I didn't think we were getting another Fergus Ferguson book, as the last one ended in a way that felt much more conclusively than the others. It turns out this is due to the first three being a book deal with uncertainty around future books, and this one ends with an easy hook for the next one, so I'm crossing my fingers for more.

If you haven't read any of these books, I feel like Fergus fills a similar role to Miles Vorkosigan. He exists as an element of chaos. You add him into a small trap for a few people and ten minutes later he's finagled his way into capturing a starship. They're not the same characters at all--Fergus is definitely angrier, less gregarious, and more space MacGyver than Miles is--but there's a similar delightful escalation to everything they both get involved with.

This book was a lot of fun. The vast majority of this book is spent with new characters among a pirate crew; I am a huge sucker for spaceship crew dynamic stories and so I ate this up. Also, I forgot just how funny Suzanne Palmer's writing is and there were quite a few lines that made me laugh. If I had any complaints, it's that I'm generally less excited about deus ex Asiig and would really just prefer more localized Fergus shenanigans, but their intervention here also answers a lot of questions.

In general, these books feel like one off action adventures (and this one especially feels like a side adventure) with enough worldbuilding depth to keep me intrigued; and, this one manages to bring back touchpoints from all of the previous books in ways that felt really satisfying too.

Hopefully, some day Fergus can figure out where home is.