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authoraugust's review against another edition
4.0
Wow-ee! This was so much fun. The cover hooked me at Half Price Books, and I'm so glad I took it home. Jax is a really, really good protagonist, in that I'm both sympathetic to her and roll my eyes at her. I was hoping for a stronger punch of an ending, but then I saw how many books are in the series. Makes sense!
phantasmwitch's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
mellhay's review against another edition
4.0
Sirantha Jax is, or was, a jumper for The Corp - until that crash happened. The one where the pilot, crew, and political members being transported where killed. It was a miracle Jax lived. But now she finds herself incarcerated in a psych ward at the hospital with constant mental testing done on her, or maybe it's torture. Then a mysterious man shows up and breaks her out of the hospital. Jax now finds herself on a new mission that she thinks she doesn't want. But one that could start a whole new batch of jumpers for people other than The Corp. Now taken in by this new loner group; they plan on learning Jax's secrets to living through jumping for so long where others burnt out, then teach it to others to jump. A new system of renegade jumpers to eliminate the tariffs of trade and use of The Corp. But Jax soon learns this all goes deeper than that, all the way down to genetics.
Where do I start on this book. This is a science fiction type read with the computers, technology used, and outer space setting. We go on a space exploration which kind of feels like Star Trek. But this is geared for even female readers who may not be big outer space fans. I really liked the idea of jumping. But I have to admit I had a hard time wrapping my brain around it at first. I think I was trying to hard to understand every minor detail of the idea before it was all completely spelled out for me. But once Jax was on her second jump, I was a pro to they systems and knew what was going on and loved what she saw.
The characters! Oh, I loved the way these characters where all written. I loved the whole small crew that Jax works with now. They all have their own quirks and histories. And I want to know all of it. They humor and complement each other wonderfully. As it's hard to pick my favorite character here I have to say I loved the relationship between March and Jax. In the beginning Jax torments March with cruel death thoughts of him and straight forward hate thoughts. Then when Jax realizes there has to be something special about March she does it to just get a rise out of him. And it works! They have quick comebacks that where just fun and made me chuckle and smile. And the relationship grows between these two as the book goes.
The writing is great Ann Aguirre through and through. She describes things in a way that is easy to understand and see in my minds eye. Yes, I had a little bit of troubles at first with the jumping, but I was jumping to try to understand before Ann got through describing it to us. Once she was through that I understood and could see it all working. The Chapters are short and direct. And the action never stops, which is a classic Ann Aguirre read. She kept moving with the action and the relationships constantly. I never got bored with the book. It we went fighting, we where laughing.
I will be reading the next book in this series.
Where do I start on this book. This is a science fiction type read with the computers, technology used, and outer space setting. We go on a space exploration which kind of feels like Star Trek. But this is geared for even female readers who may not be big outer space fans. I really liked the idea of jumping. But I have to admit I had a hard time wrapping my brain around it at first. I think I was trying to hard to understand every minor detail of the idea before it was all completely spelled out for me. But once Jax was on her second jump, I was a pro to they systems and knew what was going on and loved what she saw.
The characters! Oh, I loved the way these characters where all written. I loved the whole small crew that Jax works with now. They all have their own quirks and histories. And I want to know all of it. They humor and complement each other wonderfully. As it's hard to pick my favorite character here I have to say I loved the relationship between March and Jax. In the beginning Jax torments March with cruel death thoughts of him and straight forward hate thoughts. Then when Jax realizes there has to be something special about March she does it to just get a rise out of him. And it works! They have quick comebacks that where just fun and made me chuckle and smile. And the relationship grows between these two as the book goes.
The writing is great Ann Aguirre through and through. She describes things in a way that is easy to understand and see in my minds eye. Yes, I had a little bit of troubles at first with the jumping, but I was jumping to try to understand before Ann got through describing it to us. Once she was through that I understood and could see it all working. The Chapters are short and direct. And the action never stops, which is a classic Ann Aguirre read. She kept moving with the action and the relationships constantly. I never got bored with the book. It we went fighting, we where laughing.
I will be reading the next book in this series.
kimbapnboba's review against another edition
3.0
Reminds me of the tv show firefly in a way. I enjoyed the pace of the book and the characters, the only problem I had was that the relationship between the 2 main protagonists happened a bit fast to me.
1nce's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
deathman00789's review against another edition
4.0
If you can make it past page 18 you'll love the book.
hollybg's review against another edition
3.0
So I was rather looking forward to this small book which promised to be packed with exciting future-tech and amazing interstellar scenes. I was, unfortunately, rather disappointed.
Sirantha Jax is a jumper, a rare genetic oddity that means she can guide spaceships millions of light years through grimspace in the blink of an eye. However her last trip resulted in a horrendous crash, leaving everyone on board dead except for her. Now subject to endless tests and interviews by the Corp, who trained and employed her, she tries desperately to remember what happened and if it was her fault? Finally on the verge of a mental break a stranger called March waltzes into her secure cell and offers her the chance to jump again on his small ship Svetlana's Folly, but at the price of becoming a hunted outlaw. She joins up and they head to the outskirts of space to meet the denizens of the universe not happy with the Corp’s monopoly. And they have a plan to break it.
Quite set up, that plus the rather tough and trippy cover had me very interested in this book. However the actual writing never really lived up to the blurb and this story left me a little flat.
Jax is actually a quite likable character. She wasn’t born tough or kick-ass and she isn’t pathetic and in need of constant rescue. She has led a rather sheltered life as the Corp’s top Jumper. But that’s what made her development quite intriguing, watching her discover the truth about her not-so-universally-beloved benefactor. Jax tries to adjust to life as a hunted criminal when she is more used to being a darling celebrity and her resourcefulness when faced with this massive change endeared me to her. However there were aspects to her personality I did not warm to at all.
I’ve read quite a bit of fiction lately from a few differing genres, but something most modern fantasy, sci-fi, historical and crime fiction seems to have in common these days is that they all seem to think they must have a romantic element in them. Now I love a bit of romance (and sometimes I’m happy with just plain lusty hi-jinks) but the relationship has to develop realistically and the attraction has to feel genuine. My least favourite things in all romantically tinged fiction is:
1. The instant blazing attraction that becomes fully fledged undying love 24hrs after first contact.
2. The “clueless” heroine who can’t ever figure out why this guy (that she admits is hot every 5 pages, but only does so grudgingly) is constantly mean and grumpy at her until he dives down her throat tongue first.
Grimspace suffered from the second of these offenses, quite heavily, and a little from the first. March is overly cold to Jax at first, and this is actually understandable, because who would welcome a suspected mass murder on their ship with open arms? But she takes that first encounter and assumes that he hates her for no reason and then repeats this like a mantra “but March hates me” using it as an excuse for his odd behaviour around her, which isn’t even all that negative. They even talk it out at one point and March reveals a very good reason for initially disliking her, and yet his actions show he clearly doesn’t dislike her at all. In fact it’s obvious he feels the opposite.
And that’s another thing, why does he like her? After what seemed like less than a week he started displaying some very affectionate behaviour towards her, and I was like ‘Huh? Where did this come from?’ I invented a number of reasons to try and explain it, they were lovers but she had her memory wiped, her dead lover’s soul was programmed into his body. Loads of silly sci-fi reasons that would have explained why he seemed so in to her, but no. He just is. Not that Jax notices any of this. Or at least she does, but she throws a big blanket over it with the words “but March hates me” stitched on it.
Thankfully the crew are vibrant and solid feeling people, especially Dina the snarky ship engineer (who I loved). As are the parade of characters they meet throughout the story, I’m definitely hankering to learn more about the alien bounty hunter Velith (who wouldn’t?).
As a nice bonus the story really picked up towards the end (once the painfully dense relationship problems had been ironed out) and I suddenly found I was enjoying the all the big action. This great improvement in the last act means that I will definitely pick up the next book in the series just to see if Aguirre has managed to expand on her rather fascinating universe, now she has gotten over that first clumsy hurdle.
Sirantha Jax is a jumper, a rare genetic oddity that means she can guide spaceships millions of light years through grimspace in the blink of an eye. However her last trip resulted in a horrendous crash, leaving everyone on board dead except for her. Now subject to endless tests and interviews by the Corp, who trained and employed her, she tries desperately to remember what happened and if it was her fault? Finally on the verge of a mental break a stranger called March waltzes into her secure cell and offers her the chance to jump again on his small ship Svetlana's Folly, but at the price of becoming a hunted outlaw. She joins up and they head to the outskirts of space to meet the denizens of the universe not happy with the Corp’s monopoly. And they have a plan to break it.
Quite set up, that plus the rather tough and trippy cover had me very interested in this book. However the actual writing never really lived up to the blurb and this story left me a little flat.
Jax is actually a quite likable character. She wasn’t born tough or kick-ass and she isn’t pathetic and in need of constant rescue. She has led a rather sheltered life as the Corp’s top Jumper. But that’s what made her development quite intriguing, watching her discover the truth about her not-so-universally-beloved benefactor. Jax tries to adjust to life as a hunted criminal when she is more used to being a darling celebrity and her resourcefulness when faced with this massive change endeared me to her. However there were aspects to her personality I did not warm to at all.
I’ve read quite a bit of fiction lately from a few differing genres, but something most modern fantasy, sci-fi, historical and crime fiction seems to have in common these days is that they all seem to think they must have a romantic element in them. Now I love a bit of romance (and sometimes I’m happy with just plain lusty hi-jinks) but the relationship has to develop realistically and the attraction has to feel genuine. My least favourite things in all romantically tinged fiction is:
1. The instant blazing attraction that becomes fully fledged undying love 24hrs after first contact.
2. The “clueless” heroine who can’t ever figure out why this guy (that she admits is hot every 5 pages, but only does so grudgingly) is constantly mean and grumpy at her until he dives down her throat tongue first.
Grimspace suffered from the second of these offenses, quite heavily, and a little from the first. March is overly cold to Jax at first, and this is actually understandable, because who would welcome a suspected mass murder on their ship with open arms? But she takes that first encounter and assumes that he hates her for no reason and then repeats this like a mantra “but March hates me” using it as an excuse for his odd behaviour around her, which isn’t even all that negative. They even talk it out at one point and March reveals a very good reason for initially disliking her, and yet his actions show he clearly doesn’t dislike her at all. In fact it’s obvious he feels the opposite.
And that’s another thing, why does he like her? After what seemed like less than a week he started displaying some very affectionate behaviour towards her, and I was like ‘Huh? Where did this come from?’ I invented a number of reasons to try and explain it, they were lovers but she had her memory wiped, her dead lover’s soul was programmed into his body. Loads of silly sci-fi reasons that would have explained why he seemed so in to her, but no. He just is. Not that Jax notices any of this. Or at least she does, but she throws a big blanket over it with the words “but March hates me” stitched on it.
Thankfully the crew are vibrant and solid feeling people, especially Dina the snarky ship engineer (who I loved). As are the parade of characters they meet throughout the story, I’m definitely hankering to learn more about the alien bounty hunter Velith (who wouldn’t?).
As a nice bonus the story really picked up towards the end (once the painfully dense relationship problems had been ironed out) and I suddenly found I was enjoying the all the big action. This great improvement in the last act means that I will definitely pick up the next book in the series just to see if Aguirre has managed to expand on her rather fascinating universe, now she has gotten over that first clumsy hurdle.
jmoses's review against another edition
4.0
I thought this was an excellent read. Interesting characters, fantastic universe and great story. The overall plot isn't anything new, but it's not so worn it was boring. I look forward to more in the series.
westcoaster05's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
3.75