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Shakedowners #2
Shakedowners 2: The Vinyl Frontier
Captain Iridius B. Franklin accidentally destroyed the planet Earth, but then he totally on purpose saved the galaxy so you know, you win some, you lose some.
Fresh in command of the advanced stealth ship the FSC Deus Ex, Iridius and his crew of misfits are sent on a reconnaissance mission to observe a suspected weapons development program being undertaken by the Federation’s long-time enemy, the Planetary Alliance.
When they discover the Alliance has created an incredible weapon – a bomb capable of manipulating time - Captain Franklin must stop them from releasing it and changing the outcome of a war that happened a hundred years ago.
But to infiltrate the station where the weapon is hidden Iridius is forced to go undercover as one of the galaxy’s biggest stars, the secretive DJ Chromium.
Completely out of his depth, as usual, Captain Iridius Franklin must stop a literal ticking timebomb, hide from the real DJ Chromium, avoid a deadly team of assassins and maybe learn to spin some tunes. Plus, in the deepest darkness of space an existential threat unlike any other grows ever closer.
Fresh in command of the advanced stealth ship the FSC Deus Ex, Iridius and his crew of misfits are sent on a reconnaissance mission to observe a suspected weapons development program being undertaken by the Federation’s long-time enemy, the Planetary Alliance.
When they discover the Alliance has created an incredible weapon – a bomb capable of manipulating time - Captain Franklin must stop them from releasing it and changing the outcome of a war that happened a hundred years ago.
But to infiltrate the station where the weapon is hidden Iridius is forced to go undercover as one of the galaxy’s biggest stars, the secretive DJ Chromium.
Completely out of his depth, as usual, Captain Iridius Franklin must stop a literal ticking timebomb, hide from the real DJ Chromium, avoid a deadly team of assassins and maybe learn to spin some tunes. Plus, in the deepest darkness of space an existential threat unlike any other grows ever closer.
- GenresScience Fiction
312 pages, Paperback
Published December 12, 2021
67 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
About the author
Justin Woolley
20 books124 followersJustin Woolley has been writing stories since he could first scrawl with a crayon. When he was six years old he wrote his first book, a 300 word pirate epic in unreadable handwriting called 'The Ghost Ship'. He promptly declared that he was now an author and didn't need to go to school. Despite being informed that this was, in fact, not the case, he continued to make things up and write them down.
Today Justin is the author of the Australian set dystopian trilogy The Territory Series consisting of the novels A Town Called Dust, A City Called Smoke and A World of Ash, the young-adult science fiction adventure We Are Omega, the science-fiction comedy series Shakedowners consisting of the novels Shakedowners, Shakedowners 2: The Vinyl Frontier and Shakedowners 3: Slack to the Future, and is now adding to the darkness of the 41st millennium for Black Library.
Justin lives in Hobart, Australia with his wife and two sons. In his other life he's been an engineer, a teacher and at one stage even a magician. His handwriting has not improved.
Today Justin is the author of the Australian set dystopian trilogy The Territory Series consisting of the novels A Town Called Dust, A City Called Smoke and A World of Ash, the young-adult science fiction adventure We Are Omega, the science-fiction comedy series Shakedowners consisting of the novels Shakedowners, Shakedowners 2: The Vinyl Frontier and Shakedowners 3: Slack to the Future, and is now adding to the darkness of the 41st millennium for Black Library.
Justin lives in Hobart, Australia with his wife and two sons. In his other life he's been an engineer, a teacher and at one stage even a magician. His handwriting has not improved.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 21, 2023
…the road to hell is paved with reckless attempts to save the day.
Something something something time theory entropy big words oh my something something. Oh and "a weaponised reversal in time would cause an explosion that would actually happen before the impact event." That's an important aspect of all that (waves hands vaguely) stuff! And paradoxes, too. Don't forget the g-damn paradoxes, casualties and continuumuumumms* either (*I never know how to stop spelling that word)! Which all to be blunt is much more easily understood than the finer aspects of putting on a decent DJ-slash-rave show. That I'll never understand…
We can’t expect to be saving the galaxy every week. This isn’t some kind of space adventure series.
OK, what all do we learn in the 2nd book of Justin Woolley's "Shakedowners" trilogy? Well, let's see: late stage capitalism is bad, even in the distant future (where I guess it counts as late LATE stage capitalism). And apparently anxiety is still a thing in the distant future and sounds way too familiar to have made this reader comfortable. There are also lots of passages with big words that probably are more accurate than I realized (I have this thing where I tend to get dizzy if I read the word "quantum" … oh dear, there it goes again) with more consequences to time-lines than all the MCU movies added together. And I don't know if this counts as a spoiler or not (if yes, don't read this please), but a lot of chapters end with a phrase along the lines of "Nothing could possibly go wrong!" or even "This was going to be easy!" Well, except for the several that end with something like "We're fucked!" Still, if all that doesn't count as ironic foreshadowing, then send me off to an ASS Station and fill my NADS with highly classified STDs!
If one thing could be said for the great sprawling galaxy it’s that there is some completely weird shit out there, weirder than anything humans ever dreamed up.
This middle chapter of the series continues on with the hilarity of saving the Universe, all brought to us by our resident Captain of daring-do, namely, the one and only Iridius B. Franklin. The namesake of the wonderful Murphy's Law worthy "Franklinisms" has returned with most of his previous crew in tow (toe?) along with a few new players. This includes Hal the Android who in my mind's eye had a pulsing, giant red, um, eye and was named as a one-letter move-over from IBM, same as his namesake from "2001: A Space Odyssey" where watching same as a younger person was the closest I ever came to actually doing drugs in the 60s or 70s. If I could remember the 80s, I could also make an assessment there but the less we discuss that in a public forum like this, the better.
I do not have the capacity for hope, but I do find the current insufficiency in my predictive ability to be disturbing…
But besides Hal, we get to know some of our crew a bit better not including flirtatious COO's from enemy wessels (sic). For example, there's Latroz, our resident seven-foot-tall purple Siruan warrior and lover of Benjamin "Space Ace" Rangi (more or less human). I also really enjoyed how the author dealt with Greg, or better said, Gr’lak N’hlarkic Tre’laktor, normally a non-violent member of the malignant race. Let's see (all from memory here of course) he's the humanoid tumour who had developed as a cancerous growth on an enormous planetary organism and then sprung free at maturity to wander around the galaxy. Which is kind of neat to think of if you've ever had really bad acne I guess.
Cloning had been illegal under Federation law for more than a hundred years, ever since the short-lived War of the Steves…
As with the last book, Woolley (two L's dammit! stop forgetting that!) continues to deliver a well-structured and -executed scifi tale that has a good bit of fairly workable humo(u)r spread throughout. But as before, I'm here for the cool space stuff where the cultural references, puns and Dad jokes are just a bonus! And whereas it may not be quite as out-in-space as the first book managed to be - remembering those pretty awesome pew pew space battle scenes - we're still treated to a very worthy Star Trekian story of away team shenanigans and multiple enemies of what we always assumed to be a well-meaning Federation. Well, I say that up until the point Admiral Peter Weller - who did his darned best to be as anti-RoboCop as he could be - taught us the error of that kind of naive thinking… though to be fair, he wasn't the only one throughout the many incarnations of the franchise that showed us that the Feds weren't always so goodie goodie, but he is the one that comes to mind right now. Anyway, we get all this AND a character named Mudd. And if that doesn't get your Tribbles all a'tremblin', well…
He was a no-good two-faced piece of the sentient excrement left behind by Azlonian mega-wombats…
Again, this was a really fun scifi read. No, the humo(u)r is still not on par with Douglas Adams (an unfair and borderline abusive expectation of any author tbh) but it still has it's moments. If you wanted me to line it up with something I've read before, you'd no doubt think John Scalzi's "Redshirts", wouldn't you? But honestly, I'm enjoying W-DoubleO-DoubleL-ey's books more than that one-off'er from an author I also really like (just sayin'). No, I'd put the "Shakedowners" series (so far) up near Jim C. Hines "Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse" which in my mind was one of the best trilogies I've read in any genre over the past years, with tons of funny bits, emotions and all kinds of universal bits and bobs included. So I think if you go in to this set with an appropriate attitude, you'll have an equally good time!
What better way to deal with a war you lost than by crippling your enemy back before it even began.
And besides: "something is coming. Something massive – no, that didn’t even do it justice. It was something so cosmically enormous that solar systems felt like scattered marbles… (but) he was going to die having been unceremoniously dropped out of an ASS and he wouldn’t have a chance to warn anyone." So, um, yay? Onwards true believers…
Something something something time theory entropy big words oh my something something. Oh and "a weaponised reversal in time would cause an explosion that would actually happen before the impact event." That's an important aspect of all that (waves hands vaguely) stuff! And paradoxes, too. Don't forget the g-damn paradoxes, casualties and continuumuumumms* either (*I never know how to stop spelling that word)! Which all to be blunt is much more easily understood than the finer aspects of putting on a decent DJ-slash-rave show. That I'll never understand…
We can’t expect to be saving the galaxy every week. This isn’t some kind of space adventure series.
OK, what all do we learn in the 2nd book of Justin Woolley's "Shakedowners" trilogy? Well, let's see: late stage capitalism is bad, even in the distant future (where I guess it counts as late LATE stage capitalism). And apparently anxiety is still a thing in the distant future and sounds way too familiar to have made this reader comfortable. There are also lots of passages with big words that probably are more accurate than I realized (I have this thing where I tend to get dizzy if I read the word "quantum" … oh dear, there it goes again) with more consequences to time-lines than all the MCU movies added together. And I don't know if this counts as a spoiler or not (if yes, don't read this please), but a lot of chapters end with a phrase along the lines of "Nothing could possibly go wrong!" or even "This was going to be easy!" Well, except for the several that end with something like "We're fucked!" Still, if all that doesn't count as ironic foreshadowing, then send me off to an ASS Station and fill my NADS with highly classified STDs!
If one thing could be said for the great sprawling galaxy it’s that there is some completely weird shit out there, weirder than anything humans ever dreamed up.
This middle chapter of the series continues on with the hilarity of saving the Universe, all brought to us by our resident Captain of daring-do, namely, the one and only Iridius B. Franklin. The namesake of the wonderful Murphy's Law worthy "Franklinisms" has returned with most of his previous crew in tow (toe?) along with a few new players. This includes Hal the Android who in my mind's eye had a pulsing, giant red, um, eye and was named as a one-letter move-over from IBM, same as his namesake from "2001: A Space Odyssey" where watching same as a younger person was the closest I ever came to actually doing drugs in the 60s or 70s. If I could remember the 80s, I could also make an assessment there but the less we discuss that in a public forum like this, the better.
I do not have the capacity for hope, but I do find the current insufficiency in my predictive ability to be disturbing…
But besides Hal, we get to know some of our crew a bit better not including flirtatious COO's from enemy wessels (sic). For example, there's Latroz, our resident seven-foot-tall purple Siruan warrior and lover of Benjamin "Space Ace" Rangi (more or less human). I also really enjoyed how the author dealt with Greg, or better said, Gr’lak N’hlarkic Tre’laktor, normally a non-violent member of the malignant race. Let's see (all from memory here of course) he's the humanoid tumour who had developed as a cancerous growth on an enormous planetary organism and then sprung free at maturity to wander around the galaxy. Which is kind of neat to think of if you've ever had really bad acne I guess.
Cloning had been illegal under Federation law for more than a hundred years, ever since the short-lived War of the Steves…
As with the last book, Woolley (two L's dammit! stop forgetting that!) continues to deliver a well-structured and -executed scifi tale that has a good bit of fairly workable humo(u)r spread throughout. But as before, I'm here for the cool space stuff where the cultural references, puns and Dad jokes are just a bonus! And whereas it may not be quite as out-in-space as the first book managed to be - remembering those pretty awesome pew pew space battle scenes - we're still treated to a very worthy Star Trekian story of away team shenanigans and multiple enemies of what we always assumed to be a well-meaning Federation. Well, I say that up until the point Admiral Peter Weller - who did his darned best to be as anti-RoboCop as he could be - taught us the error of that kind of naive thinking… though to be fair, he wasn't the only one throughout the many incarnations of the franchise that showed us that the Feds weren't always so goodie goodie, but he is the one that comes to mind right now. Anyway, we get all this AND a character named Mudd. And if that doesn't get your Tribbles all a'tremblin', well…
He was a no-good two-faced piece of the sentient excrement left behind by Azlonian mega-wombats…
Again, this was a really fun scifi read. No, the humo(u)r is still not on par with Douglas Adams (an unfair and borderline abusive expectation of any author tbh) but it still has it's moments. If you wanted me to line it up with something I've read before, you'd no doubt think John Scalzi's "Redshirts", wouldn't you? But honestly, I'm enjoying W-DoubleO-DoubleL-ey's books more than that one-off'er from an author I also really like (just sayin'). No, I'd put the "Shakedowners" series (so far) up near Jim C. Hines "Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse" which in my mind was one of the best trilogies I've read in any genre over the past years, with tons of funny bits, emotions and all kinds of universal bits and bobs included. So I think if you go in to this set with an appropriate attitude, you'll have an equally good time!
What better way to deal with a war you lost than by crippling your enemy back before it even began.
And besides: "something is coming. Something massive – no, that didn’t even do it justice. It was something so cosmically enormous that solar systems felt like scattered marbles… (but) he was going to die having been unceremoniously dropped out of an ASS and he wouldn’t have a chance to warn anyone." So, um, yay? Onwards true believers…
September 16, 2023
A mixture of adventure, Sci Fi, comedy and great story telling. I love this series and already onto book 3.
November 9, 2025
The series is madcap and funny, and well done on audiobook. This one is about a time travel weapon on a space station run by megalomaniacs.
January 6, 2022
Decent sci-fi series
I’m enjoying the series as a whole, but a personal pet peeve of mine is when anyone refers to DJs as musicians. They are not. They play no musical instrument and only create syncopated noise. Garbage, in fact. Real musicians never refer to DJs as musicians. Just like singers with real vocal talent and actually perform onstage don’t call karaoke aficionados singers, regardless of innate talent.
I’m enjoying the series as a whole, but a personal pet peeve of mine is when anyone refers to DJs as musicians. They are not. They play no musical instrument and only create syncopated noise. Garbage, in fact. Real musicians never refer to DJs as musicians. Just like singers with real vocal talent and actually perform onstage don’t call karaoke aficionados singers, regardless of innate talent.
January 16, 2022
Funny and enjoyable but I didn’t like it as much as the first one. I had less sympathy for Iridius since he didn’t accidentally get into a bad situation but rather forced his way in this time. Around the halfway mark, though, I stopped being annoyed with him and got into the story. Also, I hate books that end with a “To Be Continued”. That said, will totally read the next one.
February 1, 2022
Captain Iridius B Franklin and his crew of misfits return, this time disobeying orders to stop the Alliance unleashing it's new weapon. Fun story that moves at a nice pace, as Iridius blunders his way to feel the hero rush again.
August 22, 2022
More like a 3.5
A fun read with likeable characters, gotta love a crew of misfits!
Will definitely keep an eye out for the next book in the series as am invested enough to want to find out what happens next.
A fun read with likeable characters, gotta love a crew of misfits!
Will definitely keep an eye out for the next book in the series as am invested enough to want to find out what happens next.
November 30, 2022
Crazy Fun
Just when you think you know what's happening, you don't. Just about everything you can throw into sci/to fantasy is here, including space, time, speed, and action. Throw in an all inclusive end of everything and you have this story.
Just when you think you know what's happening, you don't. Just about everything you can throw into sci/to fantasy is here, including space, time, speed, and action. Throw in an all inclusive end of everything and you have this story.
December 2, 2022
fabulous follow up and tease for three
Throughly enjoyed book 2 in the Shakedowner series! The Captain Iridius is still a hoot and the action is fast and frantic. Loved the DJ - much fun! Ready to crack the third one now.
Throughly enjoyed book 2 in the Shakedowner series! The Captain Iridius is still a hoot and the action is fast and frantic. Loved the DJ - much fun! Ready to crack the third one now.
April 20, 2024
The best gronking scifi series I've read in a long time! As a huge fan of Douglas Adams finding Justin Woolley is such a treat! Perfect amount of humor and heart wrapped in a perfect science fiction bow.
January 5, 2022
Fun without the dog
More mayhem and sorry lines with another romantic interest or three. Love the DJ angle plus the improv results at the rave.
More mayhem and sorry lines with another romantic interest or three. Love the DJ angle plus the improv results at the rave.
January 26, 2022
Just as good as the first
If you like the first book then you will definitely like this one. All the adventures and shenanigans just jeep going.
If you like the first book then you will definitely like this one. All the adventures and shenanigans just jeep going.
November 2, 2024
It's such a great sequel; loved it.
There were a couple of typos in the book that surprised me but didn't detract from the book.
There were a couple of typos in the book that surprised me but didn't detract from the book.
October 6, 2025
Another great read
I hate time travel novels,just hate em, this one has some in it, I just ignored those parts, still funny, fun read, just what I needed.
I hate time travel novels,just hate em, this one has some in it, I just ignored those parts, still funny, fun read, just what I needed.
November 16, 2025
wow
Interstellar DJ, time travel, covert infiltration
This story is fantastic
I do t understand all the science stuff but know a good reason and good writing when I cone across it
Interstellar DJ, time travel, covert infiltration
This story is fantastic
I do t understand all the science stuff but know a good reason and good writing when I cone across it
January 8, 2022
“Please,” he said, “zooming toy ships around while you’re in the bath making pew pew noises doesn’t count.” :D :D :D ...
Yup this feels like home ...gonna treat this one like a delicacy and go for a few pages a day, to make it last
Yup this feels like home ...gonna treat this one like a delicacy and go for a few pages a day, to make it last
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews