The Fourth Consort by Edward Ashton

I’m so glad I took a chance on this book! Ever since I joined NetGalley, I dreamed of the day when I would just be auto-approved for all of my favorite authors.  So a few months back, when I got an email from NetGalley telling me I was auto-approved for a bunch of books by authors I had never heard of, I decided to say “what the heck!” And I downloaded all of them, thinking maybe I’d find something good, maybe I wouldn’t. So I was very pleased to be sucked right into The Fourth Consort by Edward Ashton. I didn’t know anything about this book going in,  it I quickly learned that it was a first contact style book.  Humanity is linked up with a conglomeration of other species (although they are way down in the pecking order) and the protagonist is part of a first contact team for a low tech species of alien bug type people (I kept picturing them as mantis-like).  There is a rival alliance of aliens who get into a shooting match in orbit with this conglomeration resulting in our protagonist stranded on this planet with one other human and a rival alien from a stronger, more violent and honor based culture.  The book was a really fun page turner, hampered just a bit by the protagonist being a great guy who was pretty great at everything he tried. He read like a super-competent cis white guy Andy Weir- style main character and was the least interesting person in the story.  But other than his bland super-competence, the book was a lot of fun! I would totally read something else by this author and I hope he continues these characters’ stories.