Gravity

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader. I also have a pretty good interview with the author there.
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Lehana is a smuggler known throughout the Outer Rim as one who'll take just about any job if the price is right. That's actually about all that anyone knows about her, really. Thanks to a small computer problem, Lehana crashes onto a mining planet, seriously impeding their production for a couple of days. To appease the owners of the mines, as well as to get a little assistance, she agrees to one of those jobs she has turned down before.

Because of a bad experience she had with the man who runs the mine, Lehana decides to take one of his slaves with her as she leaves. What she doesn't know is that she helped other slaves—a man and his two cryogenically frozen children—leave the planet. She'd have been well within her rights to turn them over, but that didn't sit right with her. She's no supporter of slavery, but she's not a revolutionary either and would prefer to just do her own thing without getting embroiled in anything. Still, she can't hand over kids.

Taking that many slaves is enough to get her current clients to send people after her, and the rest of the book revolves around the questions: can she successfully deliver her cargo and make a profit off of it, before those coming to collect the brand new price on her head show up to collect? Can she—does she want to—save the lives of the stowaways? Will she work again after this stunt?

I really appreciated the way that Lynch set up these characters and introduced us to this world. It feels familiar to people who've read a smattering of Space Operas before, but it's not a clone of any that I know of. A mix of the routine and the new makes for an easy entry into the world for the reader. This applies for the way the characters were introduced to each other and became a team, as well as the world they exist in.

Lehana's a solid character to build a series on, and the other characters that were prominent were pretty strong, too. I don't feel comfortable getting into the characters as much as usual, I think you should get to know them in the novel rather than me getting into a discussion too deep, I'm just afraid I'd spoil too much. On the whole, I liked the characters—there were a couple of people on Lehana's crew that were sidelined most of the time, but the others really clicked well for me. I'd have preferred more time with just about all of them over the stuff that I'll talk about in the next paragraph. Now, the characters that I found the most interesting (at least one of them) were not the characters that Lynch found the most use for. I grant you that I may be more curious about them than I am others because Lynch didn't focus on them as much, so there are more questions about them.

My biggest gripe would have to be about the way that Lehana and Kash interacted with the ship to help the navigation—it just didn't make sense. I mean, I got it—both the way it was described and the way that Lynch used it to spur some character development in Lehana. But it's not something I could really buy/accept. I don't think this is a reflection on Lynch's writing, it's the concept behind it. It's hard to talk about briefly and without ruining the story for anyone, but I just didn't like it. This wouldn't be a big deal, except for the prominence it took in the storytelling. It's not a deal-breaker, but I found it annoying and boring at the same time. On a related note, I think the amount and detail of sexual references could've been toned down, but I skew prudish, I know.

I had a good time reading this—it was fast, it was fun, set in an intriguing world with well-constructed and entertaining characters. I think I'm curious enough about what's going on to come back for more—and maybe to check out some other works in this universe, just to see how they're different/similar. If you're in the mood for a nice space opera, this could just be the thing for you.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel from the author in exchange for this post, but I read it because I wanted to and the opinions expressed are my own and not influenced by her.