SNAPSHOT
Two Ships. One Chance To Save The Future.Fleeing the final days of the generations-long war with the alien Felen, smuggler Jereth Keeven’s freighter the Jonah breaks down in a strange rift in deep space, with little chance of rescue—until they encounter the research vessel Gallion, which claims to be from 152 years in the future.
The Gallion’s chief engineer Uma Ozakka has always been fascinated with the past, especially the tale of the Fortunate Five, who ended the war with the Felen. When the Gallion rescues a run-down junk freighter, Ozakka is shocked to recognize the Five’s legendary ship—and the Five’s famed leader, Eldric Leesongronski, among the crew.
But nothing else about Leesongronski and his crewmates seems to match up with the historical record. With their ships running out of power in the rift, more than the lives of both crews may be at stake … (synopsis courtesy io9/Gizmodo)
I absolutely love anyone who has all kinds of twisting them out of shape and recognisable form fun with much-loved tropes and cliches.
Don’t get me wrong, I love said tropes and cliches, especially when it comes to science fiction which warms every escapist-loving bone in my Earthbound body, but I also adore when they are upended, change shape, morph and meld and generally step of out of their usual always-welcomed place.
Debut author Ren Hutchings seems to have nailed the idea of the space opera with some really cool changes as io9 observes in their preview of this exciting new novel, due to hit shelves on 10 May.
“Ren Hutchings’ debut novel, Under Fortunate Stars, is a time-twisting homage to classic space opera and science fiction, taking well-beloved tropes and twisting them on their head. It’s a paradoxical puzzle-box of a novel that reveals its secrets in bits and pieces, spread out over four different points of view that weave in and out of time.” (courtesy io9/Gizmodo)
It sounds brilliant and suggests a kind of genre-upending adventure such as the one that occurred with The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton which made merry with the Agatha Christie-arm of the crime genre, and while my TBR pile is sighing loudly at the idea of being passed over yet again for a pretty, bright, shiny new book, the fact of the matter is that Under Fortunate Stars all but demands to be brought to the head of the queue.
To read an excerpt of Under Fortunate Stars, go to “Take a Look at a Time Twisting Slice of Under Fortunate Stars”