Grimspace by Ann Aguirre - book review

Title: Grimspace
Author: Ann Aguirre
Published: 2008
Series: Sirantha Jax #1
Genre: Science Fiction
Adventure, kick-ass heroine, romance, space.
Ann Aguirre•Goodreads

I’ve had this book on my “to-read” list for a couple of months, but not gotten around to reading it. Mostly because there’s just so many books I want to read and also because I haven’t read that much sci-fi. But after having read Redshirts by John Scalzi, I found myself wanting more sci-fi in my life. And since I’d heard great things about this book from Felicia Day, I decided that it might be the perfect mix of sci-fi and romance for me. And it was.

Synopsis

Sirantha Jax is a carrier of a rare gene, that gives her the ability to jump ships through grimspace. When the ship she’s navigating crash-lands, Jax finds herself not only blamed for the crash and killing everyone on board, but also imprisoned and without a memory of the incident. As Jax fights the oncoming madness, a mysterious man breaks into her cell and promises to help her escape – but for a price.

My thoughts

I really, really enjoyed this book. The dialogue was witty and the plot and characters were interesting.

The main character, Sirantha Jax, caught my attention from the start. She has most of the qualities I look for in a good heroine; she’s strong both mentally and physically, she’s snarky and not afraid to say exactly what she thinks, and she’s not super hot. I like that in a character, it makes her seem more real. These qualities are not totally original in sci-fi or urban fantasy. There is however one thing that you don’t see every day in these genres; Sirantha Jax is 33 years old. And that is another thing that I liked; she’s not fresh out of high school or even college.

The rest of the characters in the book are quite different from one another. March, the male lead, has the ability to hear what other people are thinking. But he uses this ability in a good way; he can chose when to listen in on someone’s thoughts, and when not to. The Doctor onboard, Saul, is a pretty typical medical doctor. Dina is the ships mechanic, and at the beginning of the book a pretty stereotypical butch, lesbian. But as the story goes on, you see some other, interesting sides to Dina.

I liked that the story was told in Sirantha’s POV, but you still got a very good sense of the other characters. That’s not something you see always see when a story is told in first person.

The plot and the pacing kept me hooked pretty much all the way through the book. And there were some interesting twists and turns along the way.

I can’t really compare this book to other sci-fi books, since I haven’t read that much sci-fi. But even so, this book is really, really good, and I would recommend it to people who read a lot of fantasy, as well as sci-fi.