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Grimspace by Ann Aguirre
 | Grimspace Ann Aguirre Romantic Science Fiction 2008 Rating: DNF |
I'm sure other reviewers have mentioned the similarities between the world Ann Aguirre has created in her book Grimspace and the world created by Joss Whedon in his SF/Western series Firefly. Both take placde in the future well after Earth has passed, if not into history, into obscurity. Both involve a motley group of planet -hopping outlaws who oppose the universe's power monopoly, a huge morally ambiguous corporation.
But Grimspace has a primary character instead of an ensemble cast (the book, in fact, is narrated in first person), and that character has a supernatural ability. Sirantha Jax is a jumper which essentially means she is capable of transporting a ship from one part of the universe to another with the help of a pilot. She surfs the grimspace. Because of that ability she's been a star with the Corporation for much of her life. She's had a fast and bright career exploring new planets and cultures and mapping space. But now it's all over. Her last trip ended disastrously with the ship and it's large population of important passengers crashing. Jax can't remember exactly what happened, and she's too emotionally bereft at the death of her lover/pilot to try and defend herself. It becomes clearer, however, as time passes and the psychological interrogations intensify, that the Corporation isn't so much interested in exonerating her, as they are in making sure she can't ever tell her story to anyone ever.
Enter a strange scary guy who wants to "help" her. Out of the blue a man named March appears in her solitary confinement and tells her he can get her out. She has three minutes to decide if she wants to leave. Jax throws caution to the wind and sides with March. And off they go to accomplish his agenda. She only wishes she knows what that is.
What follows is a series of seemingly loosely connected bloody adventures as Jax and March flee the Corporation bounty hunters and try to break the monopoly its established on travel and transport.
Ann Aguirre has a clear, engaging writing style, and Jax is an interesting heroine - tough, experienced, and hard boiled by this latest tragedy. The world building here is well done, and the plotting is far from predictable. However my interest in the plot waned as the book progressed and the body count built. Characters were introduced only to be dispatched pages later. Sympathetic characters were executed left and right. In many ways this book felt like a series of episodes instead of one story with a beginning and an end. Episodes geared to an audience that likes a lot of action and violence and is not emotionally attached to any one character within the cast. This audience must also not mind that the main character constantly ruminates about her death while constantly expecting it to happen at any time.
I made it about two-thirds or more before I stopped caring about what had happened in the crash and why and started wishing I'd never picked this book up. It was just too depressing for me and I no longer felt I could trust the author enough to care about any of the remaining characters. Oddly enough, I had the same reaction to the series Firefly. I thought it was intriguing at first, but I eventually lost interest in where it was going and only watched Serenity dispassionately, out of vague curiosity.
Grimspace goes into my database as DNF: Did Not Finish. It was simply too grim for me.
I did manage to finish Grimspace, barely. I am a big fan of Firefly,
Serenity and the new Battlestar Galactica. Jax reminded me so much of
Starbuck in the new BSG it was scary. And both Jax and Starbuck are too
'male' for me...they've lost what it is that makes a strong 'female'
character. I liked March, but here the 1st person POV wasn't condusive to
exploring his character as much as I would have liked. The flow of the
story was also choppy. On the plus side the writing was clear, straight
forward and inviting.
I liked this much better than you did. I don't know why, but for the most
part, I didn't take the deaths as seriously, except maybe Mare's and Baby
Z.'s. This book wasn't perfect, but I liked Jax and March both, and I
really enjoyed Aguirre's writing style. Jax didn't remind me of Starbuck
at all (I am also a fan of the new BSG). She and March actually reminded
me a bit of some of Sharon Shinn's characters, in that I saw them basically
as good people who weren't perfect, and who were caught in a difficult
situation. Maybe it was because the writing style had a clarity and
neatness that also reminded me a bit of Shinn's writing style, that I saw
the main characters (and some of the side characters) in that light. I had
some problems with the book and found the latter portion of it slower going
than the first two-thirds. But I still enjoyed it very much overall.
Margaret and Janine - I've heard good things before about the Battlestar
Galactica. I'll have to try it.
It seems we all liked her writing style. I did find other similarities
with BSG tho...the made-up swear word frag, in BSG it's frak, the ability
to jump--although the method is different. I'm not a huge sci-fi geek tho
(no Star Trek for me) so perhaps these are well used terms. It just didn't
seem fresh, even if it is all standard sci-fi speak.
ENCHANTED...noticed this on your currently watching list Rachel. I thought
it was a great family movie, very clever and funny.
Yeah, "frag" was sort of similiar to "frak." I've seen made up swear words
elsewhere in SF but maybe not that similiar to it. But the ability to jump
has beein in a ton of SF books and movies, including Star Trek and Star
Wars.
I thought Enchanted was cute. I liked the songs, but I kind of thought the
couple swapping at the end was too neat. My niece was over and she watched
it too. I asked her what she thought, and she said, "It was pwetty good,
but at the end when the mean queen turned into a dragon - that was kind of
scawy."