Not for the feint of heart, this story is long and should definitely be attempted only after “Galaxy Outlaws” has been thoroughly enjoyed. If you didn’t enjoy that one, just give up now. Here’s my biggest gripe with “Mercy for Higher”, I believe we are best at writing what we know. J.S. Morin is a straight dude. I really don’t think he has any business writing about a lesbian woman as his main character. I mean, case in point, every woman Espyr is attracted to. In fact nearly every woman who is sexually available in this book is a big breasted, femme with beautiful features and perfect skin and always wearing something skin tight and eating chocolates and sipping champagne and silk is usually involved and on and on and on ad nauseum. Why couldn’t Espyr find some masc. butch with a shaved head and tattoos that walks around in an unflattering A-shirt who only wants to protect her and intimidates the shit out of everyone on the ship?? He writes about women in a way only a straight man could. Its honestly exhausting after her first triste and gets into weird fetishization of lesbianism by about halfway through the book. If Espyr is (nearly) exclusively attracted to women, why is it she’s only attracted to women who are stereotypically attractive to straight men? And sure, I get that there are plenty of femmes that are attracted to other femmes out there but seriously every, single, woman? My second issue is how he portrays “good” men and “bad” men. “Good” men are always the picture of honorable, would never abuse someone or betray someone’s trust. They always have best intentions and are by and large, painfully static. Wesley Wesley, who I must say has some of the funniest dialog in the book, is a bad attempt at flipping the script on the macho meat-head. He had so many opportunities for his character to develop and yet somehow couldn’t seem to break out of his mold. “Bad” men are always attracted to underage girls, they are the quintessential “goon”, all muscle no brain or as in Don Rucker’s case, all brain and all of it used for devious and conniving ends. There are no gay men in this story, good or bad and idea of being attracted to a man is relegated to a teenagers bumbling attempts or a wife’s adoration for her husband (though nothing sexual, of course because the only sexual attraction in the book features the attraction to women and specifically to extremely feminine women). The problem with these characters is I don’t believe in them. At least with Tiffany or even Melody (don’t get me started on her daughter being named Harmony) I can believe in their stories or at least suspend my disbelief long enough to empathize with them. I feel very little for Don Rucker, his very young pregnant wife or the countless number of innocent bystanders and syndicate lackeys that are crushed between him and Espyr. My last critique of this novel is “Dark Espyr”. Really the “do-gooder” and “dark Espyr”??? Did anyone edit or even re-read this book?! Surely, for a man who claims his aspiration in life is “to be clever and right at the same time” he really, really missed the mark there. I’ve gotta say there are so many other examples of lazy or sloppy writing and slipshod story arcs, I can’t get into all of them but these felt especially egregious. If your still reading this review it means your attention span is adequate for this book and you should probably just buy it and listen. 93 hours is a lot of entertainment, even with the numerous disappointing aspects, there’s plenty of intriguing content and a whole Black Ocean to sail into. Also it should definitely be noted that Mikael Naramore absolutely kills it! Such a great narrator!!