"Taking Ground: Wolfhounds - Book Two" by John Van Stry

"Taking Ground: Wolfhounds - Book Two" by John Van Stry
    https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Ground-Wolfhounds-Book-Two/dp/B0CTTW1GDS

Book number two of a six book science fiction space opera series.  And 
there is a prequel series of two books and a sequel series of a few 
books.  I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) 
trade paperback self published by the author in 2024 that I bought in 
2026.  I own the other four books in the series and will read them soon.

I love Space Opera.  And I love pulp science fiction.  This series is 
both and a great example of the merging of the two.  In fact, this 
series reminds me very much of the Robert Heinlein juvenile books, the 
Piers Anthony "Bio of a Space Tyrant" series, the "Mutineer's Moon" 
series by David Weber, and the Perry Rhodan series.  The dialog is very 
frequent and the action moves along quickly.

Chase Collis is a street rat.  He and his mother lived in government 
housing in Imperial City until she died of a drug overdose when he was 
12 years old.  Just before that was the last time he saw his estranged 
father who screamed at his mother to keep hiding Chase or else the 
Emperor would kill them all.  Chase ended up on the street at the age of 
12, running with the street gangs, being arrested by the police time and 
time again.

When Chase became an adult, he murdered another street rat and was 
caught by the police.  He purposely got caught to go to the Imperial 
Prison for a few years to get more street cred and rise to the top of 
the street gang.  But to his shock, when he went to his trial, his 
father was the judge.  His father sentenced him to ten years in the 
Imperial Navy rather than the four years in Imperial Prison that he 
expected, and then escorted him to the Naval Basic Training school.

In the far distant future, The Solarian Imperium consists of 38 star 
systems.  Emperor Charles Morgan, Chase's grandfather, was the latest in 
a long line of Morgans ruling the Imperium.  His family keeps power 
because they are genetically modified with machine interfaces in their 
DNA.  So are all of the Nobles: the Dukes, the Earls, the Counts, and 
the Barons.  Any machine of any importance, and especially the space 
ships and the military weapons, requires a human with machine interface 
to tell the AI what to do.  And the Imperial family machine interface in 
their DNA is the best of all the interfaces and has special rights with 
all of the machines in the Imperium.

Chase Collis ends up in the Emperor's own Wolfhounds after his Navy 
machinists mate training to be a glorified broom pusher.  The Wolfhounds 
are special military fleet embedded in a large asteroid capable of FTL 
flights to anywhere in the Empire.  The Wolfhounds were standing down in 
cryosleep until needed by Emperor to protect him or to take care of a 
special task.  But their cryosleep has lasted for over ten years when it 
was supposed to be for six months at the most.  And upon their 
accidental awakening, the Emperor and his family are dead and the 
Parliament and the Speaker have taken over the Imperium.

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

My rating:  6 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating:  4.7 out of 5 stars (3,594 reviews)

Lynn