Jumpship Hope (2019)
Written by: Adria Laycraft
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 300 pages (Kindle)
Publisher: Tyche Books Ltd
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair review.
The premise:
Earth is a storm-ravaged wasteland
Humanity has fled the planet, establishing bases off-world. But disaster has struck the food crops of Luna Base, leaving the Orbitals starving, and Mars Colony ignores their pleas for aid.
Hot-headed pilot Janlin Kavanagh will do anything to save her friends, so when SpaceOp captain Stepper Jordan proposes a sketchy plan to save their people, she immediately volunteers. Anything is better than slow starvation, even a risky voyage to an alien solar system in a ship with unproven Jump technology.
The mission faces unexpected dangers, and the mettle of Janlin and her crew is tested, against each other and the strange, new species they encounter. Can Janlin overcome mistrust and betrayal to salvage the mission and restore hope to her friends and herself?
This review is mostly spoiler free.
Discussion: As first novels go, I was really quite impressed with this one. It has a thoughtful narrative, an interesting problem to solve, and a sense of history to the places the humans visit in the new galaxy that I’ve missed in other books. The character building was well thought out, though it did fall a few times to tropes.
As is mentioned in the premise above, the story starts in Earth orbit. There are humans still living on the planet, presumably those who couldn’t afford to get off, and they’re fighting a losing battle from starvation due to a scarcity of resources. The set up feels a little bit like the beginning of Leviathan Wakes with the animosity between the Belters, the Mars Colony (because there’s also one in this book) and the Earth, except without the decades long history between the factions and also with a defunct Earth.
It is into this gloomy existence that a ray of hope in the form of a new jumpship shines, though we’re given very little information on how a jumpship works, which is always something I find interesting in the harder science fictions.
It’s after the jump that things in the novel get more precarious for both the protagonist and the science side of science fiction. Laycraft builds an interesting story between three factions of aliens on the other side of this jump (without giving away too much except that hey, they encounter aliens). I don’t believe much thought was given to humans interacting with alien worlds, allergens, whether or not they’d be able to sustain themselves on the food, drink the water, etc. Or if thought was given to it, the problem was basically handwaved and deemed unimportant.
As it’s something that entire plots have been centered around in other books I’ve read, it’s definitely something that I thought about here, when the humans encounter aliens and have zero problems eating their food and drinking their water. Considering that humans can’t drink the water in all corners of our own planet, it’s something to think about when writing about alien worlds.
In conclusion: The science side of science fiction is a big draw to the genre for me, so the fact that this story was light on it in some big areas was a bit of a detractor, but it might not be for everyone. It’s a good story with interesting characters, and I’m invested enough that I want to know where these characters go in the future.
No Comments