Robber Barrons

Robber Barons, Book 1

By: Nanci Schwartz

Narrated by: Andrea Emmes

For the last Supersoldier left in the Galaxy, it's kill or be killed . . .

Despite the genetic enhancements inherited from her father, Victoria Anetti never wanted to be a supersoldier. She'd rather spend her life fixing starships, free from family expectations.

Then her father and his comrades vanish on a mission to find a lost warship, leaving her the last supersoldier left alive.

Now she must flee from planet to planet in order to evade government agents—like her estranged mother—who want to use her as a pawn in a simmering interstellar conflict.

To escape yet another capture attempt, Victoria reluctantly joins her uncle's salvage crew who are attempting to complete her father's mission. But when clues surface that her father might be alive, Victoria must choose whether to disappear again to avoid sparking another war, or embrace her supersoldier legacy to save the only family she has left.

©2022 Nanci Schwartz (P)2023 Tantor

Fantastic first book excellent Character work!!

Robber Barrons follows the story of Victoria Anetti, a young woman who is the Daughter of Alessandro Anetti, one of numerous people who took a serum that made them super-soldiers. As a result of taking the serum, Alessandro (Alex), and all of the other soldiers, were meant to become sterile, but somehow, Victoria was conceived, and she inherited his ‘Mahjin’ or super-soldier abilities. Humans have splintered into two factions in space, the Colonial Space Force (CSF), who have their planets, and beliefs, and the Janusian Union Space Corps, with their planets and beliefs. The Mahjin were developed by, and fought for the CSF.
The Mahjin are all dead now, with Victoria being the last of their kind, and no one know how to make new ones. The CSF are desperate to find Victoria to try and unravel the secret of her genes. The Janusians have a far simpler agenda, they want to find and kill Victoria, ending any future for the Mahjin.
Victoria has spent her life hiding, on the run, taking whatever work she can get as her trade (a mechanic), and gaining skills along the way to hide her abilities. She rarely uses her Mahjin abilities, and as such, they have in a way ‘atrophied’, in that although she still has them, she is not at the level of one of the Mahjin who uses the skills full-time.
When her latest cover is not just blown, but her true identity is plastered all over the place, she is forced to turn to her Uncle Ben, the brother of her Father. Her Mother has gone to the Janusians, turning on her former faction and her Daughter.
When her Uncle tells Victoria that he is following a lead on the last of the legendary Nemesis Class Dreadnaughts, Victoria thinks he is initially an idiot. The Nemesis Class were a special class, built and designed specifically for the Mahjin, but they were all destroyed. However, her Father was supposedly looking for a missing ship when he went missing, and is thought to have been killed – leaving her as the last.
But as the story starts to unfold, it becomes clear that Uncle Ben is not an idiot, that after years of hunting, he might actually have a real clue. However, there are others out there hunting, and they are on the trail to, and it turns into a deadly hunt. Not just for the ship, but for Victoria and quite literally her blood.
This is a really fascinating story, told primarily from Victoria’s point of view, we get to see a young woman who is a really strong character, but who has had an extremely difficult life. But rather than let it break her, or control her, she has tried to live as normal a life as she can, not giving into the temptation of her abilities, nor her parenting. But unfortunately, the universe has other plans for her. There are some other really great characters in this book, most of which I won’t discuss to avoid spoilers, however, I will say that the crew of the ‘Robber Barron’ – Uncle Ben’s ship, is just hilarious. Ben, although he appears to be the typical ‘rogue’ space captain, actually is a huge softy, and spends most of his time tracking Victoria, so he knows how to help her. His partner, Nika, is easily one of the funniest characters in the book, and has some of the best lines in the book, whilst Matthew, the young mechanic/tech for the ship, and former boyfriend of Victoria, is great value.
The galaxy they are in is one that is really well built, Schwartz has created two very distinct, and yet two very similar factions, just split on ideology. As with so much of humanity, it leads to war, conflict, and pointless loss.
Robber Barrons is an exceptional start to what is going to be a brilliant series, I have already bought the rest of the series based on the first book, and can’t wait to read the rest of the series.
Andrea Emmes has a beautiful voice that is so just so lovely to listen to. She is clear and concise, and easy to understand and does a wonderful range of both male and female voices. She does a fantastic range of voices to, so that there are distinctive voices that you can understand and tell without having to be told who is speaking.
Emmes does a brilliant job of creating the emotional states of all her characters as well, so you can easily tell how the characters is feeling (angry, happy, excited, fear, empathy, etc), not just what they are saying, providing a much more interactive story experience.
Overall, this was a really outstanding Narration of this book, and I would easily recommend listening to it rather than reading it, as the Narration is just so good!!!

meh

it wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. it's hard when you dislike the main character.

I want to like it...

It's a bit rough around the edges. The story is a bit convoluted. The Victoria's character would have fit better if she was 16 rather than the 20 she is said to be. Literally all her family members are doing what they think is best for her without any consideration for what she wants. This seems unrealistic, especially since small of them think what's best are drastically different from each other. It would have been a better story without the family drama. If it was just the government conspiracies and political BS it would have been great. It could have still had a bit of family drama, but this was just too much to be either interesting, or realistic. Not if they are all supposed to be functional adults, which they should be from their backgrounds. All of them were mid to high level leaders in the recent war. I know you can be great at that and shit at family, but literally all of them? Nah.

Engaging space opera

In this novel, we’re introduced to two sides of a not-so-cold war, genetically modified humans, and tangled relationships. Each piece of the puzzle plays a role in solving the mystery of what happened to an entire group of people, why it happened, and what it means for two nations who’ve been hovering between peace and all out war for two decades.

Schwartz creates a world that is both exactly like the one we live in today and completely different than what we’ve known. In true science fiction form, she uses this captivating story to explore themes of loyalty, betrayal, humanity, love, and compassion.

Couldn’t finish

I didn’t like any of the characters Including the star, Victoria. For a person that was supposedly on the run for a year, her decision making was poorly developed. All the other characters had personal agendas that were very unlikable. The romance between Victoria and Matthew was like something between two 14 year olds. I feel like it was a poor choice in narrators because of her voice.