Shakedowners

Shakedowers Series, Book 1

By: Justin Woolley

Narrated by: Grant Cartwright

Some starship captains explore strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations. Some lead missions of discovery through wormholes to the other side of the galaxy. Then there's Captain Iridius B. Franklin, someone who spent too long seeking out strange new bars and new alien cocktails.

After graduating bottom of his class at Space Command Academy, Iridius Franklin hasn't had the glamorous career he envisioned - instead he hauls cargo ships full of mining waste, alien land whale dung, and artificially intelligent toy dogs across the stars.

Iridius does have talent, though - he is exceptionally good at breaking starships. So, when not hauling freight, he is captain of a shakedown crew, a skeleton crew used to test newly constructed ships for faults before the real crew takes over.

While on a routine shakedown mission aboard the FSC Gallaway, soon to be pride of the Federation Fleet, Earth is attacked by an unknown alien life-form. With the galaxy in chaos, Captain Iridius B. Franklin finds himself, unqualified, understaffed, and completely unprepared, in command of the most advanced starship in the galaxy.

Now, he just needs to not break it.

©2021 Justin Woolley (P)2022 Tantor

funny light hearted sci-fi

fun story, the characters seemed much more like real people. a nice chg from the military oriented stories.

meh

its good. but mostly based upon witty humor and random reference comedy. gove it a shot.

Very good book, not for me.

The Shakedowners is a great space comedy, but it's mostly character driven portrayal of what actual starships and space crew might be like in the future. The characters resemble real people so incredibly well. The sci-fi elements are believable and don't feel contrived. It's based loosely on theoretical physics, and it does well in taking theory to it's biggest potential conclusions. It's written so well, but I don't like it because I relate to the characters too well. This book softens emotional problems with humor, but the emotions are written so well they hit like a truck. Wonderful book, great adventure story, but I was not prepared to receive such powerful emotional conclusions. Definitely worth reading, provides plenty of food for thought.

Romping good fun

Such fun! If you like John Scalzo, you'll like this.

My only beef is with the reader mispronouncing "ensign". Really irritating.

Easy to like

Quirky fun and not to serious. Sure there's always something to improve on but this works fine for me.

liked the characters

Iridias character was stereo typed as being afraid of feelings. that's all that I disliked. Thanks for making me write 15 words.

Good story

A good solid story. Not Shakespeare, but very good. The narrator does an excellent job.

Smart and silly fun

Good fun that stays within the smart (versus childish) humor. I’m looking forward to the second book

Light quirky sci fi Firefly esque

Outcasts crew on an old ship. Captain almost got kicked out of the academy, pilot is a brilliant but cocky wildcard, engineer can make anything out of junk parts… we all know the trope but it’s lots of fun.

Smart A$$ in Space

Shakedowners is a sci-fi with a fair amount of snarky comedy thrown in. The plot moves very fast and the characters, although drawn a bit sketchily, are relatively engaging. The MC slides from snarky smart-a$$ over into a$$hole a few times which started to get on my nerves, but he is mostly a funny relatable POV. I picked up this first book in the series just because it was free on Audible Plus, but I liked it enough to want to read more. Waiting for the remaining books to go on sale... Narrator, Grant Cartwright, is good.