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Title | Kris Longknife's Assassin
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Author | Mike Shepherd
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | KL & MM Books - 2014
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First Printing | KL & MM Books - 2014
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Title | Target
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Author | Mike Shepherd
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Cover Art | Scott Grimando
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Publisher | Ace - 2014
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First Printing | Ace - 2014
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Title | Survivor
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Author | Mike Shepherd
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Cover Art | Scott Grimando
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Publisher | Ace - 2015
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First Printing | Ace - 2015
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Title | Rebel
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Author | Mike Shepherd
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Cover Art | Scott Grimando
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Publisher | Ace - 2016
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First Printing | Ace - 2016
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Title | Dominator
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Author | Mike Shepherd
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Cover Art | Scott Grimando
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Publisher | KL & MM Books - 2018
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First Printing | KL & MM Books - 2018
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Title | Implacable
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Author | Mike Shepherd
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | ---
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First Printing | ---
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Category | Science Fiction
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Warnings | None
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Main Characters | Vicky Peterwald
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Main Elements | Military SF, Aliens
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Website | mikeshepherd.org
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 Kris Longknife's Assassin
Kris Longknife killed Vicky Peterwald’s brother. So Vicky will kill Kris Longknife. Or try. Raised in the shadow of her brother Hank, Vicky now finds herself heir to the Peterwald Empire and hell bent on killing Kris Longknife. When that doesn’t work out, she finds herself shipped off to the Greenfeld Navy as a boot ensign. There, she learns she can solve problems without taking her clothes off, and really feel good about it! When Kris Longknife crosses Vicky’s path again, Vicky has had a change of heart and is ready to help her save Vicky’s dad’s life. Kris Longknife’s Assassin is a long novella, just 50 words short of 40,000 words. It tells the story from Vicky’s perspective of her first run-ins with Kris Longknife as well as Vicky’s apprenticeship under Admiral Krätz. It will give the reader a good run up to Vicky Peterwald
Target
BEAUTY AND THE BATTLEFIELD
Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Victoria Maria Teresa Inez Smythe-Peterwald, daughter of wealth and power, was raised to do little except be attractive and marry well. Then everything changed—her brother, her father’s favorite and the heir apparent, was killed in battle by Lieutenant Kris Longknife, daughter of the Peterwald’s longtime enemies. Vicky vowed revenge, but her skill set was more suitable for seduction than assassination, and she failed. Angry and disappointed, her father decided she needed military training and forced her to join the Navy.
Now Ensign Vicky Peterwald is part of a whole new world, where use of her ample charms will not lead to advancement. But her father is the Emperor, and what he wants he gets. What he wants is for Vicky to learn to be efficiently ruthless and deadly.
Though the lessons are hard learned, Vicky masters them—with help from an unexpected Kris Longknife.
Survivor
Seeking revenge for her brother’s death, Grand Duchess Vicky Peterwald underwent an unlikely transformation—from pampered heir to naval lieutenant. Now a new challenge looms: Vicky will need to use both her military and political ranks to rebuild war-torn planets, planets ruined both by the Peterwald Empire and by Kris Longknife’s revolutionary quests.
But not everyone shares Vicky’s goals. When the death-before-dishonor code of the Navy meets the anything-goes-to-win motto of the Imperial family, Vicky must confront, outwit, and conquer both revolutionaries and her own family to stifle galactic disorder.
And nothing stops a Grand Duchess, on or off the field.
Rebel
Vicky Peterwald is no longer just the heir apparent to an imperial dynasty. She survived naval training and proved her mettle in combat to help the starving people of the ravaged world of St. Petersburg. Now, she is truly a Grand Duchess, leading a growing battle fleet in a rebellion against the tyranny of her stepmother, the Empress.
Determined to stop her spoiled stepdaughter’s betrayal from upsetting the balance of power within the Peterwald Empire, the Empress is leading her own armada to St. Petersburg, intent on killing Vicky and every soul on the planet that gave her refuge.
But Vicky is her father’s daughter, and it would be a grave mistake to underestimate her...
Dominator
Grand Duchess Vicky Peterwald has everything. A loving fiance who's soon to be her husband, adoring crowds, and she gets to share her golden wedding carriage with Kris Longknife. What more could a girl want?
Well, the Emperor, her father, could have showed up to walk her down the aisle, but she's not really bothered about that. Then suddenly, she is. It turns out that he didn't make the wedding because he's broke and living nearly homeless in an abandoned, half built, palace. How'd that happen?
News isn't coming out of Dad's side of the Empire, so it looks like Vicky may need a battle fleet to go pay Daddy dear a visit. Oh, and four or six brigades of infantry and tanks. Somebody should have known better than piss Vicky Peterwald off. Now they have, and she won't let anything get in her way of being Vicky Dominator.
I started with the eNovella which retells the first meeting of Kris and Vicky, but this time from Vicky's point of view. We see how she goes from being a spoiled brat that hates Kris, to being drafted into the navy as an ensign and starting to see Kris' point of view.
The first book picks up after the encounter with the alien mothership and the Wasp's escape across the galaxy. So you have to have read the Kris Longknife series to understand what is happening here you can't just jump into it fresh. Vicky is a very different character than Kris, while it took Kris about 11 books before the main topic of the novel was sex, Vicky takes multiple lovers and even allows someone to rape her to get him to drop his guard so she could kill him. Let's just say talking about her boobs probably takes up about one fifth of all the words in the novel (ok its probably not that bad but still). Its a bit like a romance novel where the protagonists have been chased and fought and whatever, but still have the energy to make out in random inappropriate places when they'd be better served trying to figure out how save their lives instead. Of course one thing to remember with this series is that while ships can move fast, it still takes hours and even days to travel through a solar system so there is a lot of down time to be filled so maybe I can give Vicky the benefit of the doubt. I guess if you wanted Military fiction this might not entirely appeal (though there's definitely that too) but just like Kris, Vicky is the daughter of someone who has now claimed to be Emperor thus making her a Duchess, so its more Game of Thrones / Dune kind of intrigue than it is military fiction, definitely Space Opera.
The stories do tend to cross-over with Kris' a little bit, so its probably advised to read them together and in the order of publication but its minor if you don't mind a tiny spoiler here and there. For the most part Vicky's adventures are her own. And as I approach the end of the series, her character arc was perhaps more interesting than that of Kris. Kris was the good guy (girl?) from the start, but Vicky was a villain, that became the hero, but still has a bit of a naughty side (much to her husband's delight).
This series share the same characteristics as those of Kris Longknife. The characters have a major problem to solve, and while plot and characters move forward a bit of course, its more about the problem solving. I'm an engineer, I love problem solving so I enjoy this well enough. But as I get to the end of both the Kris and Vicky series and already finished the Jump Universe books, there is no real end to the story in sight, in fact there is no particular end goal. As an overall arc they don't seem to be going anywhere. Vicky might take over her father's empire, but out there in the galaxy are the aliens set to wipe out every living thing that isn't their own species...hard to forgt that. And the Itichee and the Peterwalds aren't even involved in doing anything about that. So I feel that the author eventually got tired of solving problems and will just abandon the series (maybe I'm wrong, I'm not quite there yet). The Jump Universe books were left hanging, though we know more or less what happens since its a prequel series so we know who wins the war and what happens to Rita.
Thus my feelings remained the same, it was a fun read once through, there were parts I liked, but seeing as a read through takes a year, I'll never do it again, and I've sent the books out to a neighbourhood book exchange box to be enjoyed by someone else.
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