Old Man Space Ranger 3 – Pretty cool scenario, fairly average otherwise.

Old Man Space Ranger 3.
By Douglas Michaels.
My rating ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2 stars.

Space Rangering, as Noah Newton has found, isn’t all gunplay and warfare. Sometimes it’s weeks of grueling peace talks between two factions of a planet to settle a civil war.

But when a bomb rips through the peace treaty ceremony and threatens to undo all his hard work, it will be time for gunplay and warfare once again. Noah will have to track the separatist group to their hideout in a mysterious quarantine zone of the galaxy, but even to find that needle in the haystack he’ll have his work cut out for him.

Noah will go back to basics of a Space Ranger’s visiting small, unimportant planets long forgotten by the powers that be and use his authority and skills to settle their affairs and deliver the sort of justice that builds authority. Then, with the loyalty of the people under his care secured, they will give him the information needed to eliminate the separatists and end the civil war.

But only if he can escape the quarantine zone’s hidden danger.

Overall this book is fairly average. Not bad but not wow good either. It is pretty much a standard lone ranger in space adventure story. Of course he has his trusted (robotic) sidekick with him.

The main protagonist is likable, there are some decent action, interactions, suspense and so on and so forth. But as I wrote already, nothing out of the ordinary.

What makes this book a bit more fun is that, after a while, Noah’s investigation leads him to a small backwater planet where he has to go undercover in a small backwater town to find and arrest the culprit he is chasing.

This particular town is pretty much a bonafide Wild West town with saloons, whore houses, duels at noon and everything else you would expect. In addition, everyone lives pretty much like you would expect from an old Wild West town.

It is like For a Handful of Dollars in space. Okay, they’re not really in space, it is a town after all, but the new sheriff in town got there in a spaceship so I am sure you understand what I am trying to say.

Overall the book lifted itself to three and a half star thanks to the setting. Otherwise I would probably have settled for two and a half.

In my latest roundup I wrote that I was very much on the fence with this series. Well, I think I still kind of am on the fence but with this book the series has least earned itself a stay of execution.