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A review by essinink
Fortuna by Kristyn Merbeth
4.0
Stop me if you've heard this before:
A broken-down freighter with a rag-tag crew gets itself involved in shady business. Hijinks ensue, there is interpersonal drama, someone probably dies, but everyone comes out the other side stronger for the challenge. Reading the summary, what I expected from this book was found-family fluff with a side of action; perhaps a slightly edgier version of [b:The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet|22733729|The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)|Becky Chambers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405532474l/22733729._SY75_.jpg|42270825]. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that's NOT what this book is.
Some unspecified year in the future, humanity has fled to the stars, settling in a new system with 5 mostly-habitable planets. But the journey was long, and the planets don't trust each other. Landing on a planet requires citizenship there, and so most trade is done by automated drones.
Enter Fortuna. Auriga Kaiser (simply called 'Momma' through most of the book) has five children, each planned and born on a different planet, giving her trade access throughout the system. She's a hard woman, and difficult to get a read on for most of the book. I got the impression she was a very ends-and-means personality, but as much as she claimed to want the best for her family, what she considered 'best' seemed financial; not personal.
The story itself is told by Auriga's two eldest children in alternating first-person perspective. Scorpia is a shortsighted trainwreck with high ambitions, and Corvus has been away for three years fighting a civil war on his birth planet of Titan, and carries the trauma to match. The reunion is messy, filled with all the hurts and biases that siblings can throw at each other, and that's without counting the war crime that Fortuna is now responsible for.
Because yes, this is a book about a crew operating on the 'gray' side of the law that finds itself WAY over the line of acceptable rule-bending. People in this book make horrific choices for sometimes-stupid reasons, and then they have to deal with the fallout. Becky Chambers this is not. Family growing pains, space opera politics, a romantic subplot... there are a few things that turn out just a bit too neat, but overall it's an exceptionally well-realized drama.
Justly, the book doesn't cop out and close with "everyone wins." It's complex, bittersweet, and just a tad unsettling. As a standalone, I appreciate the way Merbeth closed the story. Knowing there's a sequel coming out shortly, I only hope it does justice to the rest of the fallout. 3.5*, rounding up because it defied my expectations.
A broken-down freighter with a rag-tag crew gets itself involved in shady business. Hijinks ensue, there is interpersonal drama, someone probably dies, but everyone comes out the other side stronger for the challenge. Reading the summary, what I expected from this book was found-family fluff with a side of action; perhaps a slightly edgier version of [b:The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet|22733729|The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)|Becky Chambers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405532474l/22733729._SY75_.jpg|42270825]. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that's NOT what this book is.
Some unspecified year in the future, humanity has fled to the stars, settling in a new system with 5 mostly-habitable planets. But the journey was long, and the planets don't trust each other. Landing on a planet requires citizenship there, and so most trade is done by automated drones.
Enter Fortuna. Auriga Kaiser (simply called 'Momma' through most of the book) has five children, each planned and born on a different planet, giving her trade access throughout the system. She's a hard woman, and difficult to get a read on for most of the book. I got the impression she was a very ends-and-means personality, but as much as she claimed to want the best for her family, what she considered 'best' seemed financial; not personal.
The story itself is told by Auriga's two eldest children in alternating first-person perspective. Scorpia is a shortsighted trainwreck with high ambitions, and Corvus has been away for three years fighting a civil war on his birth planet of Titan, and carries the trauma to match. The reunion is messy, filled with all the hurts and biases that siblings can throw at each other, and that's without counting the war crime that Fortuna is now responsible for.
Because yes, this is a book about a crew operating on the 'gray' side of the law that finds itself WAY over the line of acceptable rule-bending. People in this book make horrific choices for sometimes-stupid reasons, and then they have to deal with the fallout. Becky Chambers this is not. Family growing pains, space opera politics, a romantic subplot... there are a few things that turn out just a bit too neat, but overall it's an exceptionally well-realized drama.
Justly, the book doesn't cop out and close with "everyone wins." It's complex, bittersweet, and just a tad unsettling. As a standalone, I appreciate the way Merbeth closed the story. Knowing there's a sequel coming out shortly, I only hope it does justice to the rest of the fallout. 3.5*, rounding up because it defied my expectations.