War for fun and profit.
Interstellar Gunrunner is a Affectionate Parody Space Opera written by James Wolanyk.
Bodhi Drezek is the titular interstellar gunrunner. A con man and salesman of the best in the galaxy's weaponry, the only thing worse than his morals is his ability to manage his money. Despite regularly making millions in his arms sales to both the tyrannical Halcius Hegemony and the insurgents fighting them, he is drowning in debt. Debt that has interest has surged to the billions and change.
Never one to let a good con go to waste, Bodhi proceeds to seek ways to reduce his massive debt to his psychotic loan sharks by running even bigger cons than before. This is while he's working with some malevolent (but bound) AI, a child prodigy, a divination capable psychic, and a Lovecraftian entity that powers his ship.
There are three volumes in the book:
- Interstellar Gunrunner
- Time Breaker
- Cosmic Savior
The books have since been gathered into a single bundle.
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Series
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: AI can gain independence from their masters and programming if they merge with one another.
- Arms Dealer: Bodhi makes his fortune manufacturing weapons with his enslaved AI and machinery. He sells regularly to both sides and cares little about their use.
- Antihero: Bodhi Drezek is a arms dealer who cheats his customers, friends, and himself.
- Blatant Lies: Bodhi constantly does these along with more plausible lies, claiming he cares about his crew or that he has the money to pay loans.
- Child Prodigy: Gadra is a fantastic artist and painter despite being only about eight years old. Which is good because Bodhi needs art to sacrifice to his Lovecraftian god.
- Consummate Liar: Bodhi lies like he breathes, effortlessly moving from one deception to another, and seems unaware at times that he is since the truth is so alien to him.
- Eldritch Abomination: The higher dimensions are full of alien cosmic horrors that are the only way to travel faster than light.
- The Empire: The Halcius Hegemony is an aggressive, expansionist, Luddite totalitarian theocracy.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Bodhi consoles himself that he's not as awful as his associates due to not being involved in slavery, just arms trafficking and murder (see Moral Myopia).
- La Résistance: The insurgency against the Hegemony is simply called "the insurgents."
- Moral Myopia: Bodhi absolutely despises slavery but sees nothing wrong with arming both sides of a conflict to slaughter one another, including the side that is responsible for most of the slavery in the galaxy.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: Faster than light travel is facilitated by Eldritch Abomination creatures that move around people in exchange for offerings like pain, infants, or art.
- Psychic Powers:
- Ruena, Bodhi's second in command, can see two seconds in the future.
- The inustarzan are an alien race that possesses copious amounts of these to control humans.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Despite his Moral Myopia, Bodhi despises the Hegemony's practice of slavery and is especially repulsed when he finds out they've been using an indigineous species as fuel for their torture chambers.
- The Theocracy: The Hegemony is theoretically (pun intended) ruled in Halcius' name despite doing things like torturing people to alien gods so they can travel through space.
- Villain Protagonist: Bodhi regularly deals in armaments that kill thousands if not millions of people and has no motives beyond making more money. It's just he's against even worse people, usually.
- War for Fun and Profit: Bodhi's business model depends on finding where the insurgency is about to be cracked down on by the Hegemony and then selling to both sides whatever counteracts the other side's weapons. Usually, the Hegemony wins because they can pay more.
Interstellar Gunrunner
- Beast Man: The planet Lattram is populated by a race of bunny people that are being exploited by the Hegemony (and by exploited we mean kidnapped to be put into torture machines to power their Faster Than Light travel). They're called Loppers.
- Big Bad: Nerikhad is Bodhi's primary creditor and the one who has sent him on the Suicide Mission to the planet Lattram.
- Conspicuous Consumption: Bodhi rents a room for loan sharks that costs 20,000,000 credits. Notably this is when he owes them billions and all he has.
- Did Not Think This Through: Bodhi gathers all his creditors together to ask for more money and is stunned when they gang up to get repayment from him.
- Distinction Without a Difference: Bodhi tries to use this to tell his crew that he's not involved with loan sharks."But the truth is, they’re good, honest lenders who happen to use forceful means to collect unpaid debts. And sometimes work outside of legal norms.”"That's a loan shark, Bodhi."
- The Dragon: Kesh is a member of Nerikhad's species and chief enforcer. They have Undying Loyalty and a bit of antimatter in their finger to annihilate Bodhi if he disobeys (the fact they will die too doesn't matter).
- Gone Horribly Right: Bodhi arms the Loppers as Cannon Fodder against the Hegemony in hopes of providing a distraction. He is stunned when due to modifications of their weapons by his AI they not only win against the Hegemony but with few casualties.
- Humanoid Abomination: Nerikhad is a sudrona, which is a Hive Mind race that shares memories and looks like a bunch of fish eggs. He tends to travel around in a tank body that makes him resemble a Daleks.
- It Can Think: Bodhi constantly promises he will let the Left and Right AI of his ship combine some day (he's lying). This is to prevent them from becoming sentient. He becomes greatly unnerved when it becomes increasingly clear they're already intelligent.
- Loan Shark: Nerikhad is Bodhi's primary creditor and a man/alien/Humanoid Abomination that does things like raise humans to feed to plankton.
Time Breaker
- Above the Influence: Bodhi manages to resist Amodari's attempts at seducing him due to his love for Chaska.
- Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Amodari reacts to Bodhi trying to kidnap her with this, fully forcing him to take her hostage.
- Artifact of Doom: The canister in Time Breaker is supposedly contains one of these. It's actually a tool to find an ancient alien god.
- Contrived Coincidence: Bodhi manages to accidentally take one of the richest and most powerful women in the galaxy hostage while visiting an expensive hotel. She's also eager to be kidnapped.
- Downer Ending: Bodhi ends up in the hands of the Hegemony, he abandons his crew, and Kruthara is resurrected.
- Eldritch Abomination: Kruthara is an ancient AI god that used to rule much of the universe. It's resurrected at the end.
- Femme Fatale: Amodari is a seductive, dangerous, and parasitic alien who uses Psychic Powers plus her Screw the Rules, I Have Connections! relationship to the Hegemony to get whatever she wants.
- Human Popsicle: Palamar is kept cryogenically frozen at a spa until the time someone pays his bill.
- The Mole: Palamar is a krutharan who has modified himself to appear as a human being.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The protagonists are responsible for waking up an ancient alien god who wants to destroy all humanity.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Kruthara is an ancient alien god that was destroyed by the Maker. Reviving itself was a goal it had put into motion millions of years earlier.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: Chaska demonstrates this when she decides she will not use the canister on the Hegemony homeworld. It wouldn't have worked anyway.
- Time Abyss: The conflict between Kruthara and the Maker took place long before the existence of most of the present races as well as the revival of humanity from extinction.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Thamok is a Hegemony inquisitor and utterly ruthless. He's also someone interested in making sure Kruthara never rises to consume the galaxy.
Cosmic Savior
- Apocalypse How: Kruthara is spreading across the galaxy, consuming everything with the even slightest bit of human DNA.
- The Chosen One: Bodhi is told that he's this by the Maker but his job isn't to die but to convince Tusky to take his place for him.
- Defiant to the End: The Gnosis hive world prefers to destroy itself in a Taking You with Me than surrender its secrets to Kruthara.
- Distant Finale: The book ends with Chaska and Bodhi become Brain Uploading constructs with Center after the galaxy has been mostly rebuilt.
- Enemy Civil War: The Hegemony and Gnosis split results in a war between the theocrats versus the spider-women.
- Expy: The Maker is one for the God Emperor of Mankind from Warhammer 40K.
- Face Death with Dignity: Averted with Bodhi who becomes a blubbering terrified mess when he thinks he's going to die but, ironically, survives and gains great insight into himself. Played straight with Tusky who goes willingly to his end to save everyone.
- Heel–Face Turn: Bodhi finally makes a conscious choice to do the right thing and make up for his past sins. He even quits arms dealing.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Tusky decides to susbtitute himself for Bodhi in the Maker's machine in order to destroy Kruthara.
- The Quisling: The Hegemony has decided to side with Kruthara even though it plans to annihilate all existence.
- Macguffin: The Maker's Tomb contains the secret to destroying Kruthara.
- Near-Death Experience: Bodhi suffers one of these when he's bitten by a wreckage spider. It leaves him profoundly changed.
- Retired Monster: The Maker used to be a God-Emperor of most of the galaxy and destroyed everything that offended his sense of order. He now seeks inner peace.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Citta Mini latches onto Bodhi and provides him vast amounts of knowledge in exchange for physical sensations.
