(Contains spoilers.)
If you enjoy easygoing sci-fi space opera adventure, which makes for a fun, quick, and easy read, this might be for you. Judging by the reviews online, many readers love this book as it’s sort of “Firefly with Han Solo as the captain.” Despite such cool vibes, the plot was just too aimless for my taste.
Title: Any Job Will Do
Author: John Wilker
Genre: Sci-Fi Space Opera Adventure
Pages: 336
Independently published: 2021
Buy the book
When you have a plot based around a small group of characters, performing roguish odd jobs for "random" clients, you need strong and interesting characters. Because each time a job ends, they will be the only thing keeping you reading.
Do we find this here?
Well, at the beginning of the book, the author does a good job when he introduces our main character, Jax. He’s a starship captain and something of a Han Solo-type...charming and skilled…but in a less cool way than Han.
Jax does all the roguish space adventuring stuff you’d expect, such as outsmarting more dangerous starships in combat, smuggling goods right under the nose of the imperial authorities, and of course...he’s a lady's man (or any gender’s man, I guess you’d say today.)
Or that is...he’s trying to be.
You see, it’s not easy because Jax is quite lazy...when not in combat, and his relationships fizzle out quickly. Mostly they are one-night stands.
You could say, that Jax gets into trouble fast...and repeatedly…on multiple fronts. And speaking of sexual innuendo, this lighthearted space opera is brimming with humorous sophomore vibes. If you like that sort of thing, you should buy this book by clicking here.
The crew are AIs
At the beginning of the book, our space captain mostly interacts with the gallery of sentient AI droids on his ship (they do almost all of the work.) While each of these “tinmen” is likable and has a different feel, I did miss some human interaction while on the ship and some thoughts or dialogue around how it is to have one’s coworkers and friends being AIs. This would have helped make the droids more interesting, as they are too often nothing but comic relief or combat monsters.
On the upside of all this Jax-droid interaction, I got to know the droids better.
There are also several other characters, and they are all just fine. They are distinct. Characters, like Naomi, even have “something,” but it just seems like more could been done to make her and others feel more 3-dimensional.
Verdict
Overall, I liked the setting, which reminded me of both Firefly and Star Wars. I liked that many of the characters were easy to get to know and like. The odd jobs they performed were…alright.
Regarding the question I needed answered about whether the characters were strong and interesting, I’d say that Jax initially is, but becomes less interesting as the story progresses. I would have wished he’d become more interesting. I’d also have liked a stronger hand in letting me feel where this was all going. Even in a character-driven story, I’d like a visible plot.
Still, Jax's appeal, and that of the human and droid gallery of people surrounding him, kept me interested till about halfway through Any Job Will Do. Following a scene with Jax cleaning the space equivalent of a toilet, I simply stopped reading (DNF at 47%.)
It's not that I didn't suspect that there was some cool stuff coming up (combat, acts of thieving, and perhaps a real girlfriend for Jax along the way, yay!) but I'm just not that interested in space latrines, and so this became my place to put the book down. It’s shitty not to read the entire book, I know (pun intended, sorry,) but at this point, it had become clear that even though this is a fast and easy read, the story isn't strong enough to become my pick for SPSFC quarterfinalist.
Had I been the editor, my advice would be to compress the handful of scenes following the rescue mission to make the plot progress faster toward the more interesting parts. Give the characters some extra work (this is the first in a series of four books, so it’s important to get them right,) and after the first few maintenance scenes, I'd tone down the maintenance stuff such as my bane...latrine duty. The first time you have a cooking or TV-watching scene it helps set the mood and build the world, but I feel that repeated such scenes drains the energy. Also, I’d either have toned down or toned up the “frat-boy mood” of the book.
That said, thank you for the story. I did have fun.