Three against the stars- A review

Three against the stars by Joe Bonadonna
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three Against the Stars- A Review
Three against the stars is the newest work from Joe Bonandonna. This time Joe tackles the far flung future and not the past. Three takes place in a universe where man has ascended to a state of interstellar faster than light travel and has alliances with many other races.
Our story centers on four space marines, sort of the three musketeers, with the fourth member being a cat man from the world our team finds themselves stationed on. O’hara a big brogue speaking Irishman is the team’s defacto leader, Akira is a cigar chomping female, Cortez is the dashing, somewhat empty headed ladies’ man and Maki is the cat man, and corps medic.
Our story takes place in several places at once including deep space far from our heroes. There is much mystery afoot in this universe. There are several different factions amping up their agenda’s in this story, and only some of them play out by books end, so I can only assume there will be another volume coming sometime in the future.
Our team faces everything from bar fights to infiltrating enemy strong holds, as well as running about in ancient dilapidated starships. The marines may be the peacekeepers of the universe but they are far from the best supplied.
The main enemy in this book is the Drakonians. A race of lizard-men who share a fragile peace agreement with Earth and its allies. This is a book about not only the three space-marines but also about that peace agreement, and how fragile it really is.
There is civil war brewing amongst the cat people and has been for a very long time it seems, and it does not take much for that to boil over, leaving the three marines right in the midst of things.
All in all I liked this story. It was interesting and fun. It took place in space in the far future and that’s one of my favorite genres. But that’s not to say it didn’t have a few problems, minor at worst, but enough to be annoying tome at least.
There seemed to me at least to be too many characters introduced just to be killed, and there were far too many characters in general to keep track of. At one point I was asking myself ‘Who’s this now?”
Also, and I know this is a nitpick on my part, but with a name like “Three against the Stars.” I really expected it to be the three of them (Or four counting their cat man buddy) for an extended period of time (Like most of the book) battling an enemy on some planet hopping quest or perhaps being hunted as fugitives by a corrupt gov’t or something similar. It was very little of them being together and in the center of the action. Maybe the last fifth of the book.
Don’t get me wrong I really liked the story, and very much enjoyed reading this adventure, but at times I felt it was a bit convoluted. The stories resolution left me a little empty as well, beyond that I’m not going to say much because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone else reading it, and it is WELL worth reading.
In conclusion, if you enjoy space adventures with grand schemes and larger than life characters then pick up a copy, sit back and enjoy. It’s a very good story with a few minor, easily overlooked flaws that most will not notice. Four out of five stars.


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