Make it make sense!!
I think that's my cardinal rule for science fiction. If you'd asked me how to make ships straight from a 19th (18th?) Century Empire dream work in space in our solar system where Mars and Venus are terraformed independents, and there's cutlasses, and honor, and stays that need undone, and adorable tattoos, and a class system, and a whole lot of desperate people who don't have any good choices... I don't think I'd know where to start. Jenne, however, did--and does.
This book is a lot of things and I appreciate all of them: it's a ripping good yarn in the tradition of an old adventure story, it's a geek's wet dream, with detail that never overwhelms but always explains *how things work.* How can there be space battles? What does an asteroid look like as it rolls slowly towards your station's doom? How does Venus society differ from Martian, and when on Mars, which fork should you use for the fish when invited to dine? (I made that last one up, but it's that lovely mix of hard tech and soft manners that forms the backdrop of what's really the story of one young woman's awakening to just what's wrong with her world.)
Lucy Prescott is the narrator, but I think the story is equally Moira's, her childhood crush, her will they or won't they, whose clearheaded perspective about what really going in the Martian Navy, and then later life among the pirates, helps the reader understood what Lucy herself at first refuses to see.
The side characters are wonderful too. Bing, Maggie and Mannon will stick with me, both for their tragedies and their light.
I've read a lot of books recently that tackle Big Questions of Empire with a heavy hand and soft science. (It's kind of my pet peeve.) Jenne has a deft touch for not doing either and it's massively appreciated. She doesn't shy or sugarcoat social problems, she presents the people living with them in all their imperfect needy glory, and in the end sends it up with a positive message for change. Plenty of room for a sequel or a series with this: a very unique solar system with cinematic space battles that remind me of both Star Blazers and Mutiny on the Bounty. That is always, always a good thing.
This book is also a love story, a sweet, adorable funny love story--but the focus is wider, epic, and the mix between personal and political is perfectly done.
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