Review:
Grimspace, by Ann Aguirre
| Series: |
Sirantha Jax #1 |
| Publisher: |
Ace |
| Copyright: |
March 2008 |
| ISBN: |
0-441-01599-9 |
| Format: |
Mass market |
| Pages: |
312 |
Sirantha Jax is a jumper: a person with the rare genetic ability to jump
spaceships through the shortcut dimension of grimspace. It's a science
fiction idea with a long pedigree. It creates a separate in-group for the
characters to belong to, a society with its own rules, and sets up tension
with the rest of the institutions of the world. In Aguirre's version,
jumpers can provide the transition but direction in grimspace has to be
done by a pilot, and the jumper and the pilot develop a deep psychic bond.
Jax had been jumping with her husband piloting, but on their last trip
their ship crashed, killing everyone on board except her.
As
Grimspace opens, Jax is in a treatment facility that's much more
like a prison. In theory, they're trying to figure out whether she's
still able to (and safe to allow to) jump. In practice, something quite a
bit more sinister is going on, a fact that the reader senses early but
only learns more about after Jax is helped to escape. Scarred, deeply
depressed, and nearly suicidal, she's pulled into the subversive plans of
a small ship of renegades who are trying to break open the Corp monopoly
on grimspace travel and their tight hold over every jumper. But she's not
sure whether she trusts them, or whether she cares enough about their
crusade to truly join in.
Grimspace follows well-trod SF paths of special cadres of pilots
and navigators, lawless corners of space with local warlords, and
rebellion against smothering centralization, but its first-person
protagonist and point of view have more in common with urban fantasy.
It's written in first-person and, at times, nearly stream of consciousness
from Jax's perspective, and Jax displays plenty of profanity, acidic
commentary, and emotional angst. If her special ability were
shapeshifting or magic instead of jumping spaceships, one could easily see
her as the typical burned-out urban fantasy detective. I liked that.
It's a fun point of view when it's written well, and it felt fresh when
applied to a science fiction background instead of the more typical
fantasy.
That said,
Grimspace has a rather rough start. Jax isn't sure
what's going on at first and also isn't sure she cares, and I thought that
carried over to the reader's experience. The first section of the book is
rough and jagged, with staccato bursts of character introduction,
world-building that doesn't quite cohere, and an extended stop on a very
odd outback planet that felt to me like a repurposed stage from a western.
Part of the early problem is that Jax and the reader are being
intentionally kept in the dark about the real goal of this group, but part
of the problem is also that none of the characters start off as very
likable. That includes Jax, who is a complete mess and who is both scared
and despairing to the point of being almost nihilistic. The
world-building unfortunately does not carry the reader through that part
of the story, and at about eighty pages in I wasn't sure I was going to
like this book.
It does, however, get much better. For one, Jax calms down and starts
making emotional connections with the rest of the crew, and that lets her
demonstrate skills as a fearless problem solver. For another, while the
goal of the group of people she's fallen in with isn't exactly deep, it
does make sense and it does slowly become a cause the reader (and Jax) can
believe in. The frenetic pace of introduction and discovery also slows
down, the cast stabilizes, and the surroundings get a bit less weird (and
a bit more conventional for a science fiction novel). I didn't care for
the alien baby subplot I rarely do but the rest of the story slowly
pulled me in.
One thing Aguirre did extremely well was surprise me. There are several
points later in the book where Jax gets put in a fairly typical
high-stress position and does something very atypical in reaction to it,
twisting the story into a shape quite a bit unlike what I had been
expecting. That made Jax feel like a true free agent, establishing her
independence and her desire to control her own life, and that appealed to
me. Aguirre also palms one card exceptionally well, setting up an ending
that I thought was the best set of scenes in the whole book, and that had
me thoroughly engrossed. One can see the bones of the urban fantasy
heroine inside Jax's character, but they're fresh and interesting in an SF
world, and they work better than I would have expected.
There is a romance, in fitting with the urban fantasy inspiration, and it
didn't quite work for me, but Aguirre also builds in a reason why it might
not make sense and makes it spiky and fragile without being too cliched.
By the end of the book, I was, if not entirely persuaded, at least willing
to go along for the ride.
And that's the best summary of
Grimspace, I think. Parts of it
don't make a great deal of sense, and parts of it are quite choppy. But I
liked Jax once she starts getting a handle on her trauma, the other
characters grew on me, and the plot surprised me in some interesting ways.
It's not the smoothest or most polished SF novel I've read, but it has a
lot of energy and an unusual genre mix. I think I'll stick along for the
ride.
Followed by
Wanderlust.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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