"Pirates: Book 6, the New Frontiers Series" by Jack L. Knapp

"Pirates: Book 6, the New Frontiers Series" by Jack L. Knapp
    https://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Book-6-New-Frontiers/dp/1092704264/
Book number six of a eight book science fiction space opera series.  I reread the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback self published by the author in 2019.  I have all eight books in the series and am rereading them now with the number seven and eight books that I just bought from Big River.
Wow, great story with lots of character development and action.  An older engineer buys a bunch of Nikola Tesla's journals in an old chest and spots a design for an "electric turbine" that was never built.  He builds a working version of the electric impeller (a device that converts electricity into motion) after many restarts and has an anti-gravity device.  The rest of the story concerns project funding and building various containers for the electric impeller and various peoples trying to steal the design.  And aliens.  Lots of space aliens.
This book is specifically about the prospectors looking for metal bearing asteroids in the asteroid belt near to Mars.  The near asteroid belt is almost played out and the prospector scoots do not have enough fuel and supplies to move out into the asteroid belt proper.  And there is someone taking the space freighters, killing the crews, and selling their processed metal cargoes on good old Terra.  And the Flickers and Felis are having their own problems, especially the outcast Flicker women due to the extremely low numbers of Flicker men.
The writing of the story is a little bit rough, a little more editing would have been good.  But for me, the story is always the most important thing.  This is my second read so that makes it a five star book for me.
BTW, this is not the first time that a story has been written similar to this.  Several stories have "magical" engines for space drives.  A very similar book is John Varley's most excellent "Red Thunder" which uses the squeezer drive.
     https://www.amazon.com/Red-Thunder-Lightning-Novel/dp/0441011624/
The reason why I like these stories so much is that it is not just the new drive device, it is also the design and work to build the container around the new device.  And the resulting societal changes from the revolutionary technological changes.
My rating:  5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating:  4.4 out of 5 stars (114 reviews)
Lynn