RogerBW's Blog

Grimspace, Ann Aguirre 12 January 2015

2008 SF/romance. Sirantha Jax is a jumper, one of the rare humans who can navigate FTL ships through grimspace. But her ship crashed, her pilot/lover died (along with everyone else on board), and she may be going mad.

But then someone turns up to break her out of corporate psychotherapy (which seems to be driving her more mad), and things start to get just a bit strange.

This is a romantic romp against a science-fictional backdrop rather than a serious exercise in world-building; for example, it's strongly implied that only jumpers can take a ship FTL, but inter-world trips without jumpers routinely take only days or months rather than centuries. Oh really?

I suspect one's enjoyment of the book is dependent on whether one can enjoy the characters, since everything else is very much backdrop to their story. Jax herself tries to be a bit less passive than many heroines, and has already had a successful career and relationships before the book begins, but is entirely too ready to regard everything as her own fault even when it blatantly isn't. (And the book's in her voice, first-person present tense narration, so if you can't at least like her a bit you won't be able to get away from her.) March, the obvious True Love, is either a dark brooding hero with a troubled past or a big emotionally-stunted idiot; granted, I find characters who are perfect in every way simply boring, so I'm perhaps a little more willing than some to veer the other way.

There's an interesting modification of the romance trope of two people who are forced by circumstance to sleep together when they haven't decided yet that they like each other; here the relationship between pilot and jumper is an intrinsically intimate one, and they have to do that together when etc. (And it turns out that March is a telepath. Of course he is.)

There are space pirates and space battles, dubious human experimentation, fights and makings up, bounty hunters, a hooker with a heart of gold, emotional whiplash, and childcare. And a spaceship is lost as a result of unpardonably sloppy watchstanding, really not the sort of thing one would have expected from the people involved. For that matter, if your planet is home to vicious predators who are attracted by blood, it would probably be sensible to tell this to the visitor before the fight starts, rather than blaming her for what inevitably happens next.

The big plot that's eventually revealed is also pretty sloppy: once we learn what the evil corporation's actual goals are, it becomes obvious that killing Jax at the time of the accident, or letting her "die of her wounds" once she'd been rescued, would really have made much more sense than trying to drive her mad.

This is the first book of six, but it does stand on its own quite effectively. Like the Rachel Bach series, it's an unabashed wallow rather than anything that tries to deal with serious issues or make the world a better place, but sometimes that's what one's in the mood for.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

See also:
Fortune's Pawn, Rachel Bach
Wanderlust, Ann Aguirre

Series: Sirantha Jax | Next in series: Wanderlust

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1