Outsystem by M.D. Cooper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Honestly, this reads like a pretty good checklist for story items that seem to be very popular these days, all or mostly encapsulated in the flashy cover:

Hot Chick who's a Badass. A couple of thousand years in the future, with all the military hardware that'll bring. Terrorism. Military life. Spaceships. Snarky AIs. Fast-plot, episodic, steady increase, new challenges, cliffhanger.

If it hadn't been for the fact that it was a fine read, I'd also say it was pure boilerplate. I mean, it basically has all the checklist I'd look for in a grand 'ole space opera done to today's specifications, and so it is. It seems to be popular, too.

So why didn't I give it 5 stars? Because while it was entertaining and fast and popcorn fiction, there wasn't really anything to it that screamed originality.

Fun. Yes. Stand-out? I don't really think so. Fine to waste a lazy afternoon, but nothing I'd scream at people to read as if this is the second coming of whatever. Still, it's flashy and fast and snarky and that is the name of the game these days.



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