In Between the Stars

Inan is on her way to fulfill her duty to her matriarchal society of lizard beings by being part of a marriage alliance when the space ship she is on goes up in flames. She escapes with the help of a steward, Hijinks, who is a purple-furred marsupial. The two are stuck in an escape pod until they are rescued. Unfortunately, their rescuers only proceed to imprison them. Escaping from their captors with the help of a human boy named Alan, Inan and Hijinks find themselves running across the universe trying to evade capture by pirates, figure out Alan’s origins, identify a small black disc, explore new planets and space stations, oh, and save the known universe from being rewritten.

Honestly, I asked to read this on NetGalley because I thought it was a graphic novel for some reason. It isn’t a graphic novel. It is an adventurous and exciting space adventure featuring three very different and unexpected friends thrown together by a series of crazy occurrences. The focus of this story is definitely the adventures that the three companions experience, rather than character building or even world building (though they do visit some very imaginative places). They go out of the frying pan and into the fire again and again on their tangled route to saving the known universe. And they are all three rather unlikely heroes. Inan is more of an insecure scholar and manager. Hijinks is a surprising jack of all trades, who also turns out to be a grandmother. (She was my favorite character.) Alan was raised by pirates but not tenderly and his only friend prior to meeting Hijinks and Inan was a slightly crazy AI personality. He’s tech savvy but not the best at navigating relationships. The problems the three face provide diversion but usually turn out easily solved. Which could be good or bad for you depending on what type of reader you are. If you like high action but little anxiety about how things will turn out, you’ll probably love it. If you like to see characters stalwartly work through tough spots, you may be disappointed. Due to the shortness of the book and all that happens, there’s a lot of jumping from one scene straight to the next with no segue or transition at breaks. Sometimes hours will pass in those breaks and other times bigger chunks of time. They frustrated me at first, especially as we were supposed to be getting to known Inan. I felt like I got whiplash as weeks suddenly were gone. Later I liked it better when it just seemed like we were joining our heroes for their next adventure and skipped all the boring days in between. It looks like this is the author’s first book and if there were one thing she could improve on, it would be in these transitions from one scene to the next. She’s definitely got plenty of imagination. Recommended if you like quick and zippy, imaginative scifi adventures that read somewhat like a TV series of episodes with one overarching plot.

Notes on Content [Based on ARC]: No language issues. No sexual content. Violence is threatened but there is actually relatively little on page for a scifi adventure. Deaths in ship catastrophes and past conflicts are mentioned or implied but not described. One non-gory death somewhat described. One somewhat gory death only very vaguely described.

I received an ARC of this title from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.