real surprises you can see the twist a mile off
The underlying Empire/Independents storyline seems to have some legs, will be interesting to see if that's taken further