Outrageous Fortune is set in the same world as Soldier of Fortune, a future steampunk world set on the planet Fortune. This story takes secondary characters from the first book and tells the story of what they were doing when their lives intersected with Gideon Quinn in Soldier of Fortune. You could read the books in either order. So here we find out more about Rory and Jinni and John Pitte and his crew. If you read the first book and wondered how Jinni and Rory got on once she was aboard the Errant, or how Etiane lost his hand this book will tell you.
The banter is even more amusing than in Soldier of Fortune. The plot is as unpredictable; the writing is as good and thankfully the proofreading is better, so that I found much less errors than in book one.
Once again the book has snippets of backstory throughout and again this is done exceptionally well. The book’s point of view weaves back and forth between the characters, but it’s done so smoothly that what in less skilled hands would be head hopping, here is just a shifting point of view. Even so, personally I would prefer less of it.
Again the characterisation was superb and our heroes had noble sensitivities. People who at first appeared to be enemies sometimes found common ground, and ‘not taking it personally’ was a repeated theme.
The story revolves around a job the crew of the Errant take to retrieve an item. It should have been a simple matter, but turns out to be far more complicated. I would never have thought that a simple calculator could be so much of a problem.
I highly recommend this story to all who love a rollicking sci fi or even just a great adventure story, because the sci fi aspects don’t intrude on the story. It’s just a jolly good read.
4 stars.
Blurb:
It was supposed to be a simple retrieval… One year after the war with the Coalition States has ended, the crew of the Errant aren’t just scraping the bottom of the barrel, they’re scraping the shavings off the deck under the bottom of the barrel. Between crippling tariffs, bad weather, and pirates, Captain John Pitte stands to lose his airship, his crew and what little self-respect he’s regained since his court martial, six years past. So when a mysterious woman offers salvation—or, at least a paying job—John signs on, only to discover neither the job, nor the woman, are what they appear. Soon John and his crew find themselves on the run and embroiled in hive of deception, with everything he hoped to save teetering on the brink of disaster.
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