Thursday, December 22, 2011

Review: Grimspace by Ann Aguirre

Grimspace (Sirantha Jax #1) by Ann Aguirre


Summary:
By all accounts, Sirantha Jax should have burned out years ago…

As the carrier of a rare gene, Jax has the ability to jump ships through grimspace—a talent which cuts into her life expectancy, but makes her a highly prized navigator for the Corp. But then the ship she’s navigating crash-lands, and she’s accused of killing everyone on board. It’s hard for Jax to defend herself: she has no memory of the crash.

Now imprisoned and the subject of a ruthless interrogation, Jax is on the verge of madness. Then a mysterious man breaks into her cell, offering her freedom—for a price. March needs Jax to help his small band of rogue fighters break the Corp monopoly on interstellar travel—and establish a new breed of jumper.

Jax is only good at one thing—grimspace—and it will eventually kill her. So she may as well have some fun in the meantime…

Spoilers ahead! You’ve been warned. Read at your own risk.

Are you afraid of falling, baby?
No, I’m afraid of landing.
[He’s laughing, and I’m smiling.]
Stupid idiot smile, don’t you know what comes next?

Grimspace is the first of Sirantha Jax sci-fi series written by Ann Aguirre. At first I thought that this is just one of those trying-hard sci-fi novels which suck in using the outer space as the novel’s setting. But, apparently, this book proved me wrong from the very first page. This is an action-filled series that will definitely keep you turning the pages without even noticing it.
Now let’s proceed to the story. As you’ve read earlier, our heroine is Sirantha Jax. Sirantha has this rare J-gene that makes her a qualified jumper. Meaning, she can access the grimspace through “jump”, an interstellar travel from one point or place to another. In grimspace, a jumper always needs a Pilot who will guide the jumper through space. The relationship between the jumper and the pilot was so strong and deep that marriage can’t even compete with it. It is even revealed in the story that Sirantha’s former husband divorced her because he can’t handle coming second to Kai, Sirantha’s pilot. Sirantha is not only just an ordinary jumper; she had logged over five hundred successful “jumps” for the corp than any navigator ever. It is really a rare occurrence for her because a jumper has only finite jumps to perform before his/her mind burns out which causes a jumper to ‘retire’.
Everything is going smoothly for Sirantha until one unfortunate turn of events happened in her life. That is when she is blamed for the crash-landing of the ship that she’s navigating, killing all the passengers onboard, including her pilot Kai. She undergoes solitary detention with only AI’s as her companion. Other than that, she also has this Dream Therapy which will force her to ‘replay’ the incident in her mind. Witnessing the death of her pilot over and over again that is until March, a mysterious guy saves her and broke her out of her prison. March turned out to be our very handsome hero who leads a group of people whose goal is to break the Corps monopoly, and for that reason they need Sirantha’s skills. Eventually, March became Sirantha’s new pilot by force.

RATINGS.
Cover – (Gorgeous cover btw. I really love it. Not too ‘flashy’ for a sci-fi novel which really suits my taste :D )

Plot – (Never a dull moment. The stories is fast paced and trust me, you’ll never get bored reading it. The twist is really good. I really enjoyed it because Ann was able to bring me into another world with her creative writing style. At first I had doubts in reading this. But after gathering my wits to turn the page, I got hooked up with the story immediately. )

Character development – Oh god I love Sirantha and March!!!! Usually the pilot-jumper relationship starts in this order associate-friends-lover. But in Sirantha and March’s case, they have no choice to trust each other and were force to perform the jump on the first few hours that they’d met. As for the supporting characters, Ann was able to introduce each one and to provide contrasting roles in the story making it juicier and livelier to read like for example Dina.

Over-all rating – If I were you, I’m going to get myself a copy now. You don’t know what you’re missing if you let this novel escape your reading list

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