What happens if you don’t make your payments on the starship you’re flying? It gets repossessed, of course. But what does it take to repossess a starship? Firstname Lastname is about to find out.
Firstname Lastname is a young woman (and yes, that’s really her legal name, due to a clerical error, but she goes by “First”) who is one of the very few humans left in the universe (a botched invasion of Earth left both the invaders and humanity nearly exterminated) and she’s wandering, looking for work wherever she can find it. Often that comes by way of jobs that aren’t exactly legal. She’s hijacking cars and selling them to a fence when she finds herself caught in a trap specifically to catch car hijackers. But this trap isn’t set by law enforcement, but by an individual pulling together a crew of skilled thieves to work as a legal (but just barely) team repossessing starships.
It takes some time for the team to adjust to, and trust, one another, but they find a common bond in wanting to truly be legit, and they respect each others’ talents. First may finally have a home and a family.
This is a fast read that doesn’t take itself too seriously. This is light space opera (think Guardians of the Galaxy without the cute raccoon and tree or Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) with a wafer-thin plot. In fact, the plot feels more like a set-up for future stories because we don’t get much here other than an introduction to the characters as individuals and as a team. We get a sense of what they are capable of but what they are doing never feels as important as how it affects their relationships.
I quite enjoyed author Patrick S. Tomlinson’s ‘Children of a Dead Earth’ series (is this a recurring theme in Tomlinson’s work … a dead earth?) and was really interested in reading this new series. I like Tomlinson’s writing style but we’ll need to see more plot and less forced humor for me to continue with future volumes.
Looking for a good book? Starship Repo by Patrick S. Tomlinson is a quick, light space opera that doesn’t offer much interesting story but does set up some fun characters that will hopefully be challenged in future books.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
Starship Repo
author: Patrick S. Tomlinson
series: The Breach
publisher: Tor Books
ISBN: 1250302714
paperback, 336 pages
