The Janitors are back in another space adventure! This time Mops and the crew of the ECM Pufferfish are off on another mission with the covert assistance of Admiral Pachabel while Admiral Sage has set up a secret medical facility on Earth. So the ECM Pufferfish returns to where every member of the ECM fear - Earth - a planet filled with feral humans, wild dogs, and who know what else. And they have Advocate of Violence, a Prodryan lawyer in tow. Using janitorial skills, logic, and assistance from hidden librarians, Mops may have a chance, but only if the odds fall right. A fun read and a great listen (I recommend the Graphic Audio version) that will keep you rooting for the spunky janitors!

Still fun, but somehow not quite up to the first book. This is clearly setting up for a third book which I will definitely also read.

Mops and the crew make their way to earth. Somewhere on earth there is a fully recovered human as well as a secret lab creating a new weapon. Along the way they pick up a Prodryan spy and escape the Krakau by siccing a pod of space-going whales on their ship. But reaching earth seems to have been the least of their problems as they find themselves crashed on earth with no way to leave. What they find there is not what they expected.

Fast moving and humorous - overall a great read. I am looking forward to the next chapter in the saga

Hines newest entry is fantastic. He is the best at developing a lot of unique characters and creating strange and wild worlds. Can't wait for the next!

Published by DAW on February 12, 2019

Terminal Uprising is the sequel to Terminal Alliance, in which we learned that humans have gone feral, not to say zombie-like. An alien race called the Krakau admitted Earth into its alliance after restoring some humans to a relatively normal condition. The process renders humans resistant to pain, which makes them useful as soldiers. Humans are feared on other worlds because they are hard to kill.

Marian “Mops” Adamopolous is a restored human who, in Terminal Alliance, was placed in charge of a team of janitors that maintained a Krakau military vessel. The mix of humans and nonhumans under Mops’ command are skilled cleaners and adept at repairing plumbing clogs. They used those skills in Terminal Alliance to overcome aliens who were plotting against them, but found themselves at odds with the Krakau, in part because they took command of a Krakau starship, the Pufferfish.

Having apparently committed treason against the Krakau, Mops and her team begin Terminal Uprising on the run. Mops is soon working with a Prodryan, a member of race that is at war with the Krakau and everyone else. The Prodryan delivers a message from one of Mops’ few remaining friends among the Krakau, an Admiral who tells her about a location on Earth that seems to be curing feral humans. Mops decides to go to Earth and investigate. Political intrigue ensues, followed by chases, explosions, and chaos.

Like the first novel, Terminal Uprising employs action and humor to tell a fun, fast-moving story. Much of the humor comes from the fact that Mops and her crew were originally assigned to sanitation. They rely on cleaning supplies rather than weapons to solve their problems. That joke threatens to wear thin in Terminal Uprising, but Jim C. Hines manages not to wear it out. Hines creates amusing aliens and finds humor in both human and alien behavior.

The novel ends on a hopeful note for the human race and sets up Mops for her next adventure. I don’t know that the premise would sustain a long series of novels, but Hines’ success with the second novel suggests that there is room for one more if Hines chooses to write it.

RECOMMENDED

It starts off slow and kind of dense, but once the action begins, it's hard to resist the story as it drives forward. It reads as a true epic, one that makes you feel the world really has been reshaped as you read it. Would recommend.

This series manages to provoke thought about what it means to be human, what constitutes really living versus merely existing, the tragedy of failing to accept responsibility and make amends for mistakes, the danger of blaming – and punishing – entire races for the evil actions of only some of their members, whether the ends can sometimes justify the means, and the question of whether it’s ever really possible to accept and move on (and maybe even forgive) after being on the receiving end of a catastrophic, grievous wrong.

I really enjoyed these books. They employ some great humor, have some imaginative alien races, and explore the role of support staff (which is largely ignored in most science fiction and fantasy) in the context of some serious themes – while managing, in my opinion, to avoid the annoying “tryhard” humor which characterizes so many of the SFF books which are intended to be amusing. I loved the major role played by librarians, and I especially enjoyed the character which is an ongoing meta-reference to a notorious late 20th-century villain. I’m really looking forward to the final book in the trilogy, Terminal Peace.

I look forward to every Jim Hines book. He sense of wit and humor never fail to amaze me. Even though his books are fantasy it's classic underdog characters resonate well with all types of readers. I am anxiously awaiting the next book of the series.

I’ve been a fan of Jim C. Hines ever since I first stumbled across his Magic Ex Libris series a few years ago and have yet to dislike a single book of his that I’ve read. So I was pretty excited to receive a copy of this book a few weeks ago. I actually made it around a quarter of the way through the story before I realized this was the second book in a series but by that point, I couldn’t stop reading. Terminal Uprising was a fun and action-packed read that had me laughing the entire way through despite not really understanding what was going on early int he book.

I think the thing I love most about this author is the way he takes some of the most ridiculous plot ideas and turns them into books that are all but impossible to put down. I don’t know of anyone other authors except maybe Brandon Sanderson who could take something as mundane as a group of janitors and turn them into galaxy traveling heroes and have the concept work so well.

The other thing that I think Jim C. Hines did really well in Terminal Uprising (And the previous book I’m assuming) was create surprisingly realistic characters for such a ridiculous story and setting. I loved reading about Marion “Mops” Adamopoulos and her entire crew and thought the way the whole book was filtered through the dirt and grime seeking gaze of a bunch of janitors was just fantastic. I think it really says something about this book and it’s characters that I enjoyed them so much despite skipping the first book entirely.

All in all, I thought Terminal Uprising was a fantastic read and I can’t wait to see what happens next in the series. I’ve already started listening to the audiobook of Terminal Alliance so that I can catch up on the events that lead up to this story. I only wish this book was available as an audiobook as well so that I can experience it again in a new medium.

A worthy follow up to Terminal Rising by Jim C. Hines. Plenty of laugh out loud moments and proof that humanity will not be saved by the rich and powerful, but those who clean our toilets and guard our culture.

I was really excited to read this title and it did not disappoint! The first book was fantastic, funny and creative. I was a bit worried the second book would lose steam but it didn't. It was well edited and sucked me right in.

Hines follows up his fabulous and fun Terminal Alliance with the further adventures of the EMCS Pufferfish crewed by its former janitorial staff under the command of Marion “Mops” Adamopoulos. Still on the run from the Krakau they are drawn back to Earth by intel hinting at a cure to the human’s feral problem. But there’s more going on than even their sources believe. And I think that’s as far as I can go without spoilers—beyond saying Mops is brilliant! I had so much laugh out loud fun with this book. I can’t wait to see what happens next!

n “Terminal Alliance”https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N0232CC/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1, Jim Hines sensational space opera, a motley crew of bio-engineered janitors is forced to step up and save the universe. After a bio-weapon decimates the alien Krakau command crew on the space cruiser EMCS Pufferfish, Marion “Mops” Adamopoulos, the senior, and very smart, janitor, and her small crew of cleanup specialists thwarts the savage alien Prodryan’s plan for universal conquest, while learning the truth about what caused humanity's descent into feral cannibalistic behavior on Earth (hint it was not because of something humans did, there was an outside agency involved) and simultaneously having to figure out how to pilot and defend the ship in space battles. While Hines milks the entire janitor motif to the hilt, he combines a sharp wit and sly humor as he skewers a lot of sf tropes in this super fun read. We need more books like Terminal Alliance in science fiction.

“Terminal Uprising”, Hines humorous follow-up to the terrific “Terminal Alliance” continues Mops and her crew’s adventures. Now free from Krakuan dominance, Mops and her crew are piloting their stolen space cruiser, the Pufferfish, but running into issues with supplies. Admiral Pachelbel, a Krakuan, who wants to do the right thing has provided information to Mops, which requires them to pick up Cate, a Prodryan lawyer, with all the nasty lawyer tricks, with a secret agenda (and everyone has a secret agenda). Pachelbel wants Mops to go back to Earth, which is guarded by the Krakua space force, because there have been sightings on Earth of non-feral humans. During her trip to get Cate, Mops slyly defeats an Krakua armada trying to capture her ship with another awesome display of alien anatomy and janitorial knowledge.

Continuing their journey to Earth, Mops continues her talent for milking all of the alien races fear of human warrior talents. One of the story elements of Terminal Alliance is that the Krakuan's bio-engineered most humans into ferocious unstoppable space warriors, who they have been using to dominate the universe. While they breach the Krakuan space barrier surrounding on Earth, Mops, Cate, Monroe and Wolf, one of her crewmates, and a woman who really wants to be a warrior, if she only could shoot straight, get to the surface, but lose their shuttle, while the rest of the crew hide in space.

On Earth, Mops and her cohort find the non-feral survivors living in fortified underground towns. Its not that people have found a cure. Some people were just immune from the bio- weapon that decimated Earth's populous. But Mops and her crew and the earthlings come under attack from Krakuan forces illegally on Earth. It seems like there is another secret plot afoot to keep the Krakuans in power. Since Mops crew defeated the Procydans, the Krakuans think they need help to stop the surging Procydans from destroying the universe. In the ensuing confrontation, the human survivors of Earth and Mops ragtag group of janitors will have to use all of their wits and strategically placed cleaning supplies to defeat the Krakuan traitors.There are some very good scenes here. Confrontations between Mops and the evil Krakuans and between Wolf and the earthlings. Wolf does a lot of growing up.


Besides Hines' witty prose and humor, what made Terminal Alliance such a fun read was three things - the juxtaposition of Mops lowly janitor position with the saving the universe plot, the likability of the characters and a fast moving adventure story set in different alien locations. In Terminal Uprising, Hines shifts the setting to Earth, and away from space battles, and the action involves a whole new group of characters. There is less journeying around the universe meeting new aliens and more stationary settings. I think this detracted a bit from the freshness of the first book. Maybe it’s just hard to still milk the same jokes as is the first novel. But I think it’s also hard to strike lightning in a bottle. This is a really good novel, a fun read that will keep you fully engaged, and for a second book in a trilogy it more than holds its own against other books out there. Its just not as fun a read as Terminal Alliance.



But it’s definitely worth a read. I would follow Mops anywhere.

In the crowded field of fantasy, paranormal superheroes and fantasy mystery mashups, it’s good to pick up a fun witty sf space opera novel filled with likable characters and humorous situations. Snap up the pair.

Book 2 does not disappoint as the janitors head to the most dangerous place in the universe...Earth.

It's like Jim C. Hines looked into my soul and saw exactly what I wanted in a military space opera.

I love milSFF, but I've been so damn tired of the over-used grunt/pilot tropes that float around. Yes yes yes, infantry and pilots are the fighters, but hear me out on this. In current times, we've got four support personnel for every 1 grunt dude (honestly the number is probably higher but I'm too lazy to look it up)...and that four people includes air crew and pilots.

But do we have a lot of fiction (SFF or otherwise) that reflects the support personnel? Nope.

So I'm super excited by military space janitors. And the concept works so damn well too.

Also, I felt like this book really came into its own. The first book was a little jarring and disjointed, but this one flowed smoothly. There was the usual bumbling, but it didn't feel like they were blindly staggering from incident to incident. There was a purpose and an active plotline throughout the story.

Of course, I could be biased because there are librarians who are the saviors of the remains of humanity and I um, am a librarian, but eh.

Just read it.

The stakes are higher. The action is more intense. And it's a fun ride all the way through.

Oh, and Puffy gets an upgrade.

A maniacal, scary upgrade.

That may or may not involve a battle mop.

Yeah. You heard that right.

Battle. Mop.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

I was all in with the sideways take on the space opera and the zombie apocalypse in Terminal Alliance, and Terminal Uprising builts beautifully off the comic profundity of its predecessor. The series so far has a winsome mix of slapstick, poop jokes, and the difficult questions about what it means to be human. The decision to return to Earth was a good one, and the new characters introduced interesting new conflicts. (Indeed, the lawyer for the Pufferfish read like a version of the lawyers in Frank Herbert's Dosadi Experiment, which was a well-beloved text when I was a wee lass. But Hines' version is way better for older me, because he has a sense of humor. I'm not sure anyone would accuse Herbert of such a thing.)

Terminal Uprising is that rare class of fiction that presents as a comedy, but nonetheless fillets you with its deeper, more human and humane concerns. Well done.

Terminal Uprising features the kind of universe that’s infinite in its reach, originality, and hilarity. The cast of characters making up the crew is downright brilliant, showcasing a dynamic somewhere between friendship and annoyance. Everything about the book is intriguing, and it left me desperate to read whatever comes next in the series.

It’s the inexperience of the crew that made the novel shine in my eyes. This is a group thrust into their current roles unexpectedly, forced to captain, fly, navigate, and fire back at enemies with no more training than a few hours reading manuals. They’re taking it a day at a time and we get to see them grow, individually and as a team.

This is a great addition to Hines’ Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse series, but can definitely be read as a standalone novel. Look to Terminal Uprising if you’re ready to chase mayhem and danger while laughing all the way.

I love Mops and her crew. When last seen they had left in the Pufferfish and I was left wondering what they would get up to. Seems that they have spent the last few months dodging capture and as this adventure opens they are sent off on a mission to Earth. What follows is a plot full of action, adventure, tension, danger and discovery. Once again their janitorial skills come in handy in defeating the enemy. I really liked how the crew changed and grew as they faced events that were both dangerous and uplifting. You would think they would get a rest but as this task ends they are presented with another. That one is for the next book.

I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.

NOT a stand alone, you've really got to be familiar with the world Jim has built to fully appreciate this. Fortunately, going back for the first books was no hardship, and now look at me, stuck on a NEW series! LOVE Jim Hines!

Below is the review I posted on my blog: https://garik16.blogspot.com/2018/12/scififantasy-book-review-terminal.html

Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher, Daw Books, in advance of the novel's release on February 12, 2019 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way (if I'd not liked the book, I just would not have reviewed it).

Terminal Uprising is the second book in Jim Hines' "Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse" series and the sequel to last year's Terminal Alliance (Review Here). As you may imagine from the series title, this is a pretty un-serious scifi story filled with jokes and as a result, the first book was a lot of fun. That first book didn't really end with a cliffhanger but left several directions for the plot to go in future books, and so I was very much looking forward to seeing where Terminal Uprising took these characters.

In the end, Terminal Uprising is an enjoying second novel in the series, but felt a bit like a step back from its predecessor. Don't get me wrong, the book is still fun and I really enjoy the characters and their development in this novel, but this book is a little less filled with jokes (at least it felt that way to me) and the story is a bit more grounded - literally in fact. The result is still a solid novel that I can easily recommend to those who enjoyed Terminal Alliance, but it didn't quite take that step up I was hoping for.



Note: If you don't read Terminal Alliance before this book, you're going to be a bit confused and really miss out on who these characters are, so you really shouldn't start this series with this book. If you are the type to enjoy this type of story anyway, you'll enjoy Terminal Alliance, so there's no point of trying to skip ahead anyhow.
---------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------
Marion "Mops" Adamopoulos and the crew of the EMCS Pufferfish were supposed to just be Hygiene and Sanitation workers - in other words, Janitors. Instead, the team - Mops, Wolf, Kumar, Monroe, and Grom, plus former bouncer Rubin and the hated Rokkau named Azure - are now fugitives from the Krakau Alliance, looking for clues to rescue Azure's people from their imprisonment and for ways to help humanity in general. This has generally involved flying from place to place, looking for clues, and trying not to get killed by using all their janitorial skills in the strangest ways possible.

But when Mops gets a lead from the sympathetic Admiral Pachelbel that another Krakau Admiral - Admiral Sage - is performing significant experiments on humans, the team is forced to go to the one planet they hoped to never go back to - Earth, now in shambles due to the Krakau plague that turned all of humanity into feral monsters.

But what the crew finds on Earth is nothing like what they expected and reveals even more truths that were kept from humans by the Krakau.....as well as the sinister plans of Admiral Sage, who will stop at nothing to try and stop the Alliance's enemies, the Prodryans. And after all this time, Sage has gotten wise to the crew's janitorial-based tactics, so the crew may find themselves in a situation on Earth they can't get out of.....
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terminal Uprising is a rather fun book, thanks to its combination of some clever writing and some really fun and enjoyable characters. Each chapter begins with a snippet from a writing or from characters away from the main action that often provides a laugh, and then the main storyline frequently adds to that, with the crew's janitorial skills providing some.....unconventional ways of handling their dangerous circumstances.

Again, the characters are a big part of that. Mops makes a really fun main character, and the rest of the team is still particularly great. One character who gets a real shine to develop in this book is Wolf, who was (and still is) a punch-first, talk-later reckless as hell character in the first book but actually gets some pretty great development here - and still provides a lot of rather great comic relief. And then there's the book's new member of the team, Advocate of Violence (aka "Cate"), who is a murderous alien.....attorney, which speaks to this attorney's heart so damn much.

The plot is also particularly well done, with the crew continuing to find new ways to put their janitorial skills to great use, and the genre-savvy antagonist actually realizing that and trying to counter them by anticipation. Part of what the crew finds on Earth isn't that unpredictable for the reader - the reader can see part of it coming from its inception (at least I did) - but it all works well and ties together rather neatly. And the ending is done in a nice satisfying unconventional way, so that even though the book presents some sequel hooks, it never feels incomplete.

Still, I thought Terminal Uprising was a step down from Terminal Alliance for two reasons, both of which might be remedied next book. The first was that the story seemed to me to lose a little bit of its humor from the first book, which I described as being as rapid fire on the jokes as possible while still having a coherent plot, with more jokes working than not. By contrast, Terminal Uprising leans a bit more into the seriousness with the plot - the book is still definitely on the light side don't get me wrong (new character "Cate" as mentioned above is a joy in this regard), but the difference was not what I was hoping for.

The second drop off was that the book takes place pretty much entirely on Earth, whereas the first involved the crew adventuring to many systems, and the result is that the focus of the worldbuilding is actually narrowed, and a bit less interesting as a result. This change promises for sure to be remedied next book based upon the sequel hooks involved here.

Anyhow, if you want a lighter SF series, this series definitely still qualifies, and I look forward to the next book whenever it comes out.

Oh, so good. The story really gets into the conspiracy and some of the inter-species politics while still having fast-moving adventures for the individual characters. The writing is super funny and imaginative-- I may have convinced my spouse to read it based on how a drain snake and pipe sealant are used in battle scenarios. It feels like there will either be a bit of a cast change in book 3 or [mini-spoiler?] the story focus will expand to cover characters in more places in the galaxy. The next one can't come fast enough!