The second book in Tanya Huff’s Peacekeeper series was released today, and I don’t know if I’ve got enough willpower to work instead of reading. I am SO EXCITED.

The Peacekeeper series is a continuation of Huff’s very excellent Confederation series. I was annoyed by The Expanse for awhile because it’s obviously an inferior knock-off, but I love scifi and its remixing nature so I’ve forgiven Abraham and Franck and am trying to enjoy The Expanse on its own terms.* I’d still much rather Confederation on tv, though.

I don’t really like military scifi and Confederation is definitely military scifi. But I love Confederation/Peacekeeper. It’s very character based – you’re thrown in with the characters and have to figure out the world the same way they do. And the characters are fantastic. Funny, cranky, realistic. The novels do a better job of capturing what (US) military life and interactions are like than anything I’ve ever read, despite (because?) Confederation’s military being made up of several very different species. The series has a good overarching story that reveals itself slowly without terrible cliffhangers, great fast-paced plots for the individual novels, and characters that are interesting and hilarious.

I recommend bumping this entire series to the top of your summer reading list.

UPDATE: I started A Peace Divided last night and yep, it’s great. This is the first of the series I’ve read instead of listening to, and, surprisingly I think I actually prefer listening to the series. Because it’s so dialogue focused and there is a relatively large cast of characters, it’s actually easier to keep track of what’s going on and to feel the story with a good reader doing different voices for all the characters. A heads up if you do listen instead of read – the narrator changes some of the accents, voices, and pronunciations between the Confederation and the Peacekeeper series. Threw me for a loop for a few chapters, but ultimately works out well I think.

*Except for the part where it’s gotten way more $ and attention because of fucking sexism** and I am royally pissed off about that.

**And maybe it would have been too expensive to do good aliens on tv.