In the first book, Terminal Alliance, the EMC Pufferfish was a test case for a new weapon that reverts humans back to their feral state. By happenstance, the only crew not reverted was the Pufferfish's sanitation team, headed by Marion "Mops" Adamopoulos. As Mops and her team work to find out what happened to their crewmates, they not only uncover a plot to destroy the Krakau homeworld, but also the truth behind the plague that turned humans into their current state. Unfortunately, their actions don't leave them in good standing with the Krakau Alliance.
Terminal Uprising starts off several months later with the small crew of the Pufferfish still on the run. When they get intelligence that a feral human on Earth is wearing fur, the team feels compelled to investigate. Are the feral humans evolving? Has someone found a way to fully cure a human back to their original state, as opposed to the modified version that the Krakau use in their military, or is there something even more unexpected happening on Earth?
When the Pufferfish enters Earth's system, Mops will have to divide up her already small skeleton crew. Some will have to go to Earth to search for the strange feral human and some will have to stay on board in order to keep the Pufferfish from falling into the Krakau Alliance's hands... err, tentacles.
The on-ship crew will find some clever solutions to their problems as the Krakau are relentless hunters for the stolen ship, while Mops and her ground-team find themselves in immediate danger. Not only does the team have to contend with packs of feral humans, but Earth life has become very aggressive, especially the packs of roaming dachshunds.
Which brings me to an aspect of this series that is worth mentioning. If you've read Terminal Alliance, you know that there is a comedic streak running through this series, but if you are reading this review without having experienced the first book, then the idea of a pack of wild dachshunds might sound a bit absurd and unexpected. There is an interesting brand of comedy in Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse. The characters in the books don't see the comedic element of many of their situations because they don't have our perspective. Since the Krakau haven't properly restored much of human history, the restored humans don't know much about their race's past. Characters are generally named after historical figures (and usually the wrong gender), assumptions are made based on what little literature has been recovered, and those assumptions are often wrong. Then there are things like dachshunds becoming a dominant predator, which is just silly but it does give the crew some problems.
Like the first book, Terminal Uprising: Book Two of the Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse blends sci-fi and comedy with a touch of horror to make for a compelling story in an interesting universe. Mops and her crew once again find themselves in some tough situations, but this book will cause their perspectives to shift even more, as they end up having to join forces with some new allies, both of the unexpected and unconventional nature.
