![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I got to admire, again, Jim Hines’ ability to dream up aliens who really are alien while still making them beings that I can empathise with. She gets him to walk through his actions until his mistake hits him in the face like the handle of a rake that he’s just stood on. I got to smile at the quiet humour that runs through the book, sometimes based on unintentionally inappropriate references to the now largely destroyed human culture, sometimes just from the banter between a crew I’ve come to know well and occasionally from the way Mops rebukes someone without shouting at them – like the new engineer, proud of his prowess, who has made an error that cost Mop’s ship its weapons pod. ![]() That’s not easy to do when the most efficient killers in the galaxy define themselves by their ability to conquer. One where as many people as possible on all sides survive and the whole wasteful process of war is abandoned. Mops, the genius human leader of the multi-species band of janitors who have been thrust into the role of saving the human race and possibly the universe, isn’t just better at tactics and strategy than her opponents, she has a different definition of winning. I got to cheer for the human underdog, winning through ingenuity and daring and by refusing to play the conflict game by the rules. The elements that I enjoyed most about the earlier books were still there but the tone had changed. The final book in the Janitors of the Post-apocalypse caught me by surprise – in a good way. ![]()
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