It's a little bit strange that this is a new book because it feels a lot like something I might have read in the 1970's.

People have left Earth to establish colonies - the colonies are based on their cultures, and of course the Americans and the Middle Easterners got into a war and blew each other up, leaving a lot of refugees. Lost in that war was the American technology for lightspeed travel. Currently, anyone traveling between the colonies travels in standard relativity time. This means that a trading ship might visit a colony, then head off for another colony and so on, and while only a year passes for those on the ship, it's 24 years for those on the colonies.
The Hadjj are a family-owned trading ship. The entire family stays together on the trading ship because it's the only way to grow up with your family.

The captain of the Hadjj makes a contract with a young, poor couple to commit their children in marriage - the captain's son, Adem Sadiq, and the couples' unborn daughter (who will be named Hisako). Only a year will pass for Adem on their trip, but the unborn daughter will be nearly 24 when they return.

For the young couple, it is a way to get their child out of a life of abject poverty and Adem will have a partner and mate - something difficult to find given his trade-ship life. But for Hisako, she grows up knowing of this arranged marriage and has no say in it and will meet her fiancé on their wedding day.

The book is from the alternating viewpoints of Adem and Hisako. Once you get past the establishing of the characters and the world that this is set in, there really isn't much of interest about these two characters to keep the reader engaged.

The book felt heavy-handed with message and moral. There's a the uncle who wants to get rid of the 'liberal' views of the captain (they've been rescuing refugees) and become more profitable, and he'll do it by taking control of the ship. There's the 60s/70s 'free love' attitude that we shouldn't have hang-ups about sex and who we choose for a partner at any given time. And there's the sense of music over-coming all ills. Both Adem and Hisako create music and post it to what constitutes social media in this future.

There is a little something that happens as we get to the end of the book, which has some interest, but because we've spent so much time with Adem and Hisako ... who aren't particularly interesting beyond their arranged marriage ... the ending feels like a tacked-on short story to this book about Adem and Hisako.

I found the basic idea here interesting, and the writing decent, but the story was not well plotted.

Looking for a good book? The Light Years, by R.W.W. Greene was a bit slow and not particularly engaging.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't able to read the book but I will be featuring it in a series called "I Wish I'd Read That." Text below:

The Light Years promises an interesting dynamic between past on the present. On the one hand, there’s the promise of space travel and a future that reads as dystopian. On the other hand, you have outdated customs forced upon a protagonist who wants nothing but escape from this society that doesn’t seem to align with the futuristic date. When you throw in the promise of a well-developed past history, it sounds like an incredibly compelling world. While I wasn’t able to read it, I’d love to hear what you thought about the book in the comments! Read more about the author and book below, or purchase a copy for yourself. And of course, a big thank you to Angry Robot for the free review copy!

Published by Angry Robot on February 11, 2020

The Light Years builds on a science fiction premise I haven’t seen before. Most elements of the future that R.W.W. Greene imagines are familiar. Traders roam through the galaxy at relativistic speeds, returning home having aged less (relatively speaking) than the family members they left behind. The traders belong to a guild. Investors purchase shares in trading ships, taking a proportionate share of profits that the ship generates. The ships are family-operated, more or less.

Earth is a memory, most of its inhabitants having been incinerated by a solar event. The United Americas evacuated people on a dozen worm-drive ships and a bunch of ships that could not travel faster than light. Other groups of nations joined the evacuation. After the Caliphate and the United Americas settled their respective worlds, they destroyed each other in a war that lasted two days.

Here’s the new wrinkle to that background. Given the nature of relativity, it isn’t productive for a trader to begin a romance, go on a six-month voyage, and return to a lover who has aged fifty years. Traders therefore contract an arranged marriage, usually by bribing a family to donate a spouse in exchange for enough cash to live a better life.

Adem Sadiq is an engineer on the Hajj. His family arranges his marriage with Hisako Saski. They fund her education in physics, with a specialization that might help her understand wormhole drives, a technology that was lost when the UA was destroyed. The arrangement assures that Hisako and her parents will have a better life while bringing fresh blood to the crew of the Hajj. Adem’s only concern is that his new wife won’t want him to sleep with a crew member named Sarat, a pastime he enjoys.

Some of the story revolves around the relationship between Adem and Hisako, which for a long time is platonic, despite their shared interest in music. Adem is a nice guy and Hisako resents being sold into something resembling bondage, a situation that doesn’t lend itself to connubial bliss. That’s an interesting concept, although Greene could have done more with it.

The bulk of the story concerns a salvage operation that the Hajj undertakes. A badly damaged UA ship might yield a treasure trove of lost technology, including both a wormhole drive and the world-destroying weapon that ended the Two Day War. An investor/uncle named Rakin would like to sell the tech while a minority of family members think life-improving knowledge should be given away for the benefit of humanity, although only after instructions for building the world-destroying weapon are wiped from the memory banks. That conflict provides most the tension that develops in the novel’s later stages.

Whether Adem and Hisako will bond is a question that will interest readers who favor romance themes. Since the romantic plot thread never devolves into cheesiness, it contributes something to the story, although the contribution has little impact. Greene does raise philosophical questions about what it means to be happy, questions of a highly individualistic nature to which there are no easy answers. The exploration of those questions isn’t profound, but at least Greene makes an attempt to give a reader something to chew on.

The larger plot, involving the conflict over the salvaged technology, leads to an unexciting resolution. In fact, the plot generally fizzles out after a strong beginning. As a debut novel, however, The Light Years shows promise. With either greater depth or enough action to excite, the novel could have been exceptional. As it stands, it works well enough to earn a mild recommendation but not well enough to suggest it be placed near the top of a science fiction fan’s reading list.

RECOMMENDED

The Light Years is about two families who have arranged a marriage (between Hisako and Adem). Adem lives and works in the Hajj, a family ship that travels through the cosmos and, influenced by his parents, arranges a marriage with Hisako’s parents. But this is no ordinary arranged marriage, Hisako must be educated by the best in physics. Her parents do their best but, when she learns that she is in this contract, Hisako is not happy.

The premise of this book left me really intrigued and I was excited when I started reading it. However, that changed. I started noticing that there was not a lot going on, just a back and forth between the two main characters, with nothing happening on both sides. Sadly, at 50%, I gave up. I wasn’t going to but, after reading some of the online reviews, I figured it was the best. Many reiterated what I was feeling: lack of substance. There was so much that could have been done with this novel. There could have been more internal conflict in Adem who, even though was about to be in an arranged marriage, still had feelings for other people. Or maybe there could have been a more appreciative, understanding side to Hisako, instead of the insufferable brat she became.

I’m not saying this book is the absolute worse, if you still want to read it, I think you should, just keep in mind that there might not be a lot going on for a while.

Since I didn’t finish the book, I can’t comment on the ending but, from the reviews I read, it seemed to be too little too late.

I like the names of Adem and Hisako.

The idea of paying and choosing a bride is kinda okay however, I was surprised that the girl was still inside her mother's womb.

I was very excited about Adem and Hisako to meet. And when they saw each other for the first time, I knew it! There were sparks flying.

However, I'm not really a fan of Science Fiction and though I like reading the story, I find the ending unsatisfying.

I wish the author can do more.

Thank you very much to Angry Robot and Netgalley for the ARC!

Set in a future where humankind left a dying Earth to reach the stars, The Light Years follows Hisako Saski and Adem Sadiq, two people forced to marry to fulfill the wishes of their respective families.

The Sadiq own The Haji, a sub-light ship used to carry goods between planet. While this ship is very valuable, it’s getting old and the family cannot afford to lose it. The captain has a plan to transform it by using the remains of a warship powered by a lost technology. To do so, she needs the help of a physic scientist well-versed in the subject.

Hasiko Saski’s parents decided she was going to marry into the Sadiq family before she was born. This alliance is the only way for her to have a good education and a relative peaceful life on Freedom, a planet that is slowly yet surely succumbing to a civil war.

Hisako learns about the arranged marriage as a child and she’s definitely not pleased about it. Especially because one of the requirements is that she must obtain a PhD in United America- a long lost civilization- physics.



I didn’t expect this book to be what it was. With the synopsis, I thought it was going to be a kind of enemies to lovers’ space romance with a bit of political maneuvering thrown into the mix. It wasn’t, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the story. On the contrary, I was pleasantly surprised to read a fascinating story following two protagonists trying to live their best life in a world that is falling apart.

The worldbuilding was wonderful. Basically, in this future, if you’re not wealthy enough, you cannot have children. If you still decide to have children, you have to either abandon them in the street, indenture yourself to buy the right to keep them or, legally bind them to a company or a family.

In the case of Hisako, a marriage contract was the only solution for her parents to provide her with a good life – food, a home outside of the refugee camp of Freedom and education. The only requirement of the contract was that she spent 2 years working on the ship.

This book follows each character and we get to see how they experience time and life very differently. The story starts with Adem visiting Freedom to sign the marriage contract when Hisako isn’t even born. He then returns on the Haji to continue his work on the trade ship. The Haji is traveling almost at the speed of light so while he is traveling from planet to planet, his relative time is not moving at the same rate as Hisako’s. Which means that for the first part of the book, we follow Hisako’s first 24 years of life, which represents only a couple of months for Adem.

It created a very interesting dynamic: the two characters have very different approaches to the arranged marriage and we get to see how they deal with it in their own way and for different lengths of time.

I also really enjoying discovering the reasons for this unlikely alliance and how business-like it was for Adem’s family. At the same time, I feel like I wanted the two characters to get along because I could feel like I knew them so well. However, I could definitely understand the frustration each party had for one another, especially when they first meet.

I just have to reiterate that this is not a romance story, I think the blurb is pretty misleading, it’s not lying per say but if you decided to pick up the book because of that, you might feel deprived from what you wanted. I didn’t mind because this book had a lot of elements that I found fascinating. It was however, definitely slow and character-driven. The plot is not groundbreaking and not a lot of things happen.

I didn’t find it boring at all because I had way too much fun learning about the world and the characters but I think it’s worth mentioning. For me, it shares a lot of similar traits to A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. To be honest, I actually liked this more than Chambers’s works because the structure and the themes explored in this book were more interesting to me.

If you are looking for a quiet science fiction story with two interesting characters who are just two good human beings trying their best, I would definitely recommend The Light Years. I hope Greene will write other books or stories set in this world because I will be reading them.

Four stars.



I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Angry Robot. All opinions are my own.

Relativity can be awful sometimes. You get in your spaceship, leave a planet, and you come back a few months later only to find that years have passed and your family is old or dead and all your plants died because YOU COULDN'T WATER THEM LIKE I ASKED, KEVIN?

Anyway, most science fiction stories use a trope, like faster-than-light travel, to avoid dealing with relativity. Not so R.W.W. Greene. In The Light Years, the time dilation effect is embraced as a principle plot device. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and Angry Robot in exchange for a review.

Adem Sadiq needs a wife. Well, he doesn’t need one. But his mother, captain of the Hajj, wants him to get one who is knowledgeable in the physics of an extinct culture, the United Americas. So he contracts with a couple who will have a child, and then when the Hajj returns to that planet in 20 or so years relative, the child will be old enough to marry him. It’s very creepy, and if it were a straight-up romance I might have to throw my Kindle across the room. Fortunately and unfortunately, The Light Years is more of a time-dilated thriller with a hint of odd-couple comedy thrown in, and I guess that’s ok.

My major issue with the book is that the main characters take so long to bake I felt like I’d aged 20 years. Adem has very few defining qualities for the first half of the book. We just kind of … exist alongside him. Eventually we learn he likes playing music and he has an overly-developed conscience. Yay for defining characteristics! Other than that, however, he’s just so bland. Hisako is a little better—we literally see her grow up from a baby to a young woman, so she kind of has to have character development—but the snapshot effect means we seldom see her grapple with issues on that micro level. And since, as I said before, the whole “I arranged for your creation” thing is extremely creepy, I’m glad the romance angle doesn’t actually land hard, because that would make things worse.

Similarly, the principal antagonist is very one-note in his moral development. We get it: he’s a profit-driven bad guy who doesn’t respect human rights, whereas Adem and most of his family are upstanding, moral people. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this dynamic, but like Adem himself, it’s just a little bland. The tension created by the structure of the Hajj’s shareholders isn’t sufficient by itself to keep me interested.

The Light Years is at its most interesting when Greene pulls back the curtain on the wider universe he’s designed and invites us to consider the side effects of relativistic inter-system travel. The cycle of political unrest on various planets and the social inequity is very fascinating. I dig the amount of thought Greene has put into this world, as well as the time taken to craft the story itself. However, the actual style in which the story gets told? Doesn’t work great for me.

I'm grateful to the publisher for providing a free advance e-copy of this book via NetGalley.

The Light Years is a slightly different take on science fiction. Focussing on two central characters, Hisako Saski and Adem Sadiq, who are contracted by their parents to marry. The twist is that while Adem, a young man in his 20s, is aware of the deal (even if he didn't actually seek it), Hisako isn't even born yet.

What evens things up is special relativity. Adem's family make their living aboard a trader starship, able to travel every close to the speed of light. A few months spent aboard for him is equivalent to ten or twenty years for those left behind. This is the truth of relativity, a branch of physics often conveniently ignored in SF. Here, it's a cornerstone of the plot. For Adem and Hisako, it means that by the time he's returned from his latest trip, she has been born, gone through childhood, adolescence, taken her degree at university, fallen in and out of love, formed a band (and left it) and much more.

And she's learned what her contracted fate is. She must marry Adem - the bargain ensuring life, she would have literally been illegal otherwise under the strict birth control laws of her homeward - and remain married for two years. There are no other obligations, yet understandably, Hisako resents Adem and she resents the choices her parents made on her behalf.

On the whole, Greene explores this situation - for both Adem and Hisako - with tact and empathy, allowing his characters to breathe and to drive what subsequently happens. Portraying Hisako is more difficult, obviously, because the book covers more than 20 years of her life and they are turbulent years, years of development and change. Understandably, not a great deal happens to Adem in the few months of his life before the wedding. It's frustrating that Hisako's life over the corresponding period has to be represented by individual episodes showing her as a young girl, at high school, and then as a somewhat stroppy teenager. These scenes have to do a great deal of work in showing Hisako grow up and I was impressed that Greene manages to do this so well given the am out that couldn't be shown. It would have been perfectly reasonable to give Hisako a whole book and Adem a few pages at the end, really.

Another main theme here is the unequal, far-future society in which Hisako, Adem and their parents live. There are stark disparities between rich and poor, no sign of democracy and many unregistered, indeed illegal, "refugees" who, if they are lucky, end up in shanty towns such as "la Merde", if unlucky, frozen forever in stasis posts or trafficked virtually as slaves. It becomes clear that these "refugees", like everybody else, have fled Earth before it was destroyed in a solar flare, sealed I those pods. The fortunes of humanity depended very much on who arrived first and who arrived where - this, of course, being influenced by their position and wealth n the first place. They result is a society scattered across several planets where a war of all against all is vigorously fought.

Key to the future of the remaining colonies is the most technology of Earth, embodied in the ancient starships, various drifting wrecks and in scattered instances of the dead cultures and societies that created it. The goal of many - including Adem's parents - is to get themselves a piece of that knowledge. That part of the plot didn't, for me, motivate quite so much as the simple, touching plight of the two young people and their need to navigate their complex society.

This is a refreshingly intelligent SF story, with few bangs and zaps (indeed the only real section of combat occurs in an immersive simulation which Hisako plays - learning as she does how much propaganda and hate there is against the inhabitants of "la Merde"). Rather, problems are solved by courage, intelligence and negotiation, the chief obstacles being lack of trust and lack of knowledge.

It's perhaps then not for everyone but I found it an excellent read and once I began, it pretty much didn't leave my hands till I was finished.

The Light Years is different than what many people will probably want. If you are looking for an action packed space adventure, this is not it. If you are looking for action and mystery, this is not it. What The Light Years does, and does well, is tells a story of a family, the Sadiq family who run a trade ship, is in the black but just barely, and has figured out that they need a new engineer for a plan they have to get faster and richer. The son, Adem, the ship’s maintenance engineer and musician, is betrothed to marry a Hisako Saski before she is even born. The two plots meet in gene modification and splicing. I like that this novel rotates between Adem and Hisako because these two need to be the strongest characters and they are. Time works differently between Adem on the ship and Hisako growing up on the planet, and what is two years for Adem is enough time for Hisako to be in her twenties before she enters the ship. These two different ways that time passes is really an interesting concept, and one that is handed well. I also like the personalities. Adem is kind of a quiet guy who likes to work on things with his hands and make videos of him singing old earth songs and broadcasting them into the unknown, not knowing that many people collect his music files and is only known as “Spaceman.” Hisako has her own musical abilities, plays five instruments, starts a band and tries to get away from the idea that her entire life has been bought and paid for by the Sadiq family. When these two personalities meet, I hoped for more sparks, as does the family, but the route that Greene takes is satisfying and unpredictable. Instead of getting into an action/adventure story, Greene uses “The Light Years” to unfold a family drama with two strong main characters and a great amount of social commentary. I do not know if this is a stand alone novel or one that is the start of a series, but I am satisfied with the experience either way. The pages fly by, and I really did become invested in the characters and the story. This is what I demand from any good book. I am interested to see what is next.

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In a heart-breaking effort to lift their only child out of the poverty she was born into, Hisako Saski is promised by her parents in an arranged marriage to the son of a family-owned starship, the Hajj, before she is even born. When Hisako finds out later on in life, it is a situation she is far from happy with, particularly as the agreement binds her to study an obscure area of physics, which is far from prestigious. But when, at last, Hisako finds herself with her husband, Adem, and in the far reaches of space, her vital role in the fortunes of her new family come to the fore, because Hisako might be the key to unlocking a way of transport which could revolutionise interstellar travel for the Hajj and its shareholders.

If you are looking for a high-octane space opera, then The Light Years is not for you. This is a more considered piece of writing more akin to an absorbing, hypothetical anthropological study of living in space.

It is the minutiae which intrigue, namely the relationships and the fragile economy of owning a spaceship, as well as the ethics involved in trying to stay financially afloat, particularly when needing shareholder approval for any ventures the Hajj might be involved in.

Added to this are the consequences of going out into space at near light speed. Those you have left behind will have aged often quite considerably on your return, depending on how long you were travelling.

That two young people, who probably wouldn’t have chosen each other, are forced to be together in close proximity for long periods of time, adds to the tension of the story.

The lives and fortunes of the entire crew depend on them all working together successfully. That they are a family, related or not to the captain, creates interesting relationships and adds depth to the novel.

Captain Maneera, Adem’s mother, is a wise woman. Yet she is prepared to take calculated risks. She may play her cards close to her chest but treasures her crew. All along it is Hisako’s special knowledge that will be the key to their financial security. However, there are forces at work with their own agenda and this is where the machinations and action really begin to take off.

Until that point, sit back and enjoy an intimate view into a world of two young people feeling their way through the minefield that is a close personal relationship they must come to terms with, while trying to overcome commercial skulduggery and potential threat to the ship that they call home.

The resulting read is both poignant, throught-provoking and rewarding.

There's a lot to like about this book, but also things that nagged at me while I was reading it. The good things first. The worldbuilding is excellent, or perhaps that should be galaxy-building because a lot of this is set in deep space. It tackles the human problem of relativity - a short trip, subjective time, means that years have passed when the ship returns to its point of origin. Anyone taking that trip will return to find family and friends have aged and possibly died. The freighter, The Hajj, is a family ship, old and cranky, it works, for now, but it runs on tech left over from a previous era, and it could fall apart at any time. It's a Sadiq family ship. The Sadiqs use relative time to order a bride for Adem, maintenance engineer, amateur musician, and the captain's son. She's not even conceived when they leave, and she's a young woman by the time they return. Hisako's parents take a deal that allows them to escape poverty, move out of the bad part of town, and have a child in the full knowledge that when she grows up she's contracted to marry Adem and go into space. The requirement is that with a little gene splice Hisako will become a near genius and she'll be required to study an obscure branch of physics, so that she'll fill a gap in skills on board ship. Hisako doesn't learn of her impending marriage until she's in her teens and she's not happy, but a contract is a contract. She doesn't know that the Captain has a plan which involves retrofitting old tech with a chance of restoring faster than light travel.
The blurb says, 'Sparks fly when Adem and Hisako meet,' but that sets up the wrong expectations. This is not a romance in space. Actually sparks don't fly at all. There's no chemistry between the newly-weds. And now we get to the disappointing part. The book blurb sets up expectations that this will be exciting and emotional, and it simply never happens. There are few highs and lows, and very little plot or dramatic tension. No one is ever really in danger, though there's potential for it which is easily (too easily) resolved. It's a book of ideas. It almost reads like a set-up novel for future adventures, though there's no indication that it is.

I found out this book was still on my shelves, and I am glad I did.

The world Adem and Hisako live in, is far from perfect. It would have been the most travelled path to focus on the problems like social and financial inequality, the power the rich have over the poor, or to have a main character living in squalor. But none of that, Greene focused on the middle class, and those who are rich enough and privileged enough, but still have to work hard to keep that privilege. 'The Light Years' goes deep into what this kind of society does to those people, while it still points out their privilege and how they struggle with wanting to help the poor they see, but not being able to help all. It also doesn't forget all those common human feelings and emotions that are still there, no matter what the problems are. It was very refreshing to read, and I'd love to read more from this writer, and more in this setting! Especially since I want to know how all of the people I learned to like and appreciate are faring after this book ends.

I request an arc (advanced reading copy) of the book after reading the excerpt which triggered memories of Gene Wolfe's book of the new sun. To my surprise and delight the books was totally different, though still with elements of a universe of lost high technology. It has elements of Joe Haldeman the forever war, in terms of time dilation and the effect on the protaganists interactions. The book is really a story in 2 part, the first part is a tale told from the 2 viewpoints of the 2 main protagonists, with associated time dilation so we see one grow from child to adult whilst the other barely ages. The second part of the story, whilst solid felt a bit rushed, major plot elements were wrapped up surprisingly quickly when there felt scope for another book. I enjoyed the book, reading it on my kindle at work during lunch, when i woke and when i got home, it's very easy to read, there's no convoluted plot twists that require you to re-read parts of the book to understand whats going on. At the same time the book felt a bit rushed in it's ending, after all the time spent on the start of the book as the characters developed i felt there should really have been 3 arcs to the story to do it justice, though maybe thats just a sign that it's a great book since i wanted to read more. Great book, worth reading, would have been 5 out of 5 stars if it had been longer.

This is one of the rare 💎💎 that you'll find on Netgalley.
I was immediately hooked and read this in two sittings. I love Adem and I'm sure that he's is going to be you're next lit-crush (he's mine for sure 😉).
Great premise and pacing, interesting world building and characters.
Is there a second book coming? It does feel like we're left at a cliff hanger.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an eARC.

A creative, unusual story line for this sci-fi. Before Hisako was born, her parents had entered her into an arranged marriage. The money earned will pay for her education which has also been defined before her birth and for which she has been genetically programmed. Her husband will be Adem who is a trader on a ship that travels close to the speed of light. He is an obedient, handsome, gifted son. He sounds like the perfect mate. Her entire life is affected by this impending marriage and she harbours much resentment.
I really liked the original angle of the story and how Hisako reacts to her arranged marriage. There was great insight into her character and the world she lives in. I don't feel like I really got to understand Adem. He was so accepting and easy going that it felt like he had no backbone. Overall I enjoyed the book, although the pace could have been a bit faster.

So. The Light Years. Honestly, from the moment I first read the premise of this book I was a little enthralled. The idea it wanted to explore were ones I had not as of yet encountered in my admittedly limited scifi reading. Specially the time dilation aspect, and the human relations aspect tied to it.

Unfortunately, The Light Years proved to be a slow-burn book that never really got past the slow part. It never really burned bright, or wholly took into the sky with rushing heat, but sometimes it felt like it was awfully close to, and even when it didnt, it behaved like a cosy enough ship you could not help but laze in.

Two things work against The Light Years. The first is an almost complete lack of gravitas in the way the story progresses. Most of the chapters feel like slice of life episodes from some scifi anime. They are almost all rather dull, disconnected, and what happens in one is for the most part irrelevant to the others. At nearly no point is there any manner of suspense in our tale. Everything is related in a somewhat disappointing matter of fact tone.

The second thing has a lot to do with the first, but is related more to the characters themselves. Over and over we see glimpses of Hisako or Adem's life, but these glimpses never seem to drive at anything that contributes to the central plot. Sure, we learn things about them, but mostly we trapsize about the characters for what feels like no other point but to get past the chapter.

The few really exciting points, like the exploration of the derelict ship, Hisako's trip to La Mer, among others, are defused by the author in what feel like very anticlimactic ways that not only rob the story of potential excitement but also sort of invalidates the characters experiences.

I kind of feel like maybe the book just needed more space to spread its wings, so to speak. It seemed like the author wanted to explore a lot of things, but either just wasn't afforded the space to do so, or didn't have the self confidence to do it fully, either of which might account for the compressed feeling of the narrative.

It's a shame, because I really wanted to like the story, but as it is, it hardly feels like I read the story promised by thr book's blurb.

The Light Years is a wonderful debut novel from a talented writer making the transition from short stories to a longer form. It's excellent space opera with a family-owned slower than light ship making its run between post-diaspora worlds which experience decades for every year of the trader's transit. THere's a touch of Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy in here, as well as a lot of very original thought.

At the outset, Adem, the son of the ship captain, goes planetside to arrange for a wife. He won't take delivery until the ship's next visit more than two decades away, and his mother the captain has very specific requirements for the still-nascent bride, specifically near-genius aptitudes in math and physics. Fortunately, that can be genetically tweaked into her, and hopefully by the time they return the child, Hisako, will have matured into a tool the captain can user for her plans. Arranged marriages have always been about the families more than the principles, and the story follows both Hisako and Asem as she grows up to be a strong and independent woman and he processes the future in his accelerated time frame.

The future, as William Gibson has pointed out, is not evenly distributed. While the Haaj and her sister ships travel at speeds approaching c, a few ships were built with worm-hole technology, though the knowledge needed to make those drive was lost to war and cataclysm. The few remaining ships are rare and precious, properties of governments who dare not use them. But the captain of the Haaj has a plan that might just let her ship get its hands on one

I can't say enough good things about this book. It's rich in cultural details, full of great characters, internal conflicts, and family drama, and enough explosions and betrayals to keep it all lively.

Highly recommended.

Not so much a novel as a message wrapped up in an SF cover. The main characters do little except play music and take lots of mind altering substances. The action picks up at the end but too late to be a credible plot development. Not for me, I prefer more story and less agenda.

This was the kind of novel that I always hope to stumble across - fantastic world-building with just enough fiction blended in to make the SF aspirational-esque, vivid and enthralling characters who have their own motivations and voices, and a plot line with enough bends to keep you interested in continuing the story to the end. You can tell the author has some understanding of both music and politics, and is writing to his strengths. Greene does a great job building the characters during their changes in relative time, taking the effort to build their layers and growth step by step. The best thing I can say is that when I finished The Light Years, I immediately hoped there would be a sequel. If there is not, I will definitely keep my eyes out for anything else Greene does in the future.

In many ways, this feels very much like a throwback to 1970s sci fi - complete with all the 'hippie' ideals where you get to stick it to 'the man' (greedy corporate types), save the poor, strive for peace, be liberal and relaxed, live communally, experience many sexual partners of both genders, get wasted frequently, and play some music at the same time. But that is tempered with the 2019 themes of inclusiveness, refugee crises, gender equality, etc. As such, it feels very manufactured and with an agenda so strong as to make this a social piece rather than an exciting sci fi adventure. The first half of the book is as listless as the main characters and then we finally get action near the end that is too abrupt to be organic.

Story: In an era of relativity travel, the Hajj (a family owned trader ship) will spend a year traveling while 24+ years will pass on the planets they visit each time. It means that staying on the ship is the only way to grow up with your family; if anyone leaves, they will be elderly or already dead by the time you get back to them. When the current captain of the Hajj makes a contract with a young poor couple to wed their children (one unborn daughter and the captain's son), a year will pass for Adem Sadiq but 24 for Hisako before they actually meet. A smart captain is always planning for the future and her actions in the present will bear fruit in surprising ways in the future as we follow Adem and Hisako life until the event happens.

The world building here is your typical "people fled Earth and established colonies based around their cultures." Of course, in this book, the Americans and the Middle Easterns got into a war and blew each other up, leaving a lot of refugees. The refugee 'problem' is becoming an issue and the author suggests that governments are sending out squads pretending to be refugee terrorists in order to blow up or kill off refugee camps blamelessly. At the same time, people want to get their hands on the technology that the Americans had - planet killers and light speed travel that for some reason, was completely destroyed in the 2-day war that saw both sides eliminated and never found again. If the Hajj had lightspeed travel, they could become very profitable instead of always running on the margins (since they refuse high profit runs such as slaver ships and instead do low profit runs helping refugees, natch).

Into this world, we follow alternating POVs of Hisako and Adem - the betrothed. Adem is a carefree guy who is the son of the captain/matriarch, a musician whose videos go out on the web, and who is a jack-of-all-trades keeping the ship running. He spends most of the book ruminating on his approaching nuptials (he is to be married only a year after the contract is made, and to a woman that wasn't even born yet). He is dealing with an uncle who wants to eject the family's liberal views, run high profit missions, and take over the ship from the captain, Adem's mother.

Hisako, meanwhile, has her story told through short snippets of her life, starting from her early years and going through her life until 24, when she is to be married. She resents the situation and refuses to accept that a) she'd be an 'illicite' and have to live on the streets otherwise; b) it meant she had her high education paid for and would have a future; c) she only had to stay married to Adem for 2 years to fulfill the contract; and d) her parents would have continued to live in abject poverty without it. Because of the above, it's hard to appreciate her rebelliousness and churlishness toward the situation. We learn of her parents' tribulations, her father's drinking and getting involved with the wrong people, and her mother having to suffer through it all.

Both of Aden's and Hisako's lives are pretty mundane: playing music, enjoying various partners, dealing with home life and situations. It doesn't really make for much sci fi, the premise of which comes in at the last 20% or so. As well, because we are beaten over the head with the 'live and let live' themes, save the people, etc., it felt more like a manifesto wrapped in sci fi trappings. Adem was bland and unremarkable for a lead character and Hisako spends most of the time rebelling or wasting time. It was hard to see them as "the guy who knows the ship so well, he can fix anything" or the girl who was "gene spliced to be a near genius and can play 8 instruments." Instead, it was "I got screwed over because 2 years of my future were contracted" and "I probably should stop having sexual partners because I'm guilty about my upcoming marriage." Meanwhile, both spend most of the book playing instruments or talking about their life in a band or putting music vids up on the web. Not very sci fi.

The book is not poorly written but yes, the agenda is so thick as to make this feel either like a statement piece or a Marty Stu. Wikipedia says that the hippie movement was about " harmony with nature, communal living, artistic experimentation particularly in music, and the widespread use of recreational drugs" and this pretty much sums of the book (just exchange drugs for alcohol here). As such, the book can feel very inert and very one-dimensional. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.