Tag Archives: sci-fi

Pledge Allegiance

Book Review of Pledge Allegiance (The Finch #1) by Rider England

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I won an Audible copy of Pledge Allegiance, by Rider England, narrated by Greg Tremblay.

Description from Goodreads:
Shaun Blake had once had it all. As captain of the ISS Oregon, he‘d commanded his crew in the Horde War and helped to protect Earth. It was a dream come true for a farm boy from Idaho. 

But the dream shattered a year ago when a Horde ship blew the Oregon out of space, leaving Blake and a single crew member as the only survivors. 

Now, Blake is a gambler and a drunk living in the slums on Iton-3. His only interest is winning money at the WarZone tables and trying to forget who he was. He blames himself for every death that occurred under his command. 

When a woman named Jane Baltimore approaches Blake in a bar and says she has a job for him, he isn’t interested. Until she tells him the job is to captain a ship about to embark on a search and rescue mission. 

There are more surviving crew members from the Oregon. 

And they’re stuck on a planet deep in Horde space.

Review:
This was a fun, if simplistic (and familiar to any sci-fi fan) story. I liked Blake and his crew, but I never felt I got to know them well or that there was the opportunity for any significant character growth. I liked that two of the main characters, two of the best fighters were women. But it felt a little cliche that one was almost childlike in her joy and the other basically emotionless. (To be fair, the male soldiers were even flatter.)

This is a good set up for a further series, but on its own it’s largely a protracted fight scene. And even in that it’s pretty weak, as the characters seemed to triumph a bit too easily. But as a just-for-fun read, I call it a success.

Kudos to the narrator though, I don’t know if Blake would have felt as charismatic if he hadn’t had his distinct drawl.

Book Review of The Ansible Stories 1-3, by Stant Litore

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Earlier today, this cool info-sheet on exploring positive portrayals of Islam in sci-fi found its way into my inbox from Stant Litore. It’s just the sort of thing guaranteed to get my attention on any normal day, but given that today the people of my city have been out marching in protest of the presidents immigration ban, I think it’s especially timely too. I imagine that wasn’t accidental.

I downloaded the free anthology and Stant’s three free short stories about Islamic space travelers. The latter of which is what I’ll review here.

Wow, color me impressed. All three of these stories were powerful and wonderfully written, despite not one of them being 30 pages long (17, 17 & 29). Despite being short, each felt complete and satisfying, which is rarely a comment I make about short stories. In fact, not feeling complete is my most common criticism of shorts.

They also each managed a different emotional wallop, putting the characters in the same circumstances, but in very different situations. The first, my favorite was fearful and desperate. It almost felt like sci-fi/horror. The second was sad and contemplative and the third started contentedly but ended back in horror/sci-fi land, with a certain pragmatic acceptance of the situation. I thought it was cool, too, the way it curved back to intersect with the first.

I appreciated the way gender was flexible, given the means of space travel. I also loved the way Islam and the countries of origin played into the stories, important to the characters but not at all encroaching on the plot. All in all, well worth reading but don’t go in expecting happy endings.

Edit: Thank you, Naz, for the reminder about the #ReadDiverse2017 word counts. I had admittedly forgotten; read it in the beginning and forgotten since then. I prompted me to think a little more deeply about this review.

Vicks Vultures

Book Review of Vick’s Vultures, by Scott Warren

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I won a paperback copy of Vick’s Vultures, by Scott Warren, through Goodreads.

Description:
In the far future, alien technology captured by the Union Earth Privateers has fueled Earth’s tenuous expansion from a single planet to a handful of systems across the Orion Spur.

Victoria Marin, captain of the U.E. Condor, and her crew of Vultures have been running dry for months. In danger of losing her command and her credibility if she can’t locate fresh salvage, she locks onto the distress signal of an alien ship in hopes of valuable cargo. What she finds instead is First Prince Tavram, the heir apparent to one of the largest empires in known space. Tavram’s ship has been crippled after narrowly escaping an ambush and his would-be assasin is coming to finish the job.

The Vultures launch a high risk mission to rescue the prince and recover every last scrap of xenotech they can before the hunter catches up to his prey. But there are more dangers than notorious interstellar assassins when it comes to ferrying an alien prince across the stars, and Victoria must contend with dangerous alliances, old grudges, and even her own government if she means to bring her crew home alive. Whether she succeeds or fails, the consequences of her choices will affect the path of all humanity.

Review:
Vick’s Vultures was a complete surprise. I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect when I started it, but I’ll assure you it wasn’t gripping writing, fun characters, an interesting universe (or two) inhabited by a slew of differing alien creatures and cultures, all of it fitting together almost seamlessly. And it darned sure wasn’t a kick-butt female captain that wonderfully walked the line in which she was definitely a woman, but that never eclipsed her being a captain, nor did the author feel the need to butch her up so much she just became a dreaded man with boobs. Thank you Scott Warren for that! Characters really can be female and professional, who knew?

I did think Best Wish’s loss of control toward the end a little too convenient to believe and I occasionally had a little trouble understanding the techno-speak. But all in all, this was a fabulous read.