Grimspace by Ann AguirreGrim­space by Ann Aguirre, paper­back, Feb 2008 release, pub­lished by Ace, fan­tasy. As many read­ers have stated, Grim­space has var­i­ous shades of pop cul­ture influ­ence, fea­tur­ing a diverse and mot­ley crew of voy­agers trav­el­ing through­out the galaxy, try­ing to top­ple an estab­lished insti­tu­tion with con­tro­ver­sial ideas for change.

Sir­an­tha Jax is a jumper. She works for the Far­wan Cor­po­ra­tion and she is the only sur­vivor of the Sar­gasso. Her last jump killed 82 peo­ple that included dig­ni­taries, offi­cials, and her beloved pilot, Kai. Since the crash, Jax has been held in lock-up and is being inter­ro­gated in a Corps facil­ity. Her mem­o­ries of the crash are frag­mented and are orches­trated in such a way as to make her believe that the fault lies with her.

Mean­while, word gets around about Jax fall out with the Corps and March and his crew (Dina, Loras and Saul) from the Folly, use this oppor­tu­nity to res­cue her. It is March who sneaks in, grabs her and then heads back out to Lachion, a planet unrec­og­nized by the Corps.

Jax pos­sess a rare J-gene that allows her to travel through grim­space. Grim­space is described as being the “sub­space” between two points of inter­stel­lar travel. Jumpers use grim­space to dis­cover new plan­ets and they are uti­lized heav­ily as the main source for com­mer­cial trade between inter­stel­lar worlds. The Corps have always been the soli­tary source for jumpers thereby giv­ing them eco­nomic power and edge over many of the other con­glom­er­ate worlds.

The life span of a jumper is pretty short since burn out occurs usu­ally after ten years. Jumpers are rare and Jax stands out because she has sur­vived the longest of any jumper around. Her many suc­cess­ful jumps and dis­cov­er­ies have made her a nav­i­ga­tional star in the Corps com­mu­nity. How­ever, her last failed jump that killed her pilot and sev­eral impor­tant offi­cials has made her a tar­get of gov­ern­ment pro­pa­ganda and con­spir­acy. She is tagged a fugi­tive and an enemy by the gov­ern­ment she used to work for and at the same time she can­not help but be a vul­ner­a­ble tar­get to those who wish to use her genetic lot­tery for their own finan­cial gains.

The sub­plot of the story seems to focus around Jax being apart of a “vision” to start up a rival acad­emy group that will train future gen­er­a­tion of jumpers who have been either dis­carded by the Corps or who have retired or pos­sess the rare J-gene and remain under the radar. The end result being that this will enable com­pet­i­tive trade and inter­stel­lar travel through grim­space among all con­glom­er­ate worlds. The Corps are the only source for jumpers which trans­lates to own­ing the monop­oly for inter­stel­lar space travel and trade among other things and it seems that they will stop at noth­ing to keep it that way.

As for action –there are more than a few scenes with the char­ac­ters run­ning for their lives against man-eating crea­tures; we watch them out­ma­neu­ver some polit­i­cal back­stab­bing and nar­rowly escape from life threat­en­ing sit­u­a­tions. We get to visit the Out­skirts, which seems to be com­prised of plan­ets that are unrec­og­nized by the Corps and tend to har­bor fugi­tives. There’s a bit of pol­i­tics to add a layer of com­plex­ity to the plot which I enjoyed the most.

The plot is thick with sus­pense. There is the native yet deadly habi­tat on Lachion that had me turn­ing the pages quickly. Upon land­ing on Lachion, a rival clan tries to kid­nap Jax and brief com­bat ensues. After it is over, Loras who is a savant, stands off to the side and looks all around him and declares with a men­ac­ing, yet all know­ing voice and he doesn’t need to shout it for any­one to hear him either because every­one knows what he is talk­ing about when he says qui­etly: “they’re coming.”

There is a roman­tic sub­plot between Jax and March that is nicely built and an added bonus; at the start the two strongly dis­like each other but as the plot pro­gresses and enough time has passed, the two of them end up falling in love with each other. The main thrust of this story is about Jax redis­cov­er­ing her­self. After years of being a star nav­i­ga­tor for the Corps, she is up for a do over.

Jax is not exactly heroic or all that lik­able. She is flawed and bro­ken as is March and each finds solace within each other. March is attrac­tive in his prac­ti­cal­ity. He is no-nonsense yet sen­si­tive and sup­port­ive when needed. There’s a scene where he tells her that she has “beau­ti­ful bones” hid­den under all that hair after she is forced to shave her head so that she doesn’t attract the bounty hunters who might be look­ing for her in her home town of Gehenna.

The dénoue­ment was one I didn’t see com­ing in terms of a character’s tran­si­tion from a vil­lain to that of an sup­port­ive ally; and it unfolded nicely to reveal what I had sus­pected all along in rela­tion to the main story arc. Grim­space for me was more of a char­ac­ter dri­ven story. Grim­space is a novel of space adven­ture, action with a plot that goes all over the place and leaves you want­ing more because after it ended, I could have eas­ily picked up the next book and kept on read­ing and btw, that next book is Wan­der­lust due out Sept 08.

Grim­space is shelved in fan­tasy (at least that’s where I’ve seen it at my local book­store). It has just the right amount of romance; just the right amount of action, angst, pol­i­tics, sus­pense with mem­o­rable cast of char­ac­ters that stood out and made this one hell of a story. So, if you’re still on the fence, I hope I was able to con­vince you and if my voice alone doesn’t work for you why don’t you visit Dea­r­Author and see where var­i­ous read­ers have pretty much said the same thing I am say­ing to you right now: read this book. It’s good. A.

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