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From: Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: "Pirates: Book 6, the New Frontiers Series" by Jack L. Knapp
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 16:55:45 -0600
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"Pirates: Book 6, the New Frontiers Series" by Jack L. Knapp
    https://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Book-6-New-Frontiers/dp/1092704264/

Book number six of a eight book science fiction space opera series.  I 
reread the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade 
paperback self published by the author in 2019.  I have all eight books 
in the series and am rereading them now with the number seven and eight 
books that I just bought from Big River.

Wow, great story with lots of character development and action.  An 
older engineer buys a bunch of Nikola Tesla's journals in an old chest 
and spots a design for an "electric turbine" that was never built.  He 
builds a working version of the electric impeller (a device that 
converts electricity into motion) after many restarts and has an 
anti-gravity device.  The rest of the story concerns project funding and 
building various containers for the electric impeller and various 
peoples trying to steal the design.  And aliens.  Lots of space aliens.

This book is specifically about the prospectors looking for metal 
bearing asteroids in the asteroid belt near to Mars.  The near asteroid 
belt is almost played out and the prospector scoots do not have enough 
fuel and supplies to move out into the asteroid belt proper.  And there 
is someone taking the space freighters, killing the crews, and selling 
their processed metal cargoes on good old Terra.  And the Flickers and 
Felis are having their own problems, especially the outcast Flicker 
women due to the extremely low numbers of Flicker men.

The writing of the story is a little bit rough, a little more editing 
would have been good.  But for me, the story is always the most 
important thing.  This is my second read so that makes it a five star 
book for me.

BTW, this is not the first time that a story has been written similar to 
this.  Several stories have "magical" engines for space drives.  A very 
similar book is John Varley's most excellent "Red Thunder" which uses 
the squeezer drive.
     https://www.amazon.com/Red-Thunder-Lightning-Novel/dp/0441011624/

The reason why I like these stories so much is that it is not just the 
new drive device, it is also the design and work to build the container 
around the new device.  And the resulting societal changes from the 
revolutionary technological changes.

My rating:  5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating:  4.4 out of 5 stars (114 reviews)

Lynn