"Stand Alone: Wolfhounds - Book One" by John Van Stry
https://www.amazon.com/Stand-Alone-Wolfhounds-Book-One/dp/B0CJXBQNLX

Book number one of a six book science fiction space opera series. And
there is a prequel series of two books and a sequel series of a few
books. I read the well printed and not well bound POD (print on demand)
trade paperback self published by the author in 2023 that I bought in
2026. I complained about the failing book binding and Amazon is sending
me a replacement book. I have ordered the other five books in the
series and will read them soon.

I love Space Opera. And I love pulp science fiction. This book is both
and a great example of the merging of the two. In fact, this book
reminds me very much of the Robert Heinlein books or the Piers Anthony,
"Bio of a Space Tyrant", books.

Chase Collis is a street rat. He and his mother lived in government
housing in Imperial City until she died of a drug overdose when he was
12 years old. Just before that was the last time he saw his estranged
father who screamed at his mother to keep hiding Chase or else the
Emperor would kill them all. Chase ended up on the street, running with
the street gangs, being arrested by the police time and time again.

When Chase became an adult, he murdered another street rat and was
caught by the police. He purposely got caught to go to the Imperial
Prison for a few years to get more street cred and rise to the top of
the street gang. But to his shock, when he went to his trial, his
father was the judge. His father sentenced him to ten years in the
Imperial Navy rather than the four years in Imperial Prison that he
expected, and then escorted him to the Naval Basic Training school.

In the far distant future, The Solarian Imperium consists of 38 star
systems. Emperor Charles Morgan is the latest in a long line of Morgans ruling the Imperium. His family keeps power because they are
genetically modified with machine interfaces in their DNA. So are all
of the Nobles: the Dukes, the Earls, the Counts, and the Barons. Any
machine of any importance, and especially the space ships and the
military weapons, requires a human with machine interface to tell the AI
what to do. And the Imperial family machine interface in their DNA is
the best of all the interfaces and has special rights with the machines.

So Chase Collis ends up in the Wolfhounds after his training, a special military fleet embedded in a large asteroid capable of FTL flights to
anywhere in the Empire. They are standing down in cryosleep until
needed by Emperor to protect him or to take care of a special task. But
their cryosleep has lasted for over ten years when it was supposed to be
for six months at the most.

The author has a website at:
https://jvanstry.blogspot.com/

My rating: 6 out of 5 stars (I read it twice!)
Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (5,256 reviews)

Lynn


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