Might Makes Right
Okay, I am way late in reviewing the last nine books in The Kurtherian Gambit series. A tragic personal event has required my attention for some time. I am more or less back in front of the keyboard now but I have a shitload of work to catch up with and there is no way I will be able to review all nine books separately in a reasonable amount of time so here is my summary instead.Obviously, if you have not read them all yet this summary will contain a spoiler or two.
So starting with the tenth book in the series, the Chinese have just managed to piss off Bethany Anne and the result is no surprise, ass kicking, revenge and punishment flows over the reader in a nice symphony of violence, financial warfare and creative cussing. Bethany Anne is pissed off and those who made the stupid mistake of pissing her off do not get a second chance.
Although each book generally focuses on a particular issue that requires Bethany Anne’s particular type of attention the string of all nine books moves the overall story arc forward quite a lot. In particular we move from the backwater pond, Earth, where the story has played out so far to the vastness of space. Hence my little play on Churchill’s famous speech above. Bethany Anne being Bethany Anne does of course choose to leave in style giving the dumb ass politicians on Earth, who continue to try and grab her technology, not only the finger but also slamming the door shut behind here.
The change of scenario of course means that the series takes on a entirely new angle. From being urban fantasy books with a science fiction element they turn into more of being pure science fiction stories. Having said that, the author actually manages to keep quite a bit of supernatural ambiance around Bethany Anne. Bethany Anne herself do of course kick alien ass with the same enthusiasm as she kicked human ones and so does her entourage.
In true Bethany Anne style she starts of by making new friends and removing those who think they can stand in her way. If that means conquering a few worlds in the process then so be it. However as Bethany Anne’s empire grows and she gets more and more on her plate she has less and less time for her favorite activities herself. Actually there were one or two books where I felt that Bethany Anne was almost more of a background figure.
However in the last couple of books the author solves that issue with the help of a new character that he introduces. At first I was a bit hesitant about this character but when I read the afterwords of one of the books with the authors reasoning in it I thought it was actually quite clever. Now we could both have the cake and eat it!
The books contains the usual bantering and entertaining dialogue between the various characters. But, now we get aliens thrown into the mix as well. There were some parts that I felt was less than stellar though. The parts where the “girls” where discussing “girl issues” and were more or less starting to play match makers for the male part of the team felt a bit too much teenage wet dreams to me. A minor complaint though.
On the whole the books have been great entertainment and I read them more or less in one straight stream picking the next one up as soon as I had finished one. I really needed the distraction while I was dealing with my personal problems.
I cannot wait for the next book to be published now when I have caught up with all the published ones.
