I have a bit of guilty pleasure in following G.S. Jennsen’s Amaranthe books (the first is Star Shine). These books have lots of flaws, not the least of which being that Jennsen self publishes and would benefit from an editor who can say no to her. But they scratch an itch for military adventure sci-fi that I find it hard to scratch at this stage of my life. Military adventure sci-fi (as a sub genre) is obnoxiously dominated by conservative old white men writing for teenage boys (and they seem to be writing more aggressively conservative stuff lately… I blame the Hugo drama of recent memory). G.S. Jennsen is a female writer who writes books with strong and powerful female characters, sensitive and emotionally vulnerable male characters, gay characters, etc.

If you read my next two paragraphs, you’ll probably think “Why the hell would I read these thebardingreen@lemmy.starlightkel.xyz? You make them sound stupid.” So before you do, I want to say that while my pleasure in these books is a little guilty, that pleasure is actually great. When a new one comes out, I immediately buy it direct from the author (because fuck Jeff Bezos). If you, like me, have found military adventure sci-fi to be frustratingly male and conservative and if you enjoy good, entertaining stories for the sake of them being good, entertaining stories and you’re willing to overlook a few flaws, READ THESE, you will have fun.

My standard warning about Jennsen is that the books are a genre mash of what I think are her two favorite genres: Military adventure sci-fi and… trashy bodice ripper romances. The kind with titles like “Highland Passion” and “In the Captains Arms.” The kind of 90s supermarket checkout line garbage your cat lady aunt has 5 bookshelves of in her basement. Everyone (I mean everyone) will find their perfect, “forever partner”, who they will love passionately, deeply and monogamously literally forever (the later books have a 100,000 year old cyborg woman who’s mind gets erased and she manages to refind her lover from before the mindwipe and gets to fall in love with him all over again as she rediscovers herself).

Another thing about these books is that the technological escalation strains credulity. Book one takes place in a classic early interstellar era (slow FTL, nearby colonies rebelling against Earth). Book 18, taking place a mere generation later, mostly following the same characters, has escalated to artificial universes and universe hopping, warp bubbles that can shield whole planets, post singularity human / AI fusions that can wormhole themselves across intergalactic space (or do a kind of astral projection thing where they can just send their disembodied minds to go spy on enemy post singularity gray goo entities on the other side of the local super cluster - no, that happens).