Book Review: Kris Longknife: Mutineer by Mike Shepherd

Kris Longknife: Mutineer
Author: Mike Shepherd
Series: Kris Longknife (Book 1)
Publication: Ace (January 27, 2004)

Description: Kris Longknife is a daughter of privilege, born to money and power. Her father is the Prime Minister of her home planet, her mother the consummate politician’s wife. She’s been raised only to be beautiful and to marry well. But the heritage of the military Longknifes courses through Kris’s blood—and, against her parents’ objections, she enlists in the marines.

She has a lot to live up to and a lot to prove in the long-running struggle between her powerful family, a highly defensive—and offensive—Earth, and the hundreds of warring colonies. And then an ill-conceived attack brings the war close to home, putting Kris’s life on the line. Now she has only one choice: certain death on the front lines of rim space—or mutiny...

My Thoughts: KRIS LONGKNIFE: MUTINEER begins a multibook series. It is space opera writ large. For me it was a combination of the Miles Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold and the Honor Harrington series by David Weber containing the best parts of each.

Kris Longknife is a newly minted Ensign in the Navy. She's also the daughter of the Prime Minister of a powerful Rim planet and a descendant of powerful and well-known people who were and are the political and economic movers and shakers of her world. She's very rich. She is an alcoholic who suffers from survivor's guilt because, when she was 10, she couldn't save her younger brother from kidnappers who murdered him.

As this story begins, Kris is serving about the Typhoon and about to take part in a rescue mission to save the six-year-old daughter of Sequim's General Manager. When something goes wrong with the sled taking her and half of the rescue squad from orbit to the site where the kidnappers are holding the child, Kris uses her experience racing skiffs to save her people. She and her people rescue the child and Kris becomes suspicious of the circumstances of the planned rescue making her wonder if it was an assassination attempt against her and making her wonder about the motives of her superiors.

In thanks for her quick thinking and successful rescue, she's assigned to Olympia where a volcano has erupted causing massive climatic changes which means that those on the planet are starving. She lands to find that things are a mess. Food isn't getting to those who are hungry. The command structure is being overseen by an officer who just escaped a political court martial. Kris uses the skills gained in helping with her brother's political campaigns to get things moving the right direction. However, a call for help from an isolated farm which is also sick with a contagious disease that can kill any of the remaining survivors on planet, sends Kris and her crew to try to save them. Things go wrong with the smart metal boat they are using which might just be a second or third assassination attempt. 

Back home on Wardhaven, Kris goes to her trusted people - a great aunt and two of her great-grandfathers - to try to figure out who wants her dead and why. An Ensign, even a rich, politically connected Ensign, shouldn't be attracting assassins. But politics is playing a role. Many planets are looking to end their relationship with Earth and go their own way and are doing all sorts of underhanded and above-board things to make the outcome match their goals.

When Kris is recalled to her ship, their destination is where a meeting has been convened with Earth representatives to see if their relationship can end peacefully. Except, there is a faction in the military who want to start a war and it is up to Kris to mutiny and keep the ship she is on from starting that war.

This was an exciting and engaging story. I liked the worldbuilding and really liked Kris. She's smart and honorable. I am looking forward to reading more in this 19-book series. 

Favorite Quote:

"To us, and those like us. May there always be enough of the few to keep the worlds turning for the many."

I bought this one before February 2008. I read it when I bought it and am rereading it so that I can read books 4 and 5 in the series which have been languishing on TBR mountain since 2008. You can buy your copy here.