Fortune's Pawn

Narrator Emily Durante strives mightily to solve the mystery of Devi Morris in Bach's new series. Devi is an ambitious, wily, battle-tested mercenary who too often comes across as a whiny, lovesick teen or a damsel in distress. The jarring contradictions in this book are enough to give a listener whiplash. In addition to portraying the many facets of Devi, Durante does her best to elevate the one-dimensional characters who make up the crew of the Glorious Fool, a "cursed" trade ship that is the next rung on Devi's career ladder. This production features a narrator admirably attempting to humanize a space opera that wanders and then concludes, open ended, with a convenient deus ex machina. D.E.M. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

August 12, 2013
Ambitious career mercenary Devi Morris, believing her advancement stalled in the prestigious Blackbird company, accepts a security position on the notorious trade ship Glorious Fool, a ship so prone to interesting times that one year served there counts as five years served anywhere else. Devi discovers a diverse crew of aliens and humans under a demanding master, and a ship full of secrets worth killing to protect. Swarms of alien slavers and predator-infested derelict ships lost in the depths of space are dangerous enough, but can Devi survive the Glorious Fool herself? All of space opera’s conventions make appearances, including violent aliens, mysterious powers, high-tech weaponry, powered armor, sympathetic mercenaries, and feudal societies. What Bach fails to demonstrate is much ability to blend her stock set pieces into a coherent whole or put a new spin on familiar clichés.