This time we catch up with Ish after a 10-year time skip - he finally gets to become a captain, but he's assigned the worst ship in the merchant fleet.  There's nothing wrong with the ship itself, but its crew is definitely problematic.  We know he has fabulous people skills, though, and we've seen him learn a lot in the past 20 years.  It takes a lot of work to overcome their problems - I especially enjoyed the part of the story where he takes a big gamble and then reconsiders.  I appreciated that the author gave him a voice that matched his new stage of life, but I have to say that Ish was very lucky that none of the crew members had grievances against each other, which made his task of building a solid team a whole lot easier than it might have been.

Spoilers ahead. "Captain's Share," the fifth book in this spacefaring science-fiction series, returns to the gentle-hearted tone of the initial three books and I enjoyed it considerably. [Book 4 is considerably darker.]  The narrator, Ishmael, takes on new responsibilities, and finds the good in a crew previously deemed the worst in the fleet. There are dark moments, including in Ishmael's personal life, but overall this made me feel better about life, the universe, and everything.

Four out of five hot-tub stars.

About my reviews: I try to review every book I read, including those that I don't end up enjoying. The reviews are not scholarly, but just indicate my reaction as a reader, reading being my addiction. I am miserly with 5-star reviews; 4 stars means I liked a book very much; 3 stars means I liked it; 2 stars means I didn't like it (though often the 2-star books are very popular with other readers and/or are by authors whose other work I've loved).