And—revenge. Stripping osmium from across the stars, thieves will stop at nothing to fuel the nightmarish industry of Stolen Persons, their souls locked away in chips made of the rarest metal known.
Among these thieves is Helum Gauss, the visionary criminal whose empire spans a hundred worlds. But his massive corporation, BeneStar, lost—badly—to Van and the Guild, and Gauss won’t take no for an answer.
To that end, he’ll hit Van where it hurts the most.
Family.
Lost among the Stolen Persons, Carter Yost is far from home, angry, and spoiling for a fight, and BeneStar is the perfect method for revenge on Van, the Guild, and the forces of justice. To BeneStar CEO Helem Gauss, murder isn’t a crime. It’s just part of doing business, and with a trillion bonds at stake, Gauss declares war on anyone who stands in his way of absolute authority.
BeneStar tried guns. They tried missiles. They tried galactic media, and they still lost. Now, they’ll use an enraged soul captured between life and death, and one last weapon that frightens employees everywhere. The Human Resource Department.
Gauss will unleash his most vicious division of bureaucrats -- and a league of attorneys whose sole job is to crush opponents by any means necessary. BeneStar will fight in court, in the public forum, or in the depths of space, where laws and missiles can end a Peacemaker’s career forever. The mercenaries and pirates, all armed to the teeth, are an added bonus for BeneStar, whose navy ranks among the most powerful in known space.
In a war for control of the hearts and minds of everyone in The Deeps, Van and his crew are going to win— or die trying.
I love the adventures of Van Tudor and Torina (along with everyone else onboard). This installment allows our heroes to go after the guy behind the digital slavery ring that has been at the heart of the series since book #1. A very satisfying climax.
Van and his crew are once again fighting the good fight, but it appears that the bad guys are really attempting to put the pressure on them. When one of the crew gets very sick this puts even more pressure on Van. But the crew are family and nothing else matters. With the bounty on their heads getting bigger, something has to change.
You know, I come back to this series after a break and think I'm not going to enjoy it - and then I love it every time. It's funny and smart and engaging and full of adventure. I should know better. Jeffrey Kafer makes it great - especially with Icky's personality and Funboy's droll delivery. And the kids who are on the Iowa - good grief, talk about comic relief.
But the best is Van just trying to corral everyone, like keeping ping pong balls underwater or herding cats, and Torina just shaking her head and laughing at him. This is a great, great series.
Peacemaker Van Tudor and his crew of the Fafnir have been sent to explore a remote base that had been designed to refurbish small powerful military-spec engines. It had suddenly gone quiet and the Guild wanted to know why. So, Van and his crew were slowly working their way through some dark corridors finding nothing much of anything. At first they didn't even find any people, bodies or otherwise. The place looked abandoned and recently so. But, then as they proceeded further into the factory, they finally came across dead bodies. Or at least what was left of them.
Perry, the AI in the form of a bird, examined the bodies and declared they had been literally torn apart. They did find some artifacts in the business offices which they took back to Anvil Dark and the Guild HQ. They wanted to see what was the last activity at the factory and possibly where everyone had gone. While the technology was old, Bester, the Guild archivist was able to extract some information from the hard drive. This information eventually lead them to contacts that further implicated several planets involved in mining, potentially mining osmium. Osmium was one of the key elements used in making the chips from which kidnapped entities were turned into slave artificial intelligences. This directly tied in to the Crimes Against Order investigation which Peacemaker Van Tudor and his crew where heavily involved in. This osmium was also found to be mine on a planet called Level Blue in the Delta Pavonis system.
What they found at Level Blue was disgusting. The planet was an ecological disaster with no regards to keeping the planet habitable. Open mining was going all over the planet and the pollution was going on unabated all over the same planet. Further, it appeared that the people or entities doing the actual mining were nothing more than slaves. They were worked to death and the crew of the Fafnir unfortunately found numerous dead bodies in various states of decomposition lying openly all across the planet. The knew this operation was being done under the contracts which lead directly to the BeneStar Corporation! The further this investigation went, the more BeneStar was becoming implicated in everything. It was an evil corporation and Peacemaker Tudor was going after the owner one Helem Guass.
But, he was supposed to report back to Anvil Dark to stand against charges brought by none other than Carter Yost, his cousin. As usual, unless he was summoned back to Anvil Dark by Master Gerhardt, Van ignored the summons. Still, Master Kharsweil was insistent on Van's return so much so that he sent out three Peacemaker auxiliaries to bring him in. Turns out these guys were pretty shady and really had no intention of bring Van back alive to Anvil Dark. But, Van has lots of friends of his own so they made quick work of dissuading these guys into doing something else. Still, Van did find out that not only was the Guild after him, there was a very large bounty placed on him and his crew by the BeneStar Corporation.
So, in order for Van to pursue his investigation, they had to stop leaving a trail for bounty hunters to follow. That entailed using lots of cash to fund their operations and not filing expense reports back to Guild HQ which were used by Kharsweil to track his movements. They headed to Helso, Torina's home planet, to ask her parents from some temporary cash and to get some much needed rest. But, they knew they couldn't stay there very long, because trouble followed them every where and they didn't want Helso to be attacked just to get at them.
They were surprised with their reception there. It was more than they could have imagined and got them well on their way towards getting to Carter Yost and eventually Helem Gauss. Could there actually be an end to this investigation and an end to the kidnapping entities and turning them into slave AIs. Read the book to find out. You'll probably be just as surprised as I was.
The next book in the series, "Echoes of Empire", is going to be real interesting and I'm definitely interested to see where this is going.
Series has not gone stale. But it does continue to dip into old brainless tropes at times. Used the old brainless water shipping economics after firmly featuring how expensive interstellar fuel is compared to interplanetary and that to nearly "free" ground to orbit...throughout the series. In this case 100K's of bonds per twist for a small ship which should greatly exceed labor and shipping from local Port over all but the shortest time. TBH I thought even the evening news and grade school kids understood bulk commodity resource shipping was only profitable going down a gravity well, like from outer solar system to earth. After that it's got to be very rare or added manufacturing value outweighing the cost of shipping.
The other weakness is evil enemies who never simply blow up boarded ships with minions and police aboard. Or not blowing up the central Dark Anvil police base when corrupt officials are escaping (top officials with obvious access to heavy munitions security and years to make changes). Yes it would be a potential series ender...just saying it's the obvious plot weakness when featuring rampant unlimited internal corruption and opposed mainly by direct personal confrontation (real life issues like Iraq).
Now that they know Benestar and Helem Gauss is behind 'everything' Van steps up his search for more evidence and links to where he may be. As usual, there is still a corrupt master making things difficult and so Van and crew end up going it alone without the Guild to remain under the radar. In their search they are not alone as they have trustworthy compadre, who help out whenever necessary. Several rescue attempts of spies are necessary leading to numerous space battles including a final showdown with Carter Yost... This novel is suspense-filled, action-packed as well as humorous , romantic, insightful and all round entertaining. Numerous traps are set and sprung by both friend and foe....
Another good book in the series. This book is pretty much more of the same compared to the previous books and, in this case, that is good.
I was a bit worried when I read the book blurb. Especially the phrase “Gauss will unleash his most vicious division of bureaucrats — and a league of attorneys whose sole job is to crush opponents by any means necessary“. I was afraid this book would turn into a bunch of bullshit politics and legal crap but luckily that did not really happen.
Instead this book advanced the story quite a lot up to and including the final action filled showdown with the despicable Mr. Gauss. Finally, I might add. It was about time that we got to the end of this story arc. I cannot image the author successfully managing to squeeze more out of it. And we got that asshat Carter taken out of the equation, also finally, at the same time which just adds to the pleasure of reading this book.
Otherwise the book has the usual bantering, ass-kicking and so on and so forth. It is a good science fiction adventure plain and simple.
Now I have to say (or write) that I am quite interested in learning where the author goes from here. Apparently the series do continue.
What can you say you start off with someone discovering? There's a starship in their backyard and that their grandfather was a space policeman and then they get into the work themselves. This just continues the saga and legacy of his family and friendships. Romance drama a lot of good action. Scenes very well done and some of the better space maneuvering descriptions I've seen in science fiction. So many authors really mess this part up and this was done really well
I should teally be reviewing the first book. While very readable, Chaney appears to fancy themself as a Douglas Adams type and they just dont quite have the real chops to carry it off. Strip out the stupid jokes, the lazy pop culture references, and the deus ex machina resolutions, tighten up the grammar (it does improve as the series continues) and you would end up with something readable AND well written.
Van Tudor has come a very long way from his first connection with the Peacemakers. All the various cases have lead to this confrontation with the mastermind behind so much of the evil and crime in the galaxy. Rest assured, the Good Guys will prevail, but there are some tricky parts to this game. No spoilers, but a well earned respite for all the crew of the Fafnir.
Excellent novel..... It's time to confront the enemy
Van and his team are ready to end it. They are tired of being chased and they're ready to fight back. Even fun boy is becoming a major part of their team. And as Van as a leader he begins to understand the full weight of being the commander. He has to make decisions that will affect his own life and may end that life and the lives of his crew. And he has to accept it.
I've read all the previous books and overall enjoyed most of the storylines. Like many of the previous books the author has a ton of banter between the characters that I thought was funny in small amounts. However this book seemed to have about 40 percent useless banter. It gets old and I found myself skipping pages and never losing the storyline. Then the ending was a bit rushed considering how much trouble its been getting here.
I am so invested in this series. The characters get better and the story is just great. In this book, we find out heros going up against one of the most corrupt and evil villains they have met. BenStars founder wants to live forever and make everyone in his image. Van and his crew mean to stop him. The crew is forced to go on the run, but you know that you can’t keep this group down. What a great read.
Just when Terry Maggert is lulling you into thinking the story is about to take another twist he drops an ending that closes one chapter of Van Tudors saga as a Peacemaker and sets the stage for another. This series is by and far one of the best I’ve ever read. It’s not your typical science fiction. It’s a cut above. Once you start , be prepared, you won’t want to stop reading. You become one of Van’s crew.
I knew things were getting close for Van and his crew, everyone who ever worked with him were being targeted. What was he to do, my words not his, open a Big can of Whoop Ass! It is time for some house cleaning. I loved every minute of it, now it's back to Renegade Star, while awaiting the next book!
Great read from start to finish. You just, sorta, have to love Funboy. There are puberty events and space battles. Traps within traps. Plots within plots. Near death and death of someone sorta close. Does captured really mean captured? Who all are we yet to discover has crossed to the dark side?
If you read sci-fi and like humour why aren't you reading this?
As with all the Backyard Starship series, this one has a ton of humour, the ever expanding realm of characters and a story that lasts from start to finish without any filler. I wasn't so keen on FB when he joined the crew, but the humour and style grows on you as he interacts with the others. Roll on book 11.
It's been somewhat compelling up to 10 bucks but now I'm sick of it. I just can't take it anymore. I have to try to find a good so if I author. It's hard to find one that can write well among the free books. The book is all right but it's just the same stuff over and over again.
Has the great evil behind the curtain been finally defeated? Can Van and his crew stop that dreaded thruster assembly from being destroyed ever? What happens when Icky does into puberty, again?
All these questions and many more maybe answered in this book… read on and find out
I enjoyed reading this episode and was very satisfied with the characters but was not surprised by the story line. It followed a straight line that was easy to see what happens next. I am looking forward to the next installment and I am sure it will be with a few more surprises.
With the release of the latest book in the series recently I thought I'd go back again and revisit old friends. Having got to the end of this one I find I had neglected to leave a review of book 10 in any of the previous reads - my bad!
The whole series is a great read and easily in my top 10 of all series of all time. Nuff said.
Masterfully written. Like to know who or who two people can write together so eloquently. Absolute first rate humor is a key element in Severed Ties. I almost never give 5 stars. Severed ties is 5 stars and more and Chaney and Maggert have unseated Vaughn Heppner as my favorite sci-fi.
Terry keeps putting out superb work - wonderful characters, suspenseful plots, and satisfying endings. I'm a couple of years behind the newer work, and I am trying to avoid spoilers... plus I am also going through Ricky Partlow's stuff, too. So it may take me a while to catch up.
The Backyard Starship stories have been fun and exciting from beginning the story to the end
An excellent space opera with good characters and an interesting premise makes for good reading. There are significantly evil antagonists in fast paced tales leaving me looking forward to more stories
First, please start with book 1. The growing relationships between the characters are a large part of the joy of this series. Funboy and the kids are still my favorite characters. A very sad, bad thing happens, but I'm looking forward to book 11.
This is my favorite series ever, start with book 1 and enjoy the ride. I just uttered a profanity when I found out we have to wait till December for the next book in the series.
Love the storyline and all the crazy characters. I could easily start over and read it all again! This series has been so damn good. I love reading about all the challenges and fights and good things that happen to them!
I'm pretty sure I've rated this whole series at 5 stars. Great characters, great story, it's got all the feels and a bunch of action. What more could you ask for?
Reading this series has been very enjoyable. There are laughs, tears, shear happiness and of course action. The books are all tied together so should be read in order. The story arc is very clear.