Cascade Failure

Pros: fun and interesting characters, tight plot, some thought provoking moments, good fight scenes

Cons:

The characters are so much fun. They’re all neurotic in complementary ways. Surly and snipey at times, talkative and playful at others. Eoan’s curiosity about everything was a real joy. Despite their arguments it’s clear Nash and Saint are a tight knit crew. Seeing Jal and Anke dropped into the crew’s dynamic made for some great interactions.

The plot is tight with enough down time to get to know all of the characters between chase scenes and fights. There are some real tense moments.

The politics of this future are suitably complex without taking over the story. There are a few decent questions about morality and whether it’s better to focus on the needs of society at large vs saving your personal friends and family. And who should make the necessary sacrifices.

It’s a book about the choices we make and how we deal with the consequences of the bad decisions of our past. Of working as a team to complete a goal. Of betrayal and redemption.

It’s a delightful story that, though it dealt with heavy issues at times, left me feeling hopeful about the future.

Fantastic world building with phenomenal prose! I couldn't believe this was a debut. Really fun found family in space with a lot of sarcastic banter 💙 definitely read this if you're more of a character driven reader because the plot is not the focus. Also, the chapters are real long. But other than that, fantastic!

DNF @ 44%. If someone is looking for an easy to read, action, space crew sci-fi, I will maybe recommend this. Jal finds himself on a ship he doesn't want to be on and with a crew he doesn't want to be with. This is compared in the blurb to Becky Chambers and Firefly, the latter I can see, the premise is pretty similar. But the book didn't manage the charm and heart you have with found-families, which the blurb claims this has. I could see the attempts, but there was no magic there. Two characters were interesting, but Jal was very lackluster as the star. I didn't particularly care for the writing (I also downloaded the sneak peek on Kindle to see if the narration was skewing my opinion, it wasn't the audiobook), so I was hoping the story would be fine enough (it wasn't). Last, I was largely not a fan of the narrator's narration. So between everything, I thought it was time to accept this is not a book for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the arc.