Knox defends his own.
Space is a deadly business, a truth Knox has experienced first hand. That’s why he’s so protective of his ship and family. So when pirates plunder an impoverished town–a town that’s earned Knox’s guarded friendship–he’s going to do something about it.
Knox knows the pillagers will be back for more, so his town needs protection from any and all pirates, for years to come. Only one way to do that. His friends need shields to keep their town and children safe, and Knox will get those shields. Even if he has to steal them.
Knox devises a carefully crafted plan and hires the perfect crew. He’ll “borrow” from Caravan Suppliers—the Goliath of space shipping—a company that can afford to lose an expensive shield generator. No one will know he was there. Unfortunately, no plan survives contact with the enemy.
Caravan Suppliers has a dirty slave habit, and they’ll kill to keep it secret. When Knox stumbles onto it, he endangers his crew and his family. Will this mission cost Knox more than he’s willing to pay?

‘Maverick Gambit‘ is Space Opera in the mode of Becky Chambers’ ‘Wayfarer‘ series. It’s about nice people stopping nasty people from doing bad things while discovering the value of found family, except that it has a more ‘Firefly’ vibe than the Becky Chambers books.

Re.reading that first paragraph, I can see that it might sound dismissive. I don’t mean it to be. To my surprise, I enjoyed ‘The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet‘ and I was smiling most of the time while I read ‘Maverick Gambit‘. I just find it harder to critique science fiction that’s as wholesome as this.

‘Maverick Gambit‘ is about an experienced spacer pulling a crew together to steal some shields to protect pockets of population on the now almost abadoned Earth from the space pirates who have been kidnapping their children and selling them into slavery.

The crew are recent graduates of the Institute of Adapted Soldiers (IAS) which trains the small percentage of people whose bodies have adapted to the human diaspora by manifesting enhanced abilities useful to predators. I thought this was a great way of producing a crew with interesting abilities but who are also likely to be seen as outsiders by many and who will all have been seperated from their families.

There’s a strong anti-slavery element to the story. Although the human trafficking in the story is done on an inter-planetary scale, the mechanics of it mirror how the modern slavery models that the UN is currently trying to supress.

Space Opera wouldn’t be Space Opera without a space ships and advanced weaponry and ‘Maverick Gambit‘ delivers interesting versions of both. My favourites were the crazy little devices spliced together by Ximena, Maverick’s co-owner and chief mechanic.

‘Maverick Gambit’ is the first book in a series, It uses a simple mission structure- steal the shields, free the slaves, protect the villages – to build the Maverick universe, introduce its crew and get them to bond and set up two sets of bad guys as Maverick’s enemies. The pace moves along nicely, the action scenes work and Majorie King doesn’t hold back from inflicting pain and loss on her central characters.

Many of the characters in the book are young. Some are children. A lot of the book looks at the concept of family, found or genetic, the effects of abusive behaviour on children and the possiblity of happiness offered by found-family. I thought this was well done. Neither too distressing nor too mawkish, it got the points across in a way that didn’t trivialise the damage but did place the emphasis on hope and healing.

If you’re looking for an engaging, mostly uplifting, Space Opera with some good fight scenes, some sad moments, and a lot of emotion, youll enjoy ‘Maverick Gambit’ .