I found J.S. Morin’s Galaxy Outlaws series (Black Ocean Mobius Missions) a delight. Not every story was perfect, but like an excellent television show, they all added up to a beautifully rich and entertaining web of stories that were just plain fun. Here, with his Black Ocean: Mercy for Hire series, he is attempting to continue what he did so successfully in the previous series. Unfortunately, he doesn’t quite have the full cast nor the space to really pull it off in this “mission pack” he’s put together. As a sequel series, this was as nostalgic as it was fun, reminiscent of the old magic. Esper doesn’t quite have the “magic” Carl did as a central character, but she comes close sometimes.
The stories themselves are fun. I, for one, love the idea of an “old” and powerful wizard who seems to be a beautiful young lady…the incongruity of it (especially when paired with Esper’s naive attempts at doing good) seems to be fertile ground for fun and bizarre adventures. Sadly, this series isn’t quite as creatively crazy with its premises as the previous series. Morin continues his technique of quietly developing some larger character and story arcs in the background while dealing with a specific story at hand. And it works for most of this, but at the end I found myself less than satisfied. Mainly because I feel like Morin has more of Esper’s story he wants to tell (or at least that I want him to tell), and I hope he gets around to it.
All in all, a fun collection. I’m not sure if people who haven’t read/listened to the other series will find this as fun or as interesting. I would highly recommend listening to the other series first (seriously, why wouldn’t you? It’s like 85+ hours for one credit and a ton of fun). Then come back here for a little additional action in the Black Ocean universe.
Naramore continues his role as the narrator and does so phenomenally. He makes the story come alive in a way that makes the fact that he’s essentially reading it disappear. You forget about him and just enjoy the narration and characters – and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I absolutely love his narration here. Phenomenal.