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A review by wouterk
River in the Galaxy by Natalie Kelda
4.0
River in the Galaxy is a wonderful imaginative adventure. It beautifully alternates between adventurous space exploration, high stakes action and deeper themes such as mental health, grief and loss.
Kelda creates a wonderful interesting world of space travel with what I imagine are old galleon-like space ships from star system to star system. What I loved were that the characters are inherently human. There is nothing particularly heroic or villainous (although there are of course cruel and emphatic people in this world) about any of the characters. They could be people we meet in our own lives, without exception.
In this story we follow Captain Merlon who gotten permission to travel into a galaxy river with his ship and crew to go and explore, but also to find out what happened to his parents 18 years ago who went to this particular galactic river. Meanwhile he struggles with the loss of one of his best friends and crewmates. This affects his functioning, relationships and attitude, while he is still struggling to be kind, good and manage his ship and crew. To make matters worse he gets nasty surprise after nasty surprise.
As the story continues we learn to understand Merlon as a person but also get to know other men and women on the crew. I felt Merlon as a person to be extremely relatable. The only trouble I had at the start of this book was to connect with his grief for his friend. I think Kelda might have given a bit more insight in why and how Lanier was so important for Merlon. Because I struggled a bit with this, it took me a bit more time for me to immerse myself and enjoy the story fully. Then again, it might well be that having the luck of never having lost a best friend, made it somewhat harder to relate. The wanting to know about what happened to his parents and the loss of others in the series resonated much more with me. So in the end there was more than enough emotional impact at regular intervals.
And yes, Kelda is not pulling any punches in this book. Grief is not only the startout point. We see bereavement and loss in many different ways. From small, losing bits of identity to larger than life, losing some of the most important people in someone's life.
Still, the story is equally light-hearted and action packed at other times. A nice mix. I would definitely recommend it and will pick up the next book in the series!
Kelda creates a wonderful interesting world of space travel with what I imagine are old galleon-like space ships from star system to star system. What I loved were that the characters are inherently human. There is nothing particularly heroic or villainous (although there are of course cruel and emphatic people in this world) about any of the characters. They could be people we meet in our own lives, without exception.
In this story we follow Captain Merlon who gotten permission to travel into a galaxy river with his ship and crew to go and explore, but also to find out what happened to his parents 18 years ago who went to this particular galactic river. Meanwhile he struggles with the loss of one of his best friends and crewmates. This affects his functioning, relationships and attitude, while he is still struggling to be kind, good and manage his ship and crew. To make matters worse he gets nasty surprise after nasty surprise.
As the story continues we learn to understand Merlon as a person but also get to know other men and women on the crew. I felt Merlon as a person to be extremely relatable. The only trouble I had at the start of this book was to connect with his grief for his friend. I think Kelda might have given a bit more insight in why and how Lanier was so important for Merlon. Because I struggled a bit with this, it took me a bit more time for me to immerse myself and enjoy the story fully. Then again, it might well be that having the luck of never having lost a best friend, made it somewhat harder to relate. The wanting to know about what happened to his parents and the loss of others in the series resonated much more with me. So in the end there was more than enough emotional impact at regular intervals.
And yes, Kelda is not pulling any punches in this book. Grief is not only the startout point. We see bereavement and loss in many different ways. From small, losing bits of identity to larger than life, losing some of the most important people in someone's life.
Still, the story is equally light-hearted and action packed at other times. A nice mix. I would definitely recommend it and will pick up the next book in the series!