Grimspace
Ratings43
Average rating3.5
Entertaining at times, perplexing at others.
At the start of the story, Sirantha Jax is “recovering” from a crash that killed her pilot and every other person aboard ship. She is a jumper, meaning that she has a special gene that allows her to navigate grimspace, essentially a faster than FTL method of navigating large distances in space. Being a jumper requires being metaphysically linked with a pilot, which usually results in a romantic connection as well. Jax is reeling from the loss of her pilot and the trauma of the crash, while her employers are forcing psych visits on her that are meant to break her, so they can pin the whole thing on her. It takes a while for Jax to come to that realization though.
Before she breaks, she's rescued by a grim, gruff man named March. He convinces her to leave with him and together they make it back to his ship, where the rest of his crew waits for her. They literally cannot leave without her, because their previous pilot and jumper are both dead, having died in the effort to retrieve Jax. She immediately takes the guilt of their deaths on herself and forces herself to jump with March as her new pilot, which feels like a betrayal to her previous pilot Kai.
From this escape, they pretty much jump from disaster to disaster, all the while Jax is taking every little bit of guilt she can gather from every interaction. This is around the time where I start to get pretty frustrated by Jax. She's literally making no decisions for herself; she is a passive crewmate that allows everyone else to make decisions for her and just goes with the flow. She asks zero questions about what her rescuers intentions are. Eventually we get a few answer, but Jax's passivity is incredibly frustrating, especially since she's our narrator for the entire story. It's all just happening around her.
In addition, she starts to take on a familiarity with the rest of the crew that is really difficult to believe, given that she's know them for all of a day or so? The timeline is pretty blurry, especially in the beginning. She starts to make comments about the other characters, like how “March is never not mean to her” which is a pretty big generalization when he really hasn't been mean to her at all and if anything, she's been pretty mean to him; not to mention that, again, she's been with him for about a day or two and that whole time they've been constantly running from things. She makes these sorts of generalizing comments about all of the characters, with very little basis to them.
The only relationship that feels remotely well-paced is the one between Jax and Dina. They start out pretty openly disliking each other, but the way their relationship evolves over time feels much more realistic than the rest of Jax's insta-connections, and I found myself really enjoying a lot of the banter between them.
The first time I really start to like Jax, and actually connect with her character, is when she says enough is enough and leaves the crew. She finally makes a decision for herself and actually voices an opinion of her own, and stands her ground! Granted it's 70% of the way through the book at this point, but it was nice to see her with some actual backbone. Obviously she eventually has to go back, and Doc makes sure that she does go back. But it's easier to accept her relationship with March when she does go back, because she's had time to process her trauma and her conflicting feelings about him after the loss of Kai.
The ending gets wrapped up pretty quickly after this. The foreshadowing from all the times where March warned Jax about his dark past is fulfilled when he decides to take a bunch of hostages and threaten to blow up an entire city when he thinks Jax is dead. Luckily Jax shows up just in time to talk him off the ledge, while her brand new bounty hunter friend releases recordings of Jax's innocence and the Corps' evil plans to the public, resulting in riots and rebellion across the galaxy.
Sure, sure sure sure.
In the end, I think this story wanted to be big and epic with some dark, scary, bad-ass characters. But it tried to do that without doing a lot of the work to make it believable. I had a hard time suspending my disbelief long enough to feel the things I think the author wanted me to feel. There were moments that I genuinely enjoyed, and I'm hoping that maybe the next books will improve on the story-telling enough to let me fully enjoy the story!
Very very good. i want more strange and despairing stories like this, and more that are this.
Turns out I don't much like big-strong-man-vulnerable-girl romantic fiction, even if it's in a spaceship. Who'd have thought?
I liked the concept of traveling faster through grimspace. It just seemed a bit hard to grasp sometimes. But I think the world was fleshed out very well. I really like the fact that they acknowledged that other worlds are very different and may be inhospitable to humans and they take precautions before jumping out into it. Sirantha Jax is a flawed person but is trying her best to overcome what has happened and is not always able to do so. I am looking forward to reading the next one.
Action-packed, complexly-plotted, character-driven. Grimspace is a heckuva first book (heckuva 3rd, book, too). Not perfect, but so good that you put up with the short-comings.
This is more Ronald D. Moore/Joss Whedon-y S.F. than a Roddenberry/Lucas SF. The characters are people: flawed, self-deceived, selfish, scared... You grow to care about them, not just what happens (which would be interesting enough on its own, actually).
Actually, now that I've said it above, I'm more and more convinced this is Firefly without the livestock or distinctive dialogue. Can't wait til I get my hands on the sequel.
This novel has great characters and great character interaction. It is fast-paced plot with lots of action. Disappointed the storyline leaves a lot hanging for the rest of the series. This first book seems to be mostly the building of characters and relationships. I just wouldn't consider this book hard core science fiction.
WARNING! There are a few spoilers here and there. I tried to keep it to a minimum.
I enjoyed this book quite a bit, it was paced a bit oddly at times, but overall it was well-written with characters that piqued my interest throughout. Aguirre seems to have good hold of her characters, keeping their personalities well intact while tossing interesting twists into the story. I like that Jax was more than just a gutsy, headstrong woman - she was more than that and it kept you wondering where her story would lead.
Aguirre also did fantastically with the side characters, she made them characters who you loved and wanted to know more about. Doc Saul never ceased to be interesting, Dina is wonderfully gritty and March was a great example of a good male lead.
I found her way of individualizing each of the characters by making them have their own unique personalities and giving you reasons to like or dislike them in a more natural way was nice. For example, Loras seemed to be a bit of an enigma. You wanted to pity him and his existence given what was forced on his people. But then, Jax gave him a new reason to exist, she gave him a choice and he chose to be a white knight of sorts. He still made a sacrifice, but it was not simply to protect Jax - it was because he did what he wanted to do.
And then there are characters like Doc Saul. He's a pretty interesting guy, he comes off as all about the science. All about learning what he can learn. But under all that you can see he truly cares about everyone in the group. He is far more than he puts himself out there to be, and it makes me want to continue the story so I can discover more about him.
I loved how the sex scenes did not overpower the storyline, which can often happen with the genre of romantic novels. No matter if it's sci-fi, fantasy, etc. It did not appear at all to be the focal point of the story, which was refreshing. Yes it occurred, but it was never over done. It never overtook a moment in the story. You can go through most of the novel without encountering it and even when it comes about it feels far more naturally placed that a lot in it's genre.
I have all intents to continue with this book series, even if the first was simply for a book club. I am ever curious to know what lies ahead for Jax and the gang; as well as what is to come for the world Aguirre created with such a secret being revealed to the masses. What will the Farwan Corp do to save face? What can they do, really?
(After some thinking, I decided to add a little more to this review about my overall opinion of some of the characters and put forth some more detail. With as few spoiler-y comments as I can manage.)
Um, not my normal choice of book at all, but I loved Enclave so much that I gave this one a shot. While much of the sci fi bits were over my head, I got the action adventure parts. They were good! Anyone who knows me, knows I just gag at romance novels, but I thought Jax and March made a good team. I am pretty sure this was a first novel, and while Ann Aguirre has only gotten better, her talent is obvious. Glad I read it.
Entertaining. :)
Re-read 5/5/19
I don't recall my first time reading this since it's been so long, but I really enjoyed this and am changing the 3 star to a 4 star. It's a great start to a series, the writing is viscerally thrilling and fast-paced, and the characters aren't fully developed yet but I can see the potential of the series in spades.
