Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Bookish Rumblings and Mumblings: The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt

I read a lot of fantasy. I write the stuff too. I've always been a huge fantasy reader. Hell, The Hobbit and Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles are foundation stones in my geek sensibility. However, I also love sci-fi. The OG Star Wars is another foundation stone for me, as is The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by the late, great Douglas Adams.

The reason I say this is that not long ago, I realized that I'd been getting a bit burned out on fantasy, I needed a bit of a break. That, coupled with noticing that sci-fi's a bit under-represented in my personal library these days, I decided to remedy both of those things. So with gift card in hand, I headed off to a bookstore to both up the sci-fi section of my personal library and to pick up some palate cleansers to let my inner Orc recharge. Browsing the shelves, I happened to stumble across The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt, and I'm damn glad I did.

The Wrong Stars takes place about 500 years in the future. Humanity has spread out to 29 other star systems and received many technological advances thanks to a race of aliens that humans refer to as The Liars because, well, they lie a lot. Captain Callie Machedo and the crew of The White Raven, an awesome bunch of space-going rouge-ish types, come across a derelict "Goldilocks" ship, colonization vessels humanity sent out centuries ago when everyone figured Earth was for. The ship is floating in Neptunian space, light years from where it should have been, sporting strange alien-looking modifications. When Callie and the crew bring the sole survivor left on board out of cryosleep, Elena wakes up screaming about First Contact with aliens. The crew breaks it to her that humans have been in contact with aliens for quite some time, but it turns out that Elena isn't talking about The Liars. The race that Elena is talking about could spell doom for, well, pretty much everyone.

The Wrong Stars perfectly fit the bill for me. It had awesome space-going action, a good deal of it really. It was the type of story and genre I was craving. I wanted a snarky Space Opera with some great writing, and that's exactly what I got. Pratt's writing is great and makes it a breeze to get through the novel. But what really shines for me is the interaction between the characters. Their interactions are top notch, and yes, there's a great helping of snark to be had. I could easily see the crew of The White Raven going out drinking and having a damn fine time with the crews of Serenity and the Raza. I really don't want to get too in depth about the book for fear of spoilers.

So I'll close this out by saying that if you're in the market for a kick-ass, fast paced space opera novel, then The Wrong Stars is for you. Tim Pratt's writing is a delight. In fact, I've put him in my list of Authors Who Are So Good, It's Irritating. Heh. My only real beef with it was that I burned through it too quickly because I couldn't out the damn thing down. Thankfully, the sequel is already out and I'm trying really hard to take a more sedate pace through that one. But yeah, gonna need Book 3, Tim. Hope you're on that. Heh. Seriously, jump on out and get this book.

Mahalo, my friends.

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