Book Review--What Distant Deeps

What Distant Deeps, Number Eight in the Royal Cinnabar Navy (RCN) Series, could be titled "The Problem With Proxies." 

Ordered to escort a new ambassador to the planet of Palmyra, Daniel Leary and Adele Mundy discover the Palmyrans are secretly pursuing their own agenda.  With the help of some corrupt Cinnabar citizens, Psycho Queen Irene, plans to conquer neighboring Zenobia.  The problem is, Zenobia is allied with Cinnabar's former enemy, the Alliance of Free Stars (a Peoples Republic of Tyranny).

Should Zenobia fall to the Palmyrans, Gaurantor Porra, the BigBad of the Alliance of Free Stars, will consider this an act of war and will resume hostilities with Cinnabar.

To thwart the Palmyran plan, Leary and Mundy team-up with an Alliance naval officer commanding two destroyers and set out to save the day.

Published in 2011, the book is still available on Amazon.com, and has garnered an average rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars (26 x 5-stars, 13 x 4-stars, 6 x 3-stars and 1 x 2-stars).

What I enjoyed most about the book is the character interactions of True Companions Daniel and Adele, along with their Ragtag Bunch of Misfits crew. 

Although, after reading the other reviews on Amazon, there's a growing sense of fatigue among the readers, even the 4-star raters.  The most common comments are the RCN stories have become formulaic:  Adele manages to hack into the bad guys computer systems, then Daniel out-sails or outmaneuvers them in a space battle...lather, rinse and repeat.

While this pattern is certainly evident, I still find the series entertaining and intend to buy and read more of  David Drake's "Aubrey-Martin IN SPACE!"

The series has been around long enough to earn an extensive list of tropes.