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firefly's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Violence, War, Grief, Chronic illness, Gore, and Death
Moderate: Death
Minor: Medical trauma and Medical content
gv53's review
4.0
Fully charged, exciting, and devastating science fiction. Super fun read, looking forward to the sequel!
jerseygrrrl's review against another edition
DNF. I don't know why, but the book didn't grab me.
dja777's review against another edition
4.0
Mostly very exciting, though I started losing track of what exactly was happening a little by the end. I may just have been trying to read too fast.
matos's review
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
essinink's review
2.0
"Space plus bullshit equals death."
Confession: This landed on my TBR because of the cover art and the tagline. I otherwise knew nothing about this book before I started reading it. I'm allowed to be shallow like that.
Somewhere in postwar, spacefaring, capitalist dystopia #99999, our protagonist Ash is trying to work off her corporate indenture to gain citizenship. It's dangerous work, salvaging advanced alien weapons from old battlefields, but Ash is desperate, and her illness means she's running out of time.
Not a lot new here. Evil corporate futures are a dime a dozen. Gritty small-ship crews are typical. Even the details of the aliens are things I've seen before, though Osborne adds a hefty dose of body horror. There are a couple rare moments in the middle of the book with beautiful imagery, but they're outweighed by the overall cookie-cutter ambiance.
Characters tended to blur together. There's a same-ness about their voices, and I never did get a good idea of what anyone looked like, or how the relative ages fell out. Added to the fragmented obfuscations of the internal thoughts of our PoV characters, it was difficult to connect with any of them, or understand why which characters were making which decisions.
The plot and setting are another problem. I don't mind being thrown into the middle of things, but Osborne may flubbed the advice of "show don't tell," in that there's not a lot of telling, and there's also not a lot of showing. We're not given timeline markers, or reliable descriptions of people. But we are "told" that Ash and her captain are in love... and that's never really shown. There's something not quite cinematic about the writing; it reads like a bare script, or like watching underexposed film. The bones are there, but there's just not enough to properly picture the people, or the environments, or the gosh-darn timeline.
I wanted to give this three stars, because I do see potential from the author's writing. But as I was writing this review, I realize that--unlike other books I've rounded up recently--I just don't care enough about this one. It's Not Bad, but there was never a moment that made me sit up and say "Yes, I liked that." It never pushes the boundaries of what is safe, and there were several moments that had me scratching my head in confusion. So two stars it is.
Confession: This landed on my TBR because of the cover art and the tagline. I otherwise knew nothing about this book before I started reading it. I'm allowed to be shallow like that.
Somewhere in postwar, spacefaring, capitalist dystopia #99999, our protagonist Ash is trying to work off her corporate indenture to gain citizenship. It's dangerous work, salvaging advanced alien weapons from old battlefields, but Ash is desperate, and her illness means she's running out of time.
Not a lot new here. Evil corporate futures are a dime a dozen. Gritty small-ship crews are typical. Even the details of the aliens are things I've seen before, though Osborne adds a hefty dose of body horror. There are a couple rare moments in the middle of the book with beautiful imagery, but they're outweighed by the overall cookie-cutter ambiance.
Characters tended to blur together. There's a same-ness about their voices, and I never did get a good idea of what anyone looked like, or how the relative ages fell out. Added to the fragmented obfuscations of the internal thoughts of our PoV characters, it was difficult to connect with any of them, or understand why which characters were making which decisions.
The plot and setting are another problem. I don't mind being thrown into the middle of things, but Osborne may flubbed the advice of "show don't tell," in that there's not a lot of telling, and there's also not a lot of showing. We're not given timeline markers, or reliable descriptions of people. But we are "told" that Ash and her captain are in love... and that's never really shown. There's something not quite cinematic about the writing; it reads like a bare script, or like watching underexposed film. The bones are there, but there's just not enough to properly picture the people, or the environments, or the gosh-darn timeline.
I wanted to give this three stars, because I do see potential from the author's writing. But as I was writing this review, I realize that--unlike other books I've rounded up recently--I just don't care enough about this one. It's Not Bad, but there was never a moment that made me sit up and say "Yes, I liked that." It never pushes the boundaries of what is safe, and there were several moments that had me scratching my head in confusion. So two stars it is.
jakegray's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
rdiosteve's review
4.0
A great debut. Fascinating to see how sci-fi has evolved over the years from tales of nefarious governments to nefarious corporations. Interesting look in the idea of indenture. Also, like Kameron Hurley, a good detail of citizenship vs. non-citizen. Very well paced, lots of action and tension.