Kris Longknife Undaunted [Mass Market Paperback]

It's been two months since anyone tried to kill Lt. / Princess Kris Longknife. She's kept herself busy patrolling the outlying "sooner" colonies for pirates and studying new jump points with her crew of marines and scientists. It's on the way back from one such experimental jump that Kris finds herself face to face with an Iteeche death ball, being chased and fired upon by two Greenfield cruisers. The odd thing in all this craziness? The Iteeche aren't returning fire, and the Greendfield cruisers are missing their mark and hitting Kris' ship, the Wasp. Unwilling to start another crippling war with the seven foot tall, four armed Iteeche, that her great Grandfathers Trouble and Ray fought against, and eventually helped to end hostilities with, 80 years ago, Kris chases off the Greenfields. In short order things go from odd, to inexplicable, when the Death Ball wants to speak to Kris, as an envoy from their leader, to her Grandfather, King Ray, to a plea for galactic safety.

Undaunted is a great installment in the Kris Longknife series. It doesn't have all the run and gun qualities the previous books do, this one gets down to the nuts and bolts of politics, and rips open some battle wounds 80 years covered. Kris takes the Iteeche delegation to see her grandfathers, and you can't help but to admire the two old men. Manipulative and wiley as they are, you know they've lived the life, made the hard calls, and haven't told the whole story to anyone yet.

But of course while they try to figure out what to do about their old enemy's request, they need Kris out of their hair, not pushing the issue for her new Iteeche friend. They send her to a planet on a diplomatic mission. Where Kris may be walking into a blood feud from the Iteeche War. There's an attempt on her life, but only once in this novel.

The strength of Undaunted shows in the supporting cast of Kris' friends, including her computer Nelly, who is developing her personality in interesting ways. At one point in the book, when all hell is breaking loose, Kris is out of commission, and it falls to her team to make sure that things go as well as they can, considering One-of-Those-Damn-Longknives has gotten them into another pickle. Though a frustrating part of the book is the relationship between Jack, her chief of security, and Kris, remains static. It has the same Jack worrying, and Kris looking longingly at Jack while he isn't looking, that the other books have. Just a little step forward would be great in my mind. On the flip side, a very interesting dynamic pops up between the Iteeche representative Ron, and Kris. They become fast friends after realizing that different species does not always mean different problems. It seems as though Kris develops a little crush on Ron, and I hope he continues on as a presence in the next book, to see if this goes anywhere.

The book isn't wall to wall action that you're use to from Longknife novels, but it is solid. It breaks away from the Longknife v Peterwald feud, and opens up the galaxy to aliens and mystery. There's even a shout out to author Jack Campbell that sneaks in at the end. Mike Shepherd has set himself up to go a lot of directions, and I'm excited to see where Kris goes next.

Mike Shepherd has written another great novel. This one is a bit slower than some of the other books in the series, but with a rich story that challenges part of the history Kris assumed was true. It may be more of a transition book on the way to a new plotline that Mr. Shepherd has in mind, but has plenty of merit on its own.

Unfortunately, the Kindle edition has a lot of problems. I saw quite a few spelling mistakes that could very well have been caused by a poor conversion. Also, Mr. Shepherd uses all capital letters in places to denote inaudible conversations between Kris and Nelly, her computer. The Kindle edition, for some reason, changed about half to two-thirds of the letters to lower case (I have not checked the print edition to be sure it does not have the same problems).

Chris is out on her usual rounds checking the buffer zone between human space and Iteeche space. She comes across a DeathBall being chased by two Greenfield cruisers. The interesting thing is that it is a peaceful embassy to her grandfathers. They have the meeting but she is shuttled off to solve a politically vital issue on a planet where there are two sides and both really don't want to mess with the other. Interesting characters nicely done and a plot that is obviously gong to be carried forward to the next book. Ron the Iteeche Imperial Representative turns out to be remarkably sympathetic.

Less random shoot em up that some of the books but a more interesting set of problems and plots. A bit disappointing that Chris' and Jacks relationship doesn't develop and we get only a couple of glimpses of the Greenfield civil war.

Overall an excellent read.

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