Holy molly. I actually felt quite similar about the first one, but the second one was so ridiculously absurd that I felt I had been fooled by the first (quarter share) book? Did you feel a huge change in the second book? I genuinely could not tell if I had been misreading the first one or if the book went straight off into wish fulfillment absurdity?

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6945329546 (quarter share)

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6973501411 (half share)

▲ shagie 18 hours ago | parent [-]

The first three are a "tour" of the way a ship operates. Steward (and cargo), engineering (book 2), and deck (book 3). Of the first three, I think the second is the weakest, but book 3 picks up. There's possibly a bit of wish fulfillment writing in there... after becoming an officer (book 4), there's very little of "time in port" as responsibilities dictate otherwise.

Book 4 has a time jump of college - four years are a few paragraphs... and then he's an officer in a very unhappy ship. Books 5 and 6 finish off the 'share' sequence. If the first three are coming of age of a youth, the next three are the coming of age of a man.

If you're going through and reading them, at this point I'd switch to the "Run" series which has two young women in a very small ship in the toeholds. There's a lot of world building associated with it. These have much more of a plot to them.

Dark Knight Station: Origins might be a good read at this point if we're establishing a reading order which establishes the backstory of two characters (one who appears in Home Run, the other who appears in Suicide Run). Home Run fills in some gaps outside of Ishmael. The three books together help with some of the larger backstory that will show up several times.

This then brings us back to Ishmael with the series In Ashes Born, To Fire Called, and By Darkness Forged. Not going to provide any plot elaboration that might spoil previous books (things do keep building).

And lastly, there's the "School" series with SC Marva Collins with School Days, Working Class, and Hard Knocks... and this is as far as the author has gotten with the Solar Clipper series.

---

If you had trouble with the 2nd, finish the 3rd and then give the 4th a try. I like the entire series and its world building. The mundanity of Ishmael's life (where exciting is often not a good thing). I really liked the later books - especially In Ashes Born.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/206519-solar-clipper-univer... - you'll see that Half Share is the lowest score of them.

▲ stephen_cagle 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Thank you for the reading list! I appreciate it.

Since you seem to be a real fan of the series and enjoy it, I will take your advice and read a future one at some point. But I would be curious what your feelings on a re-read of book 1 and 2 would be? I was just completely floored by the change in character that I saw in book 2. I felt like the book started with a normal, slightly above average, inquisitive character, who is handling new (and often mundane) challenges in his life one item (trading stand) at a time. And book 2 just retconed him into a gigachad who seemed to have none of the uncertain or hesitant nature of the book 1 character.

	▲	shagie 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'd contend that his insecurities were about the culture that he found himself in... which incidentally is an important point. From book 6: `"... Ms. Maloney, as soon as you signed the Articles, you became a spacer." I almost smacked myself in the head for saying that. I couldn’t even imagine how many times I’d said I wasn’t a spacer. I sighed inwardly at my own stupidity.` This is timestamped as 2372.. book 2 is 2352. I don't see it as him being insecure about himself as such. He's as much of a chad as any physically fit 19-year-old is... He's still as culturally insecure at 20 as he is when he's 40 - trying to figure out how he fits in as a spacer who wasn't born to a spacer family. So how does one handle the cultural insecurities at different points in one's life? At 20? At 40? nearly 50? Book 5 gets a bit into the difference between the expectations of a planet (or station) life and that of a spacer and the stress there on relationships (and how they can work). From the start of In Ashes Born this is stated quite clearly when talking to a therapist: `My sessions with Mal Gains continued to be interesting even if I didn’t find them terribly fruitful. He introduced me to more family-of-origin stuff. He placed great store in the idea that I’d been raised in a culture of academe with its values of knowledge, truth-seeking, and reputation but then shifted to the culture of spacer with values like dependability, competence, and upward mobility.` I'd contend that the overall arch of Ishmael's story is about seeking to be part of a family and with various people helping him learn that along the way.