Book: Bad Luck Charlie
Author: Scott Baron
My Rating: 3 Stars From a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Hi there, bookworms! Remember a few weeks ago I made a list of some of the weirdest books I’ve ever read? Well, I’ve found another one to add to the list! It’s a sci-if novel of epic proportions that had me scratching my head from start to finish. This review may not do it justice, but I’ll give it my best shot.
Bad Luck Charlie is the first book in a LONG series, and honestly based on this first book I have no idea where Charlie ends up by the last one. The book opens with a frantic scene of a spaceship crashing. Super intense. Then the next few chapters are a flashback of sorts, that explain who Charlie is, how he ended up on this spaceship, and why the spaceship is going down. This flashback portion, while necessary for the story, was kind of boring and I almost gave up on it. That would have been a tragic mistake because the rest of the book was a delightful farce of a space adventure.
After accidentally ripping a wormhole in space and crash landing on an alien planet in a completely different galaxy, Charlie and his surviving crew mates are left trying to make the best of a bad situation. Bad quickly turns to worse when alien slave traders show up and take Charlie hostage, making him a slave. While enslaved, he learns a lot about their magic – similar to what we call technology – and he plans his escape. Only, his escape plan turns into him being abducted from his slave masters by space pirates, and forced to join the crew of the Rixanna. While aboard the space pirate ship, he works his way up the ranks by fixing their magical plumbing system (space plumber???) then gets promoted to official pirate. His captain tries to sell him to a fighting ring (space gladiators???) only for him to be abducted once again by his ORIGINAL slave masters, who then sell him as dragon food (space dragons???) except the dragons don’t eat him, he actually ends up befriending one, only for his new master to send him off to train as a space gladiator. Are you still with me? In the end there is an epic gladiator battle royale where Charlie makes friends with a dragon and comes out the victor. Then there is a very confusing ending that makes no sense and leaves you with a lot of questions that I can only assume get answered in the books that follow.
I mean, that’s an extremely truncated synopsis, y’all. I left a lot of details out. But I think it makes the point that this story goes to a lot of unexpected places. I would definitely say it’s more plot driven than character driven, because the only character we really get to know is Charlie. Other characters I thought would be important end up being totally forgotten as the story goes on. I was sad that I didn’t get to find out what happened to several of them, however there are like eight more books in the series, so there’s a good chance that any character could reappear. Nothing would surprise me.
Overall, it was a genuinely fun book to read. I was constantly intrigued by the many different directions that it took, and even though there wasn’t a ton of character development, I did love Charlie. I did not however love the ending. It felt way more like the end of a chapter than the end of a whole book. Even with me knowing that it was part of a series, I had a very disappointed feeling of “Wait, that was the end???” So, if you read this one, have book two cued up or prepare to have a lot of unanswered questions when you finish reading. I still highly recommend it just for the pure entertainment value.
Krystle Goodman is a crazy cat lady, who loves to drink exorbitant amounts of coffee, and read a shocking amount of books. She lives in Benton with her husband Josh, her son Roman, and their two cats Roxanne and Abby. When she isn’t reading, you’ll find her cooking, painting, or watching true crime shows. Watch for Krystle’s book reviews every Friday. Send fanmail to: [email protected]
See more of Krystle’s reviews at www.mysaline.com/krystle.