If you haven’t been initiated into the Black Ocean universe, you should start with the 85hr Galaxy Outlaw collection. It has the best assortment of pirate rouges and the best balance of space camp, action, and “wild, wizardly magic vs. science” adventure. Then, I recommend the 90+ hr Mercy for Hire collection, which spins off Esper (aka Wizard Barbie) and megaladog Kubu and leans into the whacky world of wizards while maintaining a format of mostly standalone capers with a new colorful cast of misfits.
This collection is a spin-off within the Black Ocean universe, but has less camp and virtually no characters from the other collections besides MC Kelvin Black, aka Cedric the Brown, the wizardly prodigal son of Mordecai the Brown. It started off fun, with the outpost-at-the-edge-of-the-galaxy feel of Deep Space Nine (as the summary suggested). I loved the first few missions. But, for every hour of story, there’s another hour of philosophical ruminations on the meaning of life or metaphysical mumbo jumbo delving into the Black Ocean’s magic vs science dynamic. Instead of standalone missions, each mission (or “book”) builds on the one before, as the cast keeps paving the road to Armageddon with not so good intentions. There are no good people or aliens, just stupid, selfish, arrogant beings who bring on exponential redshirt death of beings and worlds in a Cthulhu-like catastrophe that goes on and on.
And on. The second half dragged. I was desensitized, speeding up the listening to get to an ending that I suppose was meant to be deep, but I just didn’t have the energy to understand.
For a collection that contains banana aliens and crusty space wizards grouching about kitten farts and dandelion fluff, this wasn’t remotely the fun space opera it should have been.
Still a good sale purchase, if only for the first 20 of 60 hrs.