Customer Reviews

Kris Longknife: Undaunted: Undaunted

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's been two months since anyone tried to kill Lt. / Princess Kris Longknife. She's kept herself busy patrolling the outlying "sooner" colonies for pirates and studying new jump points with her crew of marines and scientists. It's on the way back from one such experimental jump that Kris finds herself face to face with an Iteeche death ball, being chased and fired upon by two Greenfield cruisers. The odd thing in all this craziness? The Iteeche aren't returning fire, and the Greendfield cruisers are missing their mark and hitting Kris' ship, the Wasp. Unwilling to start another crippling war with the seven foot tall, four armed Iteeche, that her great Grandfathers Trouble and Ray fought against, and eventually helped to end hostilities with, 80 years ago, Kris chases off the Greenfields. In short order things go from odd, to inexplicable, when the Death Ball wants to speak to Kris, as an envoy from their leader, to her Grandfather, King Ray, to a plea for galactic safety.

Undaunted is a great installment in the Kris Longknife series. It doesn't have all the run and gun qualities the previous books do, this one gets down to the nuts and bolts of politics, and rips open some battle wounds 80 years covered. Kris takes the Iteeche delegation to see her grandfathers, and you can't help but to admire the two old men. Manipulative and wiley as they are, you know they've lived the life, made the hard calls, and haven't told the whole story to anyone yet.

But of course while they try to figure out what to do about their old enemy's request, they need Kris out of their hair, not pushing the issue for her new Iteeche friend. They send her to a planet on a diplomatic mission. Where Kris may be walking into a blood feud from the Iteeche War. There's an attempt on her life, but only once in this novel.

The strength of Undaunted shows in the supporting cast of Kris' friends, including her computer Nelly, who is developing her personality in interesting ways. At one point in the book, when all hell is breaking loose, Kris is out of commission, and it falls to her team to make sure that things go as well as they can, considering One-of-Those-Damn-Longknives has gotten them into another pickle. Though a frustrating part of the book is the relationship between Jack, her chief of security, and Kris, remains static. It has the same Jack worrying, and Kris looking longingly at Jack while he isn't looking, that the other books have. Just a little step forward would be great in my mind. On the flip side, a very interesting dynamic pops up between the Iteeche representative Ron, and Kris. They become fast friends after realizing that different species does not always mean different problems. It seems as though Kris develops a little crush on Ron, and I hope he continues on as a presence in the next book, to see if this goes anywhere.

The book isn't wall to wall action that you're use to from Longknife novels, but it is solid. It breaks away from the Longknife v Peterwald feud, and opens up the galaxy to aliens and mystery. There's even a shout out to author Jack Campbell that sneaks in at the end. Mike Shepherd has set himself up to go a lot of directions, and I'm excited to see where Kris goes next.

Mike Shepherd has written another great novel. This one is a bit slower than some of the other books in the series, but with a rich story that challenges part of the history Kris assumed was true. It may be more of a transition book on the way to a new plotline that Mr. Shepherd has in mind, but has plenty of merit on its own.

Unfortunately, the Kindle edition has a lot of problems. I saw quite a few spelling mistakes that could very well have been caused by a poor conversion. Also, Mr. Shepherd uses all capital letters in places to denote inaudible conversations between Kris and Nelly, her computer. The Kindle edition, for some reason, changed about half to two-thirds of the letters to lower case (I have not checked the print edition to be sure it does not have the same problems).

Chris is out on her usual rounds checking the buffer zone between human space and Iteeche space. She comes across a DeathBall being chased by two Greenfield cruisers. The interesting thing is that it is a peaceful embassy to her grandfathers. They have the meeting but she is shuttled off to solve a politically vital issue on a planet where there are two sides and both really don't want to mess with the other. Interesting characters nicely done and a plot that is obviously gong to be carried forward to the next book. Ron the Iteeche Imperial Representative turns out to be remarkably sympathetic.

Less random shoot em up that some of the books but a more interesting set of problems and plots. A bit disappointing that Chris' and Jacks relationship doesn't develop and we get only a couple of glimpses of the Greenfield civil war.

Overall an excellent read.

This is a welcome addition to the Kris Longknife series. It's science fiction with emphasis on character; humans with human problems to overcome and the character to do that. The entire series is highly recommended to anyone who likes military-based science fiction where the character, rather than superweapons or bug-eyed monsters, is paramount.

For those that have read this series, this book lives up to what we expect from Kris Longknife. The book starts out fast, and continues throughout to keep one wondering what is going to happen next. I finished this book in 24 hours - yes, it is a good read.

For those considring purchasing this book as a first read in the series, it isn't bad - but be aware these characters have been developing through the earlier books, and nuances in the supporting characters personalities can only be explained by reading the earlier books. Personnally I would suggest starting form the beginning, every book has its moments, and the "grandfathers" at the beginning or end of each book makes the read that much better.

As a spoiler, Ray and Trouble make an apperance again in the middle of the book. This book sets up at least two more books without being dull in getting there.

It seems that the old enemy has been used up. So, the series goes looking for another evil antagonist. The antagonist isn't quite ID'd in this one. It looks like old enemies are slowly becoming friends and the new enemy is a question mark "out there" still at the end of the book.

Not a bad read. Not the best of the series. It is the setup piece. It is up to the others in the series

these short forays into Kris's ongoing adventures are something i look forward too.

After this one gotta wait for the next. Still fun... need more authors to put good fun sci fi out.

A great read -- It follows the rest of the Mike Shepherd series. I look forward to the rest of the series.

This is a worthy successor in the series. I make it as a breakpoint where the series is starting to change directions. If you look carefully, you can see the makings of another alien war. But don't be distracted. If you liked the earlier books, you will like this one. Old characters are brought back and new friends made. i will say that you should start at the beginning to get the ful effect. Don't be daunted, any sci-fi fan will enjoy the effort.

Kris Longknife is a princess, a naval officer, and a miracle worker. Once again, trouble lands in her lap. After blasting, shooting, and simply bulldozing her way through the last few major crises with brutal effectiveness, she's increasingly determined to save the world without causing a war (for once). In this latest in the series, the author manages to evolve the main character in interesting ways and to give a lot more time on stage to secondary characters without missing a beat. After a promising start as fun new space opera with a military focus, Shepherd's Longknife books temporarily became very formulaic; they were repeating nearly the same story with only slightly different window dressing. This book was a happy surprise. It is not a repeat of the prior plots by any means, and it was a lot of fun to read. I think it was the best one of the series, and I actually read it again (something I didn't do with his earlier books; there just wasn't enough there to warrant a reread). On first read, I didn't think there was a lot of progression of Kris' character. Boy, was I wrong; I just didn't expect Shepherd to have suddenly developed a subtle touch. Nicely done. It was a wonderful surprise to see the author really show us what he can do, and I'll be sure to get his next book. The blurb on amazon mentions aliens, and in fact gives away entirely too much of the plot (hey Amazon; your editorial review is giving away key story elements!). That cat being out of the bag, one criticism is that the aliens are only very superficially alien. There is a lot of effort to describe all the physical and cultural difference...but then the aliens act exactly like humans with a slightly different social norm (in fact they act a bit like old Hollywood representations of feudal Japan; Shogun with spaceships!). Kris has a had a rough life, and it doesn't get easier in this book. Some of her reactions don't seem to make sense at first, until you think about what her life has been like lately. Stress, violence, isolation of sorts due to social conventions...and leaders/family that are piling on the pressure. Kris is starting to grow up...and maybe she's starting to lose it a little. It isn't clear yet, we'll have to see in the next book. At first I was a little frustrated at how the author is stretching out some plot threads, but it's the good kind of frustration. It's a little like a cliff hanger; you wouldn't want to get to the end too soon...but you are still miffed that you didn't get to see everything you wanted. That's perfectly good work in this case, and I'll buy the next one happily! If you liked the first one, you'll probably enjoy this book. It may appeal to fans of more character-based, non-military SF. However, if you liked the middle Longknife books (that focused more on military action) it's possible you may like it less than some other authors (Weber, Ringo, etc.). No, it's not going to alter your life. Yes, it is fluffy. But it's rather fun fluff, and there's nothing wrong with that when it's done well.