"Summer's End" by John Van Stry
https://www.amazon.com/Summers-End-John-Van-Stry/dp/1982192291

Book number one of a two book science fiction space opera series. I
read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Baen
in 2022 that I purchased from Amazon in 2022. I have ordered the second
book in the series from Amazon, "Sometimes in the Fall".
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1668072475

In the far distant future, Earth is a nasty crowded place with twenty
billion inhabitants. The people are split up into three classes: the
doles (the poor on welfare), the proles (todays middle class), and the
elites. Billion more of humanity have spread widely across the Solar
System to just about any place that people can figure out how to live.

Dave Walker, the son of a prole father and a elite mother, is a recent graduate of a spaceship engineer school and looking for a job leaving
Earth. He gets a job on a old spaceship freighter visiting Earth, the
Iowa Hill, as the second engineer. But his mother's new elite husband
is running for a political office high up in the government and does not
want him around at all.

I love Space Opera and this an excellent book of it. I look forward to
the second book and will read it soon. The author has plans for a third
book in the series which sounds great.

The author has a website at:
https://jvanstry.blogspot.com/
and
http://johnvanstry.com/

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (834 reviews)

Lynn


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:32:23 -0500, Lynn McGuire wrote:

The people are split up into three classes: the doles (the poor on
welfare), the proles (todays middle class), and the elites.

Dang. Missed the chance to call the last one ?s?holes? ...

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 7/15/2026 5:52 PM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

On Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:32:23 -0500, Lynn McGuire wrote:

The people are split up into three classes: the doles (the poor on
welfare), the proles (todays middle class), and the elites.

Dang. Missed the chance to call the last one ?s?holes? ...

Write your own book. You can call them what you want.

Amazon rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (834 reviews)

Given the industry ratio that 1 out of 100 readers leave a review, your
book needs to be pretty good to get the attention that John Van Stry's
book has with an estimated 83,400 readers.

Lynn


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Wed, 15 Jul 2026 18:31:53 -0500, Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 7/15/2026 5:52 PM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

On Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:32:23 -0500, Lynn McGuire wrote:

The people are split up into three classes: the doles (the poor on
welfare), the proles (todays middle class), and the elites.

Dang. Missed the chance to call the last one ?s?holes? ...

Write your own book. You can call them what you want.

You seem miffed ...

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 7/15/2026 7:25 PM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

On Wed, 15 Jul 2026 18:31:53 -0500, Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 7/15/2026 5:52 PM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

On Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:32:23 -0500, Lynn McGuire wrote:

The people are split up into three classes: the doles (the poor on
welfare), the proles (todays middle class), and the elites.

Dang. Missed the chance to call the last one ?s?holes? ...

Write your own book. You can call them what you want.

You seem miffed ...

Nope. I was totally serious.

Seems like everyone is writing their own books nowadays. Me, I cannot
write for crap. But I have a good story idea.

Lynn


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)