Star Risk, Ltd. is a series of five science fiction novels by the late Chris Bunch following a private military contracting company of the same name.
- Star Risk, Ltd. (2002): The company forms and takes on its first contract: to eliminate Space Pirates harassing the Asteroid Miners of the Foley System.
- The Scoundrel Worlds (2003): Star Risk finishes a contract keeping the peace at a skyball tournament, then is hired to prove the innocence of a man condemned for treason.
- The Double-Cross Program (2004): Star Risk is hired to train the army of a planetful of Miles Gloriosuses who want to turn a neighboring planet into a farm for the latest fad foodstuff.
- The Dog From Hell (2005): Having crossed the much larger PMC Cerberus Systems once too often, Star Risk comes under attack from all fronts that forces them out of business. But when Cerberus tries to make their retirement permanent, the group fights back.
- The Gangster Conspiracy (2007): Written by Steve and Dal Perry after Bunch's death, based on Bunch's notes. Star Risk is back in business. They've moved into new offices but can't find any clients. Then a pastor from the Artegal System hires them to protect laborers trying to unionize. Things get complicated from there.
The Star Risk team is:
- Friedrich von Baldur, a former Alliance Navy officer who resigned to evade court-martial.
- M'chel Riss, a former Alliance Marine who left the service after her CO attempted to force himself on her (and failed miserably).
- Jasmine King, an ex-office manager and research specialist for Cerberus Systems who left said company after her boss decided she was too perfect to be human, so she was an android, so he didn't legally need to pay her.
- Amanandrala "Grok" Grookonomonslf, the token nonhuman, an ex-Cerberus contract agent who gave the fledgling company a much-needed cash infusion.
- Chas Goodnight, an ex-Marine "bester" turned jewel thief.
This series provides examples of:
- Ace Pilot / Badass Bookworm: Frequent subcontractor Redon Spada looks like a bespectacled teacher, but is absolutely lethal at the controls of a starship and can fly everything from gunships to destroyers.
- Action Girl: Riss, being a former Marine. King is a lesser case since she mainly stays in the office, but as she demonstrates in book 5 she's no slouch either.
- The Alliance: The dominant human interstellar government is called the Alliance, but the details are fairly vague.
- All Women Hate Each Other: M'chel Riss and Jasmine King are both attractive blonde women, and when they first meet each other Riss's narration comments that she would find it very easy to hate Jasmine. As it turns out, they hit it off pretty quickly.
- Anti-Hero: The entire team. They have standards, but they're in it for the money.
- Awesome, but Impractical: One book mentions that Star Risk tried to hang onto a destroyer they bought and crewed for one of their off-screen jobs, until a Star Risk accountant explained to Freddy that they couldn't afford to maintain it.
- The Bad Guy Wins: In Star Risk LTD, the conspirators successfully get away with their crime and presumably make a massive fortune off of it. The only people that get punished are the low-ranking mercs and a handful of the lower ranking conspirators.
- Bears Are Bad News: That's basically what Grok's species looks like. At one point in book five, he makes use of the similarity.
- Bittersweet Ending: Star Risk Ltd ends with the Star Risk team eliminating most of the mercenaries of Murgatryd as well as some of the people organization the plot. However, the villains successfully drive out Transkootenay Mining and the financiers presumably make a killing. Somewhat mitigated because the protagonists make off with all of the money that Reg Goodnight had been accumulating.
- Boom, Headshot!: Reg Goodnight is dispatched by M'chel this way at the end of Star Risk LTD.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive:
- Cerberus is a bunch of slimy corporate raiders and war profiteers who are our heroes' chief competitors.
- Reg Goodnight turns out to be one of the individuals behind the plot of Star Risk even though it means betraying his own brother.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Riss and Freddy meet in the Action Prologue when she executes a hostage rescue where he's one of the guards. Shortly after, he invites her to be his business partner.
- Evil Plan: The plot in Star Risk LTD is that the Murgatroyd faction is a bunch of local politicians working with Reg Goodnight as well as a huge number of mercenaries to kill as many miners as possible to drive them out of the system. This will result in Transkootenay Mining's contract being voided and the opposition being able to make a killing selling the contract to someone else. They more or less succeed.
- False Flag Operation: Murgatroyd is launching constant attacks against the miners in the Foley system in order to force the miners out for their secret masters. It turns out they're the local opposition party and want to make a lot more money with their own corporate mining contract.
- Genius Bruiser: Grok is good with computers and cryptography and a thoroughly terrifying combatant.
- Insane Troll Logic: Exploited. Jasmine King left Cerberus Systems in the backstory after her boss tried to withhold her pay on grounds that she was too perfect (too good at her job and too beautiful) to be human, and therefore must secretly be an android. For the record, she isn't, and no robot of that kind is ever encountered in the series.
- Non-Indicative Name: Freddy mentions in book one that the concept of a limited liability company is really a thing of the past, but he likes the way the name "Star Risk, Limited" sounds.
- Private Military Contractors: Both Star Risk Ltd. and their major competition, Cerberus.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Oh, so much.
- Rape as Backstory: Downplayed. M'chel Riss is said to have left the Marines after her CO decided her next posting should be to his bed (her words, roughly). She doesn't dwell on it and it's left vague if the incident involved an actual assault or just persistent harassment.
- Ridiculously Human Robot: Cerberus claims that Jasmine King is one of these and the property of Cerberus. This is complete nonsense even if the other team members sometimes wonder. [[spoiler: She's not.
- Semper Fi/Space Marines: Riss left the Alliance Marines after her CO decided her next posting should be to his bed. Goodnight was dishonorably discharged for theft.
- Signature Style: Steve Perry's is highlighted by the little differences between The Gangster Conspiracy and the other four books. Perry tends to go for the World of Badass, so previous Jasmine King gets multiple Action Girl moments. He also brings in concepts like a type of computer called the betydelse space that previously appeared in the Matador Series.
- Sociopathic Hero: All of them have shades of this on occasion (kinda comes with being mercenaries), but Goodnight is the best example.
- Someone to Remember Him By: Jasmine King falls in love with the team's second client in Conspiracy, but he's killed soon after. In the epilogue, she reveals she's pregnant.
- Space Pirates: The raiders in Star Risk LTD are apparently this but their attacks are not to rob anyone but just kill as well as destroy.
- Super-Soldier: "Besters" like Goodnight are cybernetically and biochemically enhanced so that with the flick of a switch, they can move several times faster than normal humans. The Gangster Conspiracy reveals that the augmentation has the unintended benefit of enabling besters to analyze situations much faster as well.
- Token Nonhuman: Grok's species is never actually stated.
- Tuckerization: Riss is named after Chris Bunch's friend Michelle Rice, a US Marine.
- Two Girls to a Team: Two women, two men, and a male alien.
- The Unpronounceable: Grok's full name is Amanandrala Grookonomonslf. He even admits that this is only a close approximation of it.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Riss and Redon Spada have a persistent attraction that never really goes anywhere.
