I was laughing my ass off reading this book!!! Now that our team's surprise semifinalist was announced, I can now gush all I want about how much I enjoyed this book from start to finish. This book was absolutely enjoyable!

There has been at least 3 heist sci-fi adventure comedies I have read partially or fully in the contest, but despite using very familiar tropes, I enjoyed this story and its quirky cast. It was quite fun to see how communications technician Vasyli gets framed for a crime he didn't even realize he comitted and his only remaining ticket of semi-freedom relies on joining the crew of the emotionally volatile (but still very likeable) captain Skadi, who churns a colorful array of insults in Icelandic.

Joining them is a brooding subcaptain.... uhh... Adrien? Justin? I forgot his name, but he's a nice fellow who tries to keep Skadi's temper under control (can't let her kill another crew due to... situations). There is nother member of the team that seems to have an agenda of her own. Won't spoil who, but Skadi starts to respect her, so I think they got to an agreement of sorts. Completing the team is the dorkiest & greenest bookworm guy named Elliot. He's greener than pea soup.

I think this book broke my reading world record of facepalms whenever Elliot did something so abhorrently ridiculous, one, two, three..... maybe 20 facepalms per page were not enough. I was pretty much yelling at my cellphone an insanely colorful stream of lots of relentless swearing in Spanish. Might have scared my landlord's dog a bit. So, when Elliot and the much more (but still devoid of common sense) Vasyli visit the Hispanic world of Tláloc to eat a popular Mexican dish containing mole sauce... right before the book's epitome super important top secret heist, I was laughing and laughing and laughing some more. Nobody in their sane mind would eat mole as a first timer before an important mission, it can cause diarrhea!!!!

I also found it amusing that by sheer accident, the Hispanic world was so surprisingly similar to the other Tláloc in author Guerric Haché's series Digitesque. Whether or not the author named the planet on purpose as a nod of approval of that book series or it was just a peculiar coincidence, I found it endearing.

The final turn of events of the spoiler spoiler ahem ahem character that separates from the crew felt a bit too much of a ploy for plot convenience, but other than that, I enjoyed this book excessively a lot and would certainly like to read the sequel whenever it comes out. ( )

This is a fun science fiction romp of a novel with classic SF adventure story vibes. Recommended for fans of SF heist stories with a classic feel but modern storytelling style, who enjoy morally-gray-but-ultimately-good characters.

There's a missing colony ship (along with the sentient AI that was in charge of it), scattered advanced-but-not-super-advanced secondary colonies, a mystery derelict ship, and a heist that doesn't go quite as planned… this book has a lot of SF elements I like.

With multiple POV characters, there is a bit of head-hopping that happens, but generally I was able to go with the flow without any problems. The only issue I had with that was one section in the middle where we get a bad guy's POV for a minor torture scene (as in, the part shown on-page was minor... it wasn't gory). This bad guy didn't make any obvious appearances before, or after, and I think the book would have been stronger without the section from his POV.

I especially enjoyed the way the group is turning into a found family. (They're not quite to found family status yet, but this is book 1 of a planned trilogy so they have time). The character development is a lot of fun. The pacing is also good, and—even though there were some scenes where I could predict what would happen—the action kept me fully invested in what was going to happen.

This is book one in a planned series. I knew that going in, and I am perfectly fine with reading series starters and knowing that some things will be left un-resolved at the end of book one. However, I'm used to the book-specific plot points being more obviously wrapped up. The ending of this book felt more like a pause than a wrapping up of book one's specific plot points. I still enjoyed it, very much! But it feels like the start of a series where the books are not self-contained, but must be read together in order to get a real conclusion.

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I read this book as part of the judging process for the 3rd Self Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC3), and while I was provided a review copy for judging purposes I read the book using the version available on Kindle Unlimited. My opinions are my own and do not reflect the thoughts of my SPSFC3 team or the competition as a whole. ( )