The Thunder Heist

Full disclosure: I won this book in a twitter contest direct from the author.

This is the third work of Jed's that I have read and the strongest so far. His works have all been characterised by superlative world building and The Thunder Heist is no exception. The Thunder Heist sees a step up in the character work which is really pleasing! Our main protagonist, Kef, is met about to be executed at a maximum security prison ship on a water based world. She has other ideas though, and a brilliant Machiavellian escape ensues giving a lively start to the story. As the title alludes, the main thrust of this is putting together a team to conduct a break in, and the plotting and team building here is done very well.

Whilst the character work has developed well my main criticisms to the novel still stem from this area. There is some inconsistency to Kef, with a heroic empathy sometimes giving way to a strange casual cruelty - it is sometimes hard to grasp her motivations. The same is even more true of her team mates, who tend to fade into the background somewhat. Despite all this, this is a fun heist story, with a brilliant steampunk nautical world built around it. A fun read and I definitely do want to continue this series to see where it goes!