April (April Series) Paperback – May 4, 2019

Amazon keep telling to try this book, but cover made me think it was for younger readers. Then read the first book in Family Law not knowing it's the same author and universe of april just a few hundred years if the future. Wow that book blew me away, there are few authors that knocked down my old guard of authors since I joined Kindle Unimited. David Weber, John Ringo, Tom Kratman are still great, but the new breed of independent KU authors( Mackey Chandler, N.C. Reed, and Peter Grant) do it quicker, cheaper, and with same love of story and character's. I must note in fairness I'm dyslexic so I'm no judge of grammer, but story. So now here is your problem April is the first but as an early work Mr Chandler keeps getting better as he writes more and more. So start with the first or his best. Here some help both deal with a young teen age girl, and both have a libertarian point a view. Now were in April it's the near future, man is just starting living in space. Mostly in space station and few colony in moon and mars. Family Law starts with many colonies on other planets and the exploration of them and there people. You can read first two on Family Law but book three starts talking about stuff in April. No Matter you'll read them all and be up late doing so.Amazon keep telling to try this book, but cover made me think it was for younger readers. Then read the first book in Family Law not knowing it's the same author and universe of april just a few hundred years if the future. Wow that book blew me away, there are few authors that knocked down my old guard of authors since I joined Kindle Unimited. David Weber, John Ringo, Tom Kratman are still great, but new breed of independent KU authors( Mackey Chandler, N.C. Reed, and Peter Grant) do it quicker, cheaper, and with same love of story and character's. I must note in fairness I'm dyslexic so I'm no judge of grammer, but story. So now here is your problem April is the first but as an early work Mr Chandler keeps getting better as he writes more and more. So start with the first or his best. Here some help both deal with a young teen age girl, and both have a libertarian point a view. Now were in April it's the near future, man is just starting living in space. Mostly in space station and few colony in moon and mars. Family Law starts with many colonies on other planets and the exploration of them and there people. You can read first two on Family Law but book three starts talking about stuff in April. No Matter you'll read them all and be up late doing so.

Apparently the first edition of this book was not so well received because of the numerous grammar oopses. Editing did not fix all, but certainly made it readable.Good authors, regardless of their chosen genre, have the skill to weave words in a manner that provides the reader a distinctly new point of view. Sometimes your old POV is shattered into shards as if it were a dropped glass on concrete, and sometimes it's just nudged in a new direction. Mr. Chandler is the sort of author that can do both.The entire April series of 5 books (as of August 2014) deftly illustrates Mr. Chandler's ability and growth as a story teller.This is not to suggest that books 4 & 5 are without their own grammar glitches, they're there. But at a much lower frequency than in the first two books. Perhaps his proofreaders and editors deserve some credit here.Probable and plausible are two concepts of near future SciFi that are near and dear to my overall enjoyment. Yes, one could quibble over details, but for the most part I give Mr. Chandler high marks for his storyline being plausible.Probable on the the hand? I have little faith that humankind will be able to migrate manufacturing into LEO with the alacrity that Mr. Chandler portrays.For those paying attention, we know that a convergence of circumstances – increased population, pollution, resource depletion, climate instability and extremest religious fervor – will act in concert to create a perfect storm of world-wide instability in the coming years and decades.Mr. Chandler sets this April series in the late 2080's with nary a mention on how humankind makes it through the coming bad times to emerge into a time of large habitats in space, regular tourism and to top it all off, colonies on the moon where (it's implied) several thousand people are off-planet at any one time. As much as I'd love for this sort of future to become a reality for my great grand children, I can't see how the economics, let alone the political realities between competing nations, allow it to happen. Perhaps if Mr. Chandler had at the least outlined a plausible path to the future portrayed in this series I could have found more enjoyment from the probable side of the equation.This review will not suggest that I did not find great enjoyment in the series, I did. I look forward to reading the further adventures and exploits of this crew of characters as they live long lives and expand their influence out into our solar system and then to the (relatively) local stars of our neighborhood. Who knows, Mr. Chandler hinted that there may be a interstellar FTL drive possible from just beyond the Oort cloud. Those tales might be an interesting read too, so we'll patiently await further developments in the overall saga.

It seems the moon is a harsh mistress, with an antagonistic earth below. Perhaps we don't have the revolutionary rhetoric spun up by a newly sentient AI, but Mackey's April series otherwise follows closely in Heinlein's footsteps there. Earth's decadence makes for fine villains. April and her close friends are in the hyper-competent mold that I really enjoy. I've been binge-reading this series along with his other Family Law books. To be honest, Mackey has grown in his craft since the first book, but the fast pacing and fun was there at the start.

I gave this book 5 stars the first time to read it, but I didn’t write a review, and I couldn’t remember what it was about so I decided to reread it. My memory sucks.What I discovered was that I could not understand anything of the first two chapters. However, since I had given it five stars before I decided to stick with it. I’m glad I did. Spoiler alert: This is about a commercial space Station breaking away from the United States of North America because the USNA were about to seize their Rock - a meteor of some worth. The protagonists are mostly children, and April herself is only 14. It is definitely science fiction, because I cannot imagine parents leading a 14-year-old no matter how advanced or intelligent do what she was allowed to do in this book. That said, I was completely involved in the story.

A brief glance at this book may leave you thinking that it’s a Young Adult offering not worth your time. You’d be very wrong. April herself is only nearly 14, true, but her two friends are a few years older and all three are very mature mentally – not to mention geniuses in different fields. The story opens in 2083, and is set in one of multiple orbiting habitats. Several are owned by corporations, not governments, and there’s now a second International Space station – which had me confused when I first met its acronym ISSII. Life up there is quite different to life on the ground, because the US has absorbed Canada and Mexico and become rather totalitarian; there are official neighbourhood informers, not police but more like the old Soviet Zampolits, and no tolerance of the ‘unacceptable’ such as small boys with bare chests. Some other countries seem not much better. Even in the first chapters we have murder by an official agent, and later there’s an armed invasion of the habitat by the North Americans, so this is not a ‘soft’ environment but a true adventure story. As it progresses the three youngsters and their adult allies become more and more interesting to read about, and the cliffhanger at the end left my hurrying to read the second book of the series. With multiple habitats in space you’ll be expecting there to have been other advances too, but they’re touched upon rather than harped upon which makes the background more convincing. In fact, after reading through all of the series so far published I turned straight back to this one to being an immediate reread, something that I only do once in a blue moon for a single book and have never done before with a series.

Every so often you find an author that simply "clicks". In my life, there has been a number of very famous names that I have learned to read and enjoy, but very few have "clicked" from the first page of the first book. This one does. April is the first book of a series I am positive I am going to read from start to finish, although I might split off and read other works in between to keep from burning out.Set in a space station environment flying over a near dystopian fascistic USA that has absorbed Mexico and much of Canada (USNA), our heroine finds herself on a rough and ready fast-track to adulthood in a very well thought out space station and space environment that comes close to cyberpunk without the grit. Chandler's writing shows influences of Heinlein (THIAHM), Gibson (Neuromancer), Weber (Honor Harrington) -- to name a few -- but is not strictly derivative of any of those. It's his own, and it's damn well worth reading.The characters have depth and believability, and there is a lot of tasty foreshadowing indicating ways they are likely to branch out and evolve on their own. While it is still to early to tell if the "Aprilverse" will ever match the "Honorverse" in terms of depth and fan loyalty, the potential is there and I am very much hoping Chandler's other works match the promise shown in this one.If you like your science fiction hard, with minimal handwavium and unicorn farts, you definitely need this guy on your reading list. Tokyo Tengu gives it five stars and a Kirin Beer salute.

Reminded me of Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. A good read which have me another batch of bok somnia.

This is the first book in a continuing series. The narrative ends at a natural break, but there are future books that continue the story. There is a connected series, ‘Family Law’ (I actually read this first, though it’s set in a distant future) that contains the same characters in a more supportive role. Though I read the series in the wrong order, I didn’t feel like I’d missed out or spoilt the plot of this book too much, but if I had to do it again, I would start with this book.This book is set around 60 years in our future. There is are several space stations in orbit around Earth along with a base on the moon. On of those stations live an interesting group of teenagers.April is 13 years old but still looks pre-pubescent due to life extension therapies. She has other gene mods too, such as an ability to process large amounts of food, enhanced reflexes and strength and increased stamina. She’s also very bright. That intelligence often gets tweaked by unusual occurrences that lead to her general need to know what’s going on. Other people sometimes think that means she’s nosy, when in actual fact, she often just wants to help.One of April’s best friends is Heather who is also incredibly intelligent. Heather often does little ‘technical’ jobs for April by making or enhancing gadgets, or writing programs. All of these things help with her businesses and all also the nosiness thing. Heather has an associate and friend, Jeff. Jeff is a genius and a prodigy. He also has a supportive father who encourages his inventive son. Jeff has managed to invent something extraordinary that is going to change the world. Between the three of them, they decide to work together, because the United States of North America believes that they are entitled to everything it wants, including their home.I really enjoyed reading this book and meeting the teenage version of the characters I met in the Family Law series. There are quite a few echoes between the start of this series and the start of that one, the most important being they are about gifted young people who act like adults in extraordinary circumstances. All three of these teenagers are equally interesting though most of the book is focused on April and her transformation into a warrior.All three young people come from different families but they all have parents that are open minded to a certain degree and allow them a much greater level of freedom than most teenagers would be allowed. They also live on a space station, which colours their view of life somewhat.I really enjoyed the political aspects of this book. There were quite interesting discussions on how a political system could and should work and how they look when they stop working for the people they supposedly represent.Now I’ve got sucked into this timeline I want to see what happens to these young people next, because life isn’t all peaches and cream at the end of this book. I’m glad there are LOTS of book in this series.