Poor Man's Sky

Rich Man's Sky, Book 2

By: Wil Mccarthy

Narrated by: James Shippy

THE LUNAR MONASTERY TAUGHT PEOPLE HOW TO LIVE IN SPACE … AND THEN ONE OF ITS STUDENTS WAS MURDERED

Who owns the future?

Homicide detective Raimy Vaught is a losing contestant on the biggest reality show ever: the colonization of Mars. Brother Michael is a Benedictine monk who just wants to help the future happen. Andrei Bykhovski is an asteroid miner desperately escaping indentured servitude.

Bridget Tobin is a hydroponic farmer studying the greenhouses of Luna.

But when a fellow Mars contestant drops dead at a Lunar monastery, these four souls will find themselves on a collision course with forces far beyond the control of trillionaires or nation states. As labor disputes erupt across cislunar space, the actions of individual people will determine whose future will prevail … and whose will perish.

©2023 Wil McCarthy (P)2023 Recorded Books

ends suddenly

Adds a new character, a detective, who has a fulfilling story in this book. Follows the horsemen from the first book, but not much happens in their stories.

The narrator is called on to do a large number of accents, some of which are not so great.

Overall, a lackluster book.

Interesting, but seems to veer from the main plot

This was an enjoyable book, but veers from the main plot of settlement to pursue a murder mystery. This goes fairly well and makes for a pretty good mystery. There are, however, a few scenes that seem dubious and the main character's background is hard to believe.

Aside from the story, the narrator wasn't ideal. He seemed perfect for the main character, but he didn't do very well with other voices. In some cases, he'd be voicing a character with a Russian accent but would then slip into a totally different voice. Perhaps because of the problem with diverse voices, the dialogue all used a LOT of dialogue tags which got to be pretty annoying.

I recommend the book and the series, but this book wasn't as good as the first.