Customer Reviews

Desperate Measures (Angel's Luck Series, Volume 1)

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Desperate Measures is the first book in the series about a ship Captain named James May set in the far future. He has had a shady past and owes money to the yakuza who own his ship. While dodging them, he finds back alley deals where he can to survive and stay off the police and yakuza radar. This series was written in the 80's and it is very reminicent to Firefly in its Genre. If you liked the Firefly TV series you will like this book. The Author for some reason doesn't like to describe fight scenes, he just shows you the outcome which annoyed me at first but the story just moves along. Good dialog and plot in the story. Looking forward to reading the other series books.

Angel's Luck is the name of his spaceship, and Captain James May is having a hard time making his installment payments to the Yueh-sheng (think Asian Yakuza) who owns the title. He gets into trouble, and barely manages to get out of it again, usually by making things worse. While I wasn't too pleased with the characterization, the book was like a train wreck in motion. I wanted to look away, but wanted to know 'how-they-got-out-of-it-this-time'.

The 'drunken' adjective is earned by Captain May doing most of his negotiation in bars, and you won't go more than 25 pages without one character or another drinking or getting drunk. This serves to frequently complicate the plot line.

I didn't like the story enough to follow the series, because Captain May is a jerk to the people he works with, even the people who might help him. In the second half of the book, the perspective switches over to Duke, so perhaps the author realized this and tried a fix, but it didn't redeem the novel. Duke has some development, and I was starting to like him when the book ended, but I didn't like him *enough*.

I first read these books when they originally came out, way back in the mists of time in the '80s and I fell in love with them. The author brings the characters to life and makes you care for them. Not only that, but the plot is fantastic. This, the first book in the series, is well worth searching out.

However, I will warn you, if you do read this book, you're in for a lot of work, in that you'll find yourself forced to hunt down the rest of the series.