Corsair

A rollicking good SF adventure story set in the very near future.

When I saw that this involved Space Piracy, I had visions of space battles, landing teams shooting things out with scrappy defenders, and so on. But, pardon the pun, this is more grounded. On earth, a team of hackers and engineers take over satellites. While not as intrinsically exciting, it's a lot easier to wrap your head around (and a little less standard fare).

Instead, the action comes from two fronts: 1. on Earth, with guns, etc. and 2. where it counts – with people. It's watching Schwartz squirm under the thumb of his employers, try to weasel out of repercussions of his actions; or seeing Santiago try to deal with the new realities of her career, or her efforts to find a way to capture Schwartz while keeping said career. It's also the explosions, guns, knives and hand-to-hand combat that surround these two.

Cambias keeps things light and steady moving. His style is engaging, he makes you care about both the good guys and the bad – well, most of the bad. Not the really bad guys. There's some good action, decent characters, the requisite amount of twists and turns – a splash or two of suspense. Corsair's technical enough to believe that it's feasible, but not enough that anyone would confuse it with realistic – or a Clancy novel.

It's a good, solid, entertaining read – not the best SF I've read this year – or even in the last month – but it did its job, and I was satisfied with it. I'll keep an eye out of more from Cambias.