Grounded after a rescue attempt in Earth orbit goes bad, Commander Martin Atkins of the Confederation Navy is approached by the Interscission Project, a consortium of civilian corporations on the verge of perfecting the technology to travel to another star. Despite his misgivings, the chance to get back in the pilot’s seat is too much to pass up, and he convinces his best friend and crewmate, … Charles Davenport, to leave the military temporarily and join him as part of the crew of the Zenith, humanity’s first starship.
Edward Harlen is a brilliant young engineer, and a key player in the construction of the Zenith to take advantage of the untested technology of foldspace drive. But Edward has his own agenda in joining the project, and a bitterly personal score to settle with his boss, Trevor Sutton, a vendetta of which Trevor is entirely ignorant. But when Edward’s sister Stella enters the picture and manages to secure a position on the project, all of Edward’s careful plotting is upset, and she might spell the downfall not only of his plans for revenge, but of the entire Zenith mission.
The spark of attraction between Edward and Martin is a complication that Edward can’t afford, but of which he can’t let go. For Edward knows the secret at the heart of the Interscission Project, the hidden potential of the technology that in the wrong hands could become the ultimate assassin’s weapon: the ability to rewrite history, not just once, but many times. As an unseen enemy moves to destroy them, and the body count multiplies in their wake, Martin and Edward must choose whether they will allow the possibility of love to challenge their destinies, or will they instead take up arms in a war to control the most ancient and terrible power in the universe.
Time, itself.
more
Read for 2021 SPSFC
Overall Thoughts
This one has zoomed near the top of my list (which is becoming ever more stratified!). It’s got spaceships, time travel, cool technobabble, lots of LGBT content, romance, mystery, and suspense. Think Battlestar Galactica or Babylon 5, but with a bi/pan main character. Basically it ticks all my boxes, and I’m really looking forward to reading the others in this series (I’m picking up a lot of new series from this contest…). I listened to this one in audiobook and the one problem I had getting into it was a few of the descriptions were hard to follow, and I think I missed a few things in the scene transitions. My guess is this was a blocking issue that didn’t translate very well to audiobook, but aside from that, I really enjoyed this one!
Plot
We’re thrown into the mix right away, as the senior crew of an experimental ship has all been killed, and the “B-Team” is coming in to take over. This crew has some definite faults, and some relationship issues that will cause problems later on. We’re also quickly introduced to a super-genius, Edward, and his twin sister, who have hacked their way into the mission and definitely have something hidden about them. Martin, the new lead pilot, is the other main viewpoint, and it’s great to see a main character with a very pansexual attitude about other people. I knew this book had LGBT content going in, but was rewarded when it was handled quite well.
Things soon go awry for the experimental ship, as there seems to be a saboteur. We find out (tiny little sort-of spoiler here) that the ship will be able to jump to a far location in space, even to another star system, and this is what’s being tested. Of course, things go downhill from there, as we learn more about the twins, Martin, Martin’s close friend Charles, and what’s really going on with the experimental project. I would love to say more, but I’ll just say you should read the book! One more warning: it doesn’t quite end with a cliffhanger, but the story definitely continues on to the next in the series (which I will be reading shortly).
Setting
This is a near-future setting, where the society is fast approaching longer-term space exploration and colonization. Most of what we see in the story is a navy-style command structure (as in many starship-related stories) combined with corporate interests. However, there is definitely some hanky-panky going on with the crew! There were a couple really nice sex scenes in the book, and pairings both M-F and M-M. The technobabble was just complex enough to pique my interest, and I think I even followed most of it. The best kind. There was clearly enough research put into a few theories to support the technology in the book, both experiment and futuristic. Nothing took me out of the story, and in fact it served to really draw me in.
Character
For all this is a story filled with plotful events, there was a really nice character-driven sub plot going on. Martin and Edward’s romance was very well done, as were the changing romances between a few of the other crew members. These moments balanced well with the action of the plot, and served to raise even more conflict between the characters to drive the reader into the story. The LGBT aspects were also handled extremely well, with all sexualities (as far as I can tell) being accepted. There wasn’t any trans or non-binary representation, but bisexual/pansexual was very well covered. One phrase near the end of the book really caught my attention, and I’m paraphrasing as I don’t want to search through the audiobook for the quote, but it was something to the effect of “who you want to sleep with is not the same as who you want to spend the rest of your life with.” It made me think, and that’s always a winning strategy in my (heh) book. I was actually going to put this one lower down in my top ten, but the ending was so well done, and used all the characters so well, that I really want to read the next one right now! But I need to read more in this contest… Suffice to say, this has well deserved its rating.
Score out of 10 (My personal score, not the final contest score)
Temporary score until more books in the contest are read: A fun starship/space opera romp with plenty of cool technology. Great LGBT aspects and a well-handled, star-crossed romance. 9/10.
Good Sci-Fi Journey
I’ve read Sunset by Ahsanuddin, and found I liked this story much better. The writing style is unique to this author, but there’s a special way Ahsanuddin tells a story. The story flows very well, and has a great deal of action and sexual content, which doesn’t bother me, and I wouldn’t describe it as being an erotica story. It’s a futuristic sci-fi drama with a bit MM romance. There is a spark between Edward and Martin, but it isn’t just about their attraction. It’s about saving the world. I enjoyed this story and will definitely read more from this author, especially more books in this series.