"Sometimes in the Fall" by John Van Stry

"Sometimes in the Fall" by John Van Stry
    https://www.amazon.com/Sometimes-Fall-John-Van-Stry/dp/1668072475

Book number two of a two book science fiction space opera series.  I 
read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Baen 
in 2025 that I purchased from Amazon in 2026.

In the far distant future, Earth is a nasty crowded place with twenty 
billion inhabitants.  The people are split up into three classes: the 
doles (the poor on welfare), the proles (today's middle class), and the 
elites.  Billions more of humanity have spread widely across the Solar 
System to just about any place that people can figure out how to live.

Dave Walker, the son of a prole father and a elite mother, is a third 
class spaceship engineer and is headquartered on the dwarf planet Ceres 
with his wife's family.  In fact, he even took his wife's last name, 
Doyle, to keep the family name for their new business.  They are 
acquiring cargo spaceships and looking for opportunities for new trade 
routes.  But, war is coming as the Dictator on Venus is looking to 
spread his craziness to the Solar System.

I love Space Opera and this an excellent series of it.  In fact, the 
series has a very Heinlein or E. E. 'Doc' Smith feel to it.  The author 
has plans for a third book in the series which sounds great.

I like the technology in the book, it feels very potential hard science 
to me.  The spaceships use superconducting magnetic propulsion panels to 
propel thousands of spaceships all over the Solar System.  The panels do 
have a constant problem with overheating and frying themselves.  There 
is a recent article on research in this area: "'Acceleration without 
fuel:' Revolutionary superconducting device harnesses Earth's magnetic 
field to move a spacecraft"

https://www.space.com/technology/acceleration-without-fuel-revolutionary-superconducting-thruster-harnesses-earths-magnetic-field-in-1st-orbital-test

The main spaceship in the story is an old "medium" sized cargo spaceship 
that holds up to 4,000 TEUs.  A TEU is 20 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 8 
feet tall.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-foot_equivalent_unit

The superconducting magnetic propulsion panels are powered by two 300 
MWe fission reactors for this spaceship.  The newer spaceships have 
mostly fusion reactors in them.

The author has a website at:
    https://jvanstry.blogspot.com/
and
    http://johnvanstry.com/

My rating:  5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating:  4.8 out of 5 stars (337 reviews)

Lynn