Laugh out loud interstellar antics.

Laugh out loud interstellar antics. Benjamin Wallace’s Shattered Alliance: Publisher’s Pack includes the first two books in the series: Shattered Alliance and Send in the Clones. These are a riotous dive into sci-fi chaos, packed with snarky dialogue (“. . . multiple times . . . “), absurd scenarios, and a cast of misfits who somehow manage to save the day—somehow. The first book kicks off with a First Contact ceremony gone explosively wrong, leaving Captain Thurgood and crew stranded and the galaxy suddenly out of balance. Wallace doesn’t waste time with solemn space opera tropes; instead, he throws in a corporate spy, a notorious criminal, and a time-displaced soldier to rescue the crew, all while poking fun at bureaucratic incompetence and heroic clichés. I imagine Captain Thurgood is what you would have if Lesley Neilson played Captain Kirk.

The second book, Send in the Clones, cranks up the ridiculousness with a squad of fear-themed battle rigs piloted by clones of the same egotistical commander—who, naturally, all hate each other. It’s like George Lucas met the cast of Monty Python in a pub and decided to write a space war comedy. Wallace leans hard into the humor, with clowns and wolves as weapons of war, and a mission that’s doomed from the start but somehow barrels forward thanks to sheer bravado and bad attitude. I can’t wait to listen to / read the next two books.