Captain Callie and her band of merry[1]To a first approximation. misfits[2]To a first approximation. aboard the spaceship White Raven stumble onto a derelict starship in the frontier wilds out past Neptune. It’s a starship that can’t possibly be there: the Anjou was launched centuries ago, in an at-the-time last-gasp attempt at colonizing extrasolar systems. The Anjou should be light-years away, possibly even orbiting a newly-colonized world. Yet, here it is.
On board the derelict they find one surviving crew member, Elena, asleep in a cryogenic bed. They wake her up and she tells them a tale of first contact with a weird alien race.
But Callie and the rest of the crew already know about aliens; the Liars have lived among them for a long time now. However, it seems Elena’s aliens are different, and much, much more dangerous[3]Probably.
There’s a lot going on in this book, the first of a trilogy (plus a book of short stories) about the human race’s encounter(s) with alien menace(s). I found much to enjoy, though I almost quit reading a couple times. Let’s cover the good stuff first: There’s no shortage of action here, and it’s set in a future that’s been knocked around a bit. Details about the world we’re in—physical, political, and personal—are handed out as needed, and they all fit together pretty nicely. Several plot twists upend everything we understand about the world, but nothing nullifies what came before, only casts it in a new light.
On the down side: there’s a long-running thread of “will they or won’t they” running through the first half of the book, and its handling felt clumsy, full of false starts and hokey misunderstandings like a forgettable C‑list rom-com. There are a few details, mostly about characters, where the author withholds information for seemingly no other reason than to have a “shocking revelation” moment. It reminded me of a specific type of person: the kind who has a secret and will never tell you, but desperately wants you to know that they know something you don’t.
Once the rom-com got resolved, everything else seemed to fall into place. Everything accelerated. An awful lot of plot happened in the last third of the book; even the last chapter was a breathless ride into enemy territory. There wasn’t really time even to breathe, it seemed.
All that said, I’m glad I finished reading, and I’m planning to read the other two books. (And possibly the short stories, too.)
If I was the type to assign grades, this one would get about 6.5 / 10.
The Wrong Stars, 2018, by Tim Pratt. First in the Axiom series.
(Point of trivia: I think this might be the first book I’ve read based on a recommendation from a Bluesky post[4]It’s entirely possible I’m wrong, of course..)