Hard Luck Hank Rules! -Fun times.
I listened to the audible version of this book and the narrator basically did the character using a “Patrick Warburton” voice (The Tick) . Hilarious.
Hank is a “Class 4 Mutant”, lives on the space station of “Bellvaille” and is about 300 years old, give or take . His favorable mutation is that you can’t kill him; you can shoot him, stab him, squash him and he heals every time. Hank is big old enforcer thug for the “bosses” of Bellvaille. He sounds like a hard case and he has killed people (but only because they needed it) but he comes across as the “thug with a heart of gold”. Because he has worked for everyone over the years, he has turned into a pretty good negotiator and even though he seems a bit …slow and goofy…he is actually sharp as a tack.
The story takes a while to build up – which is ok . Belvaille is kind of like “Mos Eisley” on a space station (you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy). Basically they make their living on smuggling and illicit sales of…well…just about anything. Hank works for the various “bosses” and the station is run by Garm – a very attractive if frightening female warrior/agent/overlord. First part of the book establishes this and some of the more interesting characters on the space station.
Even MORE interesting characters are introduced – Ji’en and Ji’Onal (spelling may be off as this was an audible book) – the mysterious “tenth level mutant” brother and his blue (most of the time) long eared sister, the “Dreadalead” (very scary robots) and the entire Colmarian Navy – as well as a mysterious super race that uses planets as space ships.
Core of the plot: our Hank must save Belvaille from certain doom. I won’t spoil it for you but there seem to be other books in the series, so you can guess how it goes.
Very fun read – kind of like a comic book but without the pictures.
I think this may be a “YA” book but so what – us old folks can read those too and have a really good time.