War of the Liberator – Quite enjoyable 2nd book in the series.

War of the Liberator.
Taken to the Stars, #2.
By J.N. Chaney and  Rick Partlow.
My rating ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ out of 5 stars.

You can’t fight a war without guns.

Charlie and his friends need to arm their ship, but they have a small problem—black market particle cannons cost a lot of money. And they don’t have any.

Which leaves them only one option. They have to steal the guns from the Anguilar Empire.

It’s a daring plan, but it backfires when Laranna is captured by the enemy and taken back to her homeworld of Strada, which has been conquered and garrisoned by the Empire.

Charlie won’t abandon her and when he and Giblet crash land on Strada, they’re forced to team up with the local resistance fighters to free not only Laranna, but the whole planet.

If they win, they’ll have struck the first meaningful blow in the war against the Anguilar.

If they lose…not only are Charlie and his friends dead, but tens of thousands of innocent civilians could die in reprisal.

Can a college student from Earth, taken to the stars by forces beyond his control, win the first victory in an interstellar war?

This was a quite enjoyable continuation of the first book in the Taken to the Stars series.

The story is of course rather implausible but hey, it is a good adventure story with all the main ingredients: a likable hero, a cool chick, a range of weird aliens and some bad guys.

Still, stealing heavy weapons from the invaders is a bit of a stretch. To no one’s surprise the cunning plan does not go exactly as planned. What to do? Aw what the heck? Let’s liberate the planet instead. As I wrote, a somewhat implausible story.

I wrote in my review of the first book that I suspected Charlie & Co would quickly become a major nuisance to the despicable bad guys that have “sneak invaded” (sounds familiar?) this corner of the galaxy and obviously I was spot on.

As with the first book there is plenty of action, snarky dialog, plot twists and character development. Charlie makes new friends and new enemies. Some of Laranna’s past is revealed and of course the obligatory romance between the two main protagonists is puttering along.

Overall this book has what you would expect of a good adventure story. A not to serious light read with likable characters, fairly fast paced story, a wee bit of humor and plenty of likable and interesting characters.

Oh by the way, that AI running the ship that picked up Charlie & Co? Well, let’s just say that there’s more to it and the “routine pick up” of Charlie than first meets the eye.