Deathstalker Return, Deathstalker Legacy and Deathstalker Coda, all by Simon Green.

Simon Green was a favorite author of mine but he's about run the string out here. He writes the literary equivalent of comfort food. You always know what you're going to get and it's fun but it's not overly challenging and in this trilogy he's become a little too repetitive.

Michael Moorcock once claimed that JRR Tolkien was writing "Epic Pooh" in his LOTR , a characterization I don't disagree with entirely but Tolkien was a LOT more serious and hardnosed than Green.

Green writes space opera. It's set millions of years in the future in which humanity is united under a single government (British derived of course) and has spread across the universe. There is peace, largely because a now legendary hero, Owen Deathstalker , led a great rebellion in which the corrupt Empress was overthrown. Now 200 years after Owen disappeared fighting an alien threat to humanity, his descendant Lewis is also outlawed, at least in part because he's stolen the wife of his best friend and current King, Douglass. Unknown to Douglass, a man who was jealous of Lewis' position has set into motion plans to overthrow Douglass and take control of the Empire himself. And oh yes there is another threat to all life (human and alien) in the universe that only the disappeared and presumed dead Owen can deal with.

It's fun writing if you've never read Green before. The heroes are snarky and ironic. The bad guys are suitably despicable. Green ALWAYS has rational male heroes and slightly more powerful, slightly more dangerous female heroines. He writes more strong female characters than any other male sci-fi/fantasy author I can think of. There are plenty of last stands, derring do, plots within plots, double crosses, close calls and battles to the bitter end. Green writes books (and chapters) like old time radio serials.

But if you've read Green before this will all seem recycled. And if heroes won't stay dead and can do thoroughly impossible things, how heroic are they really? Tolkien, for his faults, did a MUCH better job of writing heroic fiction.