The Great Adventure

Vick’s Vultures (Union Earth Privateers Book 1) by Scott Warren. Parvus Press. 226 pages.

I read a lot of books. I also read a lot of book series. Correction: I read the first book in a lot of series. Because I write books, and sometimes write series, I read differently than those who just read for fun. I read to see what works and what ideas other writers have that I might, ahem, steal. Often I just read the first book of the series, but don’t finish the series. I might read on for this one.

As the saying goes…my saying, of course…every good idea I ever had I stole from someone else.

This book was a good idea, well executed.

The title comes across as a B-movie spinoff. There are a lot of futuristic military sci-fi stories out there, a few of them pretty good, most of them bad. The biggest problem they have is lack of original ideas and no characterization.

Vick’s Vultures isn’t one of them. It deals with an idea I have thought about with for a while. What if earth were to suddenly join the society of thousand of alien cultures out there in the universe, only to realize that we are woefully outclassed, outgunned and outplayed at every turn. The only thing that keeps them from being squashed like the bugs they are is simply that they are ignored. With thousands of alien cultures out there, including The Big Three, who have been at interstellar war with each other for thousands of years, earth isn’t even an afterthought. We don’t have to worry about them. What we do have to worry about are all the smaller cultures that might take interest in us, yet are still miles ahead of us in technology.

Enter the Earth Union. Earth has its military, but it has its hands full just defending itself. It’s up to the Earth Union, a collection of privateers to sneak out after battles between other races and steal whatever technology they can in the leftover battlefield. It’s in one of these situations that Victoria and her pirates come upon a destroyed ship with a prince from one of The Big Three in it. Suddenly Earth isn’t worth ignoring anymore. Adventure ensues.

Great story, good characterization, strong female roles, and lots of opportunity for true heroism by marines. Oo-rah!

One caveat: like a lot of self-published books, there were a lot of typos. But I’ve learned to give these kinds of books dispensation considering the quality of the story.

I give this one four and a half stars out of five. Oo-rah!