Grimspace [Mass Market Paperback]

Sirantha Jax is the carrier of a rare gene, which gives her the ability to jump ships through grimspace. This talent shortens her life expectancy but allows her to work as a navigator for the Corp, who can then provide Interstellar travel to the paying customer. When the ship she's navigating crashes, Jax is imprisoned and interrogated. But she has no memory of the crash. A man called March breaks into her cell and offers to help her, she accepts his offer, because she really has no place left to go. But the Corp haven't finished with her yet.

I've read in several reviews that Grimspace has been compared to Firefly and Serenity (and I'd add a little Pitch Black), and I think that's a good comparison. If you like those shows I see no reason why you wouldn't like this book. It's full of quotable dialogue, action set pieces and quite a bit of running about.

If I had a problem it was that for me it didn't always quite hang together. The story is well written and engaging, but at certain points I couldn't always follow what was going on. The other problem I had was with it being written in first person point of view (POV). Now I read a lot of Urban Fantasy so it's not the actual first person that's the problem. But there are so many characters coming in and out of scenes, as soon as they leave the POV's sphere of influence you don't get to find out what happened to them, it left me feeling like there were gaps in the story. Plus I don't think I quite got to know Jax as well as I could have.

On the positive side, there was much more that I liked about the story.
It's original. It read much more like Urban Fantasy in space, than space opera. So definitely one I'd recommend for UF fans looking for something a little different.

It's written realistically. When Jax has to fly the ship when she's never flown before, she doesn't suddenly become an ace pilot. She just about manages to steer in a straight line. (Okay, not even that). Things go wrong. These are not people who never make mistakes. They are people who make mistakes and have to deal with consequences and move on.

I like that each member of the crew is an individual. They each have their own history and their own reason for being there. I hope in future books we find out even more about them. There is a romantic subplot between Jax and March, but it is pretty crammed in between the adventuring. What helps suspend your belief about the intensity of their feelings is that as pilot and navigator when they jump their thoughts merge together. There's a level of trust there that allows you to believe they could fall for each other that fast.

So overall I really enjoyed the story. And I think a re-read would probably help iron out my quibbles. I am looking forward to the next book Wanderlust and will be getting it, when it's released in August 2008.

I enjoyed this book, which had lively characters inhabiting interesting worlds. There is nothing terribly unique about setting or plot, but the style was fresh enough to make it different.

Sirantha Jax has a unique talent which allows her to jump through Grimspace. As a navigator, she is paired with a pilot and, together, they carry passengers and cargo across long distances using ancient beacons and star roads. All navigators like Jax are employed by the Farwan Corporation and they eventually burn out, their minds unable to cope with the continuing stress of navigating Grimspace.

Unfortunately, as the book opens, something has gone terribly wrong with Jax's last flight. The ship crashed, killing everyone onboard included her beloved pilot Kai, leaving only Jax alive and unable to remember what went wrong.

She is sprung from the dubious care of the Corp by March, a mercenary on a mission. Jax is forced to work with him as a pilot to escape the space station on which she was kept and work with his mismatched crew. During the course of the book Jax gets drawn into March's mentor, Mair's, grand plan for free academies for navigators, drawing on the genetic benefits of other races alongside humans and she also begins to uncover what happened on her last mission.

The written style is slightly unusual as it's written in the first person in the present tense from Jax's perspective, but it is well done and has a real immediacy. Fortunately Jax is a likeable and interesting character which makes hearing her point of view interesting. Jax definitely develops and grows as a person in the book.

March is an interesting and compelling character, who has some wonderful moments. Jax has a mental connection with March, so we also get to hear his thoughts in parts of the book, but I'd have liked to have seen more of March.

The developing relationship between March and Jax is well handled and believable as she grieves for her lost lover Kai.

The other characters, particularly Doc and Dina, are entertaining and a twist involving one of them later in the book is clever. I was less keen on Mair and Keri and some of the characters who are met earlier in the book, but I suspect that they will be returned to in later novels and fill out a bit more.

The worlds the plot plays out against are well written and interesting. I liked the idea of them being aware of much less developed civilizations and keeping an eye on them.

In summary, it's a good read and I'll be looking out of the next book in the series.

At first I thought just the milieu was Firefly/Serenity but then realised actually the plot and the characters have been lifted wholesale as well (March=Mal, Jax=River+Inara, Doc=Book). Doesn't carry the same magic though. And the rest of the story is a wearing slog through a paint it by numbers romance.