Sergeant Riot Terzic has been voted 'least likely not to blow stuff up' by her unit, so naturally the brass give her a spaceship and an impossible diplomatic mission: fly to distant galaxies, contact alien species, and build the alliances humanity needs to survive the next invasion. Her crew is the only set of people she trusts — a one-eyed sniper, a pilot who cannot speak, a medic with a drug problem, and a scientist, 'because science.' Driven by caffeine, questionable morals, and a dose of epinephrine, the War Wolves blast off.

Riot is the ur-example of the 'lovable chaos agent' military protagonist — brash, brilliant in combat, terrible at introspection, and ferociously loyal to the four people she trusts with her life. Reviewers consistently describe her as immediately compelling in the way that only genuinely original characters are, because she is allowed to be both flawed and competent at the same time.

Three books follow Riot and the War Wolves from Earth's desperate outreach to the first alien contact, through a second wave of crisis as a swarm of enemy claws threatens their fragile new alliances, to a climactic battle where humans, Valkyrie-kin, and space-dragon-adjacent allies take on a force threatening literal universal domination. The series delivers a consistent tone throughout: Guardians of the Galaxy energy with space-marine grit.