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The Kuiper Belt Job
Ocean's 11 meets The Expanse in an adventure set far in the future.
Once upon a time in the Solar System, there was a gang called the Cannibal Club led by the man known as Strange. Max was the muscle, Damien the pilot, Alicia the thief, Tai the hacker, and Shweta the grifter. They would break into banks, hack computers, swindle the rich and powerful, run guns ... whatever it took.
The Orca Job was supposed to set them all up for life, but it did not go according to plan. They lost their money, they lost their ship, and some of them lost their lives—the survivors scattering in a storm of recriminations.
Ten years later, no one is who they were ... and some are not what they seem. But Strange's son, Cayce, wants to put the gang back together to rescue his father, currently held captive. Even if uniting the club isn't enough of a challenge, they also need major resources, and the only way they know how to acquire them is by falling into old habits.
The Kuiper Belt Job is a unique tale told from the viewpoints of various members of the gang as they conduct heists and an elaborate-scale sleight-of-hand to obtain the supplies and equipment they need to rescue their once leader.
The story explores themes of power, diversity, political intrigue, and ethics. It includes a thrilling plot, a cast of colorful characters, and a futuristic setting that will captivate fans.
Once upon a time in the Solar System, there was a gang called the Cannibal Club led by the man known as Strange. Max was the muscle, Damien the pilot, Alicia the thief, Tai the hacker, and Shweta the grifter. They would break into banks, hack computers, swindle the rich and powerful, run guns ... whatever it took.
The Orca Job was supposed to set them all up for life, but it did not go according to plan. They lost their money, they lost their ship, and some of them lost their lives—the survivors scattering in a storm of recriminations.
Ten years later, no one is who they were ... and some are not what they seem. But Strange's son, Cayce, wants to put the gang back together to rescue his father, currently held captive. Even if uniting the club isn't enough of a challenge, they also need major resources, and the only way they know how to acquire them is by falling into old habits.
The Kuiper Belt Job is a unique tale told from the viewpoints of various members of the gang as they conduct heists and an elaborate-scale sleight-of-hand to obtain the supplies and equipment they need to rescue their once leader.
The story explores themes of power, diversity, political intrigue, and ethics. It includes a thrilling plot, a cast of colorful characters, and a futuristic setting that will captivate fans.
- GenresScience Fiction
312 pages, Paperback
Published November 7, 2023
10 people are currently reading
107 people want to read
About the author
David D. Levine
116 books182 followersDavid D. Levine is the author of novel Arabella of Mars (Tor 2016) and over fifty SF and fantasy stories. His story "Tk'Tk'Tk" won the Hugo Award, and he has been shortlisted for awards including the Hugo, Nebula, Campbell, and Sturgeon. Stories have appeared in Asimov's, Analog, F&SF, and five Year's Best anthologies as well as award-winning collection Space Magic from Wheatland Press.
David is a contributor to George R. R. Martin's bestselling shared-world series Wild Cards. He is also a member of publishing cooperative Book View Cafe and of nonprofit organization Oregon Science Fiction Conventions Inc. He has narrated podcasts for Escape Pod, PodCastle, and StarShipSofa, and his video "Dr. Talon's Letter to the Editor" was a finalist for the Parsec Award. In 2010 he spent two weeks at a simulated Mars base in the Utah desert.
David lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Kate Yule. His web site is www.daviddlevine.com.
David is a contributor to George R. R. Martin's bestselling shared-world series Wild Cards. He is also a member of publishing cooperative Book View Cafe and of nonprofit organization Oregon Science Fiction Conventions Inc. He has narrated podcasts for Escape Pod, PodCastle, and StarShipSofa, and his video "Dr. Talon's Letter to the Editor" was a finalist for the Parsec Award. In 2010 he spent two weeks at a simulated Mars base in the Utah desert.
David lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Kate Yule. His web site is www.daviddlevine.com.
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November 28, 2023A combination of a heist caper and space opera? Sign me up!
And this does not disappoint--in fact it is far more absorbing and exciting than I assumed at the beginning, which pretty much follows the structure of Oceans 11 as the crew, scattered everywhere, with dire references to a job gone bad, come together again. The first person POV for each character is rarely done, but it works here once I got used to it.
Stand by for a plot twist that jets you into hyperspace. The deliciously complex characters wrestle with tough questions without sacrificing pacing, making this an absorbing read--with plenty of room for follow-ups.
And this does not disappoint--in fact it is far more absorbing and exciting than I assumed at the beginning, which pretty much follows the structure of Oceans 11 as the crew, scattered everywhere, with dire references to a job gone bad, come together again. The first person POV for each character is rarely done, but it works here once I got used to it.
Stand by for a plot twist that jets you into hyperspace. The deliciously complex characters wrestle with tough questions without sacrificing pacing, making this an absorbing read--with plenty of room for follow-ups.
November 30, 2023
I was fortunate to attend a reading of this book by the author and learned it was inspired by a jam session around Firefly fanfic. The vibe is certainly there, alongside The Expanse and Ocean’s 11. At the center of the book is a brewing heist, run by a formerly tight-knit team called the Cannibal Club. As they bring the team together, we learn each member’s backstory and their part in the heist that split them apart 10 years prior. Characters had developed nicely, dealing with aging and disability and whole new identities in a believable way. My favorite character was Tai, the flamboyant nonbinary hacker of the team who had many delightful moments, even in fight scenes. The negotiator of the group is a middle-aged Indian woman who wields social engineering like a scalpel. This is a new universe, new characters, and new physics, but it felt like an old friend. This is book #1 in the Cannibal Club Chronicles. I can’t wait to inhabit the next one! Very much recommended!
February 20, 2024
A spiritual successor to Firefly, The Kuiper Belt Job somehow manages to be truer to Firefly’s vision of compassion, rebellion, and found family than the show itself. Meanwhile, the characters are as nuanced and interesting, the humor is nearly as good, and the heists feature the same clever plans and improvisation as episodes like “The Train Job” and “Ariel.”
So, if you’ve spent the past two decades jonesing for new episodes of a show that was cancelled after half a season, this is definitely your book.
So, if you’ve spent the past two decades jonesing for new episodes of a show that was cancelled after half a season, this is definitely your book.
September 19, 2023
I picked this up for review from Netgalley, even though I didn't love one of the author's previous books (
Arabella The Traitor of Mars
), because, despite some issues, that book was well written, and I wanted to give the author another chance. Also, I enjoy heists.
I'm glad I did give him that second chance, because this was highly enjoyable, well edited, well written, intricately plotted as a heist should be, and corrected three and a half out of the four issues I had with the previous book.
I never warmed to Arabella as a character, never believed in the worldbuilding, was concerned by the white-saviour aspect, and dinged it several points for a deus ex machina moment when completely unexpected allies turn up, by total random chance, exactly at the psychological moment. This book has the last of those issues (though the chance is less random; there is a little bit of foreshadowing, just not enough for me to count it as a Cavalry Rescue rather than a deus ex machina), but the other issues don't recur. The only worldbuilding glitch I spotted was that a fusion plant melts down and produces radiation as if it was a fission plant (I also felt the Maguffin was not particularly plausible, but gave it a trope pass), and I found the varied characters immediately distinguishable and memorable, with depth to their backstories and motivations that helped me to empathize with them.
The narrative swaps around between the members of a heist crew, each of whom gets a first-person point of view - and in the flashbacks that gradually reveal how one of their previous heists went terribly wrong and scattered the surviving crew across the solar system, damaged and grieving, the point of view is "we," because that's how tight they were. They're now all more or less desperate; their various hustles are coming apart, one of them is ill, and when the son of their old leader turns up to recruit them for a rescue mission for his father, they all have a mix of reluctance and eagerness to return to being a crew again, and the eagerness wins out. Along the way, they have to pull a series of varied jobs, one for each member of the old crew, mostly to get resources they will need on the rescue job, and this serves the important purpose of showing them working together and using their skills, so that when we hit the rescue it's all established for us. Nor does everything go smoothly on those jobs, and we see their full resourcefulness, courage, mutual trust and ability to improvise, as well as their solid skills.
There's a shocking twist partway through, so powerful I won't even put it in spoiler tags, that takes the heist genre convention of turning everything the audience thought on its head and turns it up to 11.
At first I was going to put it in the Silver tier of my Best of the Year list, meaning a solid piece of work without significant flaws, but on reflection it's good enough to make it to the Gold tier; the characters are rich and multidimensional, they wrestle with moral and existential questions without bogging down the pace, the plot is complex and twisty and doesn't trip over itself, and if the space-opera setting is conventional and has a couple of small flaws, well, it's just a stage for the characters to act on.
Recommended.
I'm glad I did give him that second chance, because this was highly enjoyable, well edited, well written, intricately plotted as a heist should be, and corrected three and a half out of the four issues I had with the previous book.
I never warmed to Arabella as a character, never believed in the worldbuilding, was concerned by the white-saviour aspect, and dinged it several points for a deus ex machina moment when completely unexpected allies turn up, by total random chance, exactly at the psychological moment. This book has the last of those issues (though the chance is less random; there is a little bit of foreshadowing, just not enough for me to count it as a Cavalry Rescue rather than a deus ex machina), but the other issues don't recur. The only worldbuilding glitch I spotted was that a fusion plant melts down and produces radiation as if it was a fission plant (I also felt the Maguffin was not particularly plausible, but gave it a trope pass), and I found the varied characters immediately distinguishable and memorable, with depth to their backstories and motivations that helped me to empathize with them.
The narrative swaps around between the members of a heist crew, each of whom gets a first-person point of view - and in the flashbacks that gradually reveal how one of their previous heists went terribly wrong and scattered the surviving crew across the solar system, damaged and grieving, the point of view is "we," because that's how tight they were. They're now all more or less desperate; their various hustles are coming apart, one of them is ill, and when the son of their old leader turns up to recruit them for a rescue mission for his father, they all have a mix of reluctance and eagerness to return to being a crew again, and the eagerness wins out. Along the way, they have to pull a series of varied jobs, one for each member of the old crew, mostly to get resources they will need on the rescue job, and this serves the important purpose of showing them working together and using their skills, so that when we hit the rescue it's all established for us. Nor does everything go smoothly on those jobs, and we see their full resourcefulness, courage, mutual trust and ability to improvise, as well as their solid skills.
There's a shocking twist partway through, so powerful I won't even put it in spoiler tags, that takes the heist genre convention of turning everything the audience thought on its head and turns it up to 11.
At first I was going to put it in the Silver tier of my Best of the Year list, meaning a solid piece of work without significant flaws, but on reflection it's good enough to make it to the Gold tier; the characters are rich and multidimensional, they wrestle with moral and existential questions without bogging down the pace, the plot is complex and twisty and doesn't trip over itself, and if the space-opera setting is conventional and has a couple of small flaws, well, it's just a stage for the characters to act on.
Recommended.
August 18, 2024
Ten years ago, the criminal gang known as the Cannibal Club split up after a job-gone-wrong. Now Cayce, son of their former leader, Strange, wants to get the band back together to break his dad out of a top security facility in the Kuiper Belt. After ten years, for various reasons, some of them aren't quite up to the job any more, but Cayce is persuasive. To finance the rescue they undertake a series of jobs, each more perilous than the last. Each character takes it in tourn to take the viewpoint, and finally they get to the Kuiper Belt facility to discover that it's not quite as simple as Cayce made out. This was action packed, quirky and fun, and I enjoyed the different viewpoints, though in the end it left me not knowing which character to focus on. There was, however, a good twist at the end.
Want to read
April 25, 2024The author, at Scalzi's: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2023/11/0...
Sounds like fun!
Sounds like fun!
October 12, 2023
I read an eARC of this book that the author provided me, and I really wanted him to use my blurb, but marketing was basically already using it, so I’ll put it here:
To be honest, when I started reading I expected a fast-paced action/adventure story with stock characters, pretty good world-building, and some fun callouts to the source material. But I got a lot more. The book is fast-paced and exciting, and the characters have real stakes and skin in the game. More than that, they have some real depth, interesting backstory, and they develop as the story unfolds.
The story is told in alternate sections in 2 different times 10 years apart, the first showing how the first Kuiper Job failed and at what cost, the second how the Cannibal Club reconvened and set about trying to remedy their failure. The sections are told from different POVs and in different voices. This is where the character development comes to the fore, and where my favorite aspect of the book comes out.
It’s common these days for an author to include various diverse kinds of characters, often including one who is visibly or invisibly disabled, something I’m thankful for, since I am visibly and physically disabled. The disabled character is as well-developed, with as extensive a backstory as the others, and her disability and the effects it has on her life and her disposition are written with care and empathy. It’s really delightful to see an abled writer take such care with a disabled character.
Full disclosure: David and I worked together in high tech many years ago, and have maintained some contact since.
The Expanse meets Leverage, and the Solar System will never be the same.
To be honest, when I started reading I expected a fast-paced action/adventure story with stock characters, pretty good world-building, and some fun callouts to the source material. But I got a lot more. The book is fast-paced and exciting, and the characters have real stakes and skin in the game. More than that, they have some real depth, interesting backstory, and they develop as the story unfolds.
The story is told in alternate sections in 2 different times 10 years apart, the first showing how the first Kuiper Job failed and at what cost, the second how the Cannibal Club reconvened and set about trying to remedy their failure. The sections are told from different POVs and in different voices. This is where the character development comes to the fore, and where my favorite aspect of the book comes out.
It’s common these days for an author to include various diverse kinds of characters, often including one who is visibly or invisibly disabled, something I’m thankful for, since I am visibly and physically disabled. The disabled character is as well-developed, with as extensive a backstory as the others, and her disability and the effects it has on her life and her disposition are written with care and empathy. It’s really delightful to see an abled writer take such care with a disabled character.
Full disclosure: David and I worked together in high tech many years ago, and have maintained some contact since.
February 15, 2024
"THE KUIPER BELT JOB: BOOK One of the Cannibal Club Chronicles" by David D. Levine features a futuristic world set in the solar system, where a son takes up his father's old ways. He soon realizes that he has stepped into shoes too big for him, but then it's too late to step out.
10 years ago, the Cannibal Club could pull off the biggest heist you can ever imagine, but then things went south. Some members died, and the rest of the survivors scattered. Now the leader of the former Cannibal Club, by the name of Strange, is being held hostage in a remote space station. His son has taken it upon himself to rescue his father, and to achieve this, he must unite and reinforce the defunct Cannibal Club. As he sets out on this course, he discovers that the path he is trading is not for the weak.
This is indeed a thrilling adventure. I enjoyed every bit of it. There is quite a lot of action as each character tries to find a way to conquer their troubles, most often working together as a team. There is certainly a lot of importance to teamwork in this book. The story is told from different points of view of the characters, which allows more room to understand, connect with, and relate to the characters and the story. There are a lot of surprises in store, which leads to an exciting plot twist. The world-building is just epic; it is certainly something every science fiction lover will want to see made into a movie.
Overall, this is a strong and intense start to the Cannibal Club Chronicles series. It had a great sci-fi and fantasy element going on, and the characters, world-building, and writing style worked well. Of course, it has its minor downsides, like some cliché plotlines and some unbelievable ideas, however these does not affect the overall excellence and enjoyability of the book. Recommended for fans of futuristic fantasy novels.
10 years ago, the Cannibal Club could pull off the biggest heist you can ever imagine, but then things went south. Some members died, and the rest of the survivors scattered. Now the leader of the former Cannibal Club, by the name of Strange, is being held hostage in a remote space station. His son has taken it upon himself to rescue his father, and to achieve this, he must unite and reinforce the defunct Cannibal Club. As he sets out on this course, he discovers that the path he is trading is not for the weak.
This is indeed a thrilling adventure. I enjoyed every bit of it. There is quite a lot of action as each character tries to find a way to conquer their troubles, most often working together as a team. There is certainly a lot of importance to teamwork in this book. The story is told from different points of view of the characters, which allows more room to understand, connect with, and relate to the characters and the story. There are a lot of surprises in store, which leads to an exciting plot twist. The world-building is just epic; it is certainly something every science fiction lover will want to see made into a movie.
Overall, this is a strong and intense start to the Cannibal Club Chronicles series. It had a great sci-fi and fantasy element going on, and the characters, world-building, and writing style worked well. Of course, it has its minor downsides, like some cliché plotlines and some unbelievable ideas, however these does not affect the overall excellence and enjoyability of the book. Recommended for fans of futuristic fantasy novels.
December 27, 2023
Thanks to NetGalley and publishers for the e ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I had such a blast reading this - it's brain candy. The characters are all fun, each chapter from a different character perspective running through the main heist alongside flashbacks to the Heist Where It All Went Wrong. It's action packed, I never skipped a paragraph, all the settings were fun. It actually reminded me a bit of a star wars dnd campaign I was running earlier this year. It has the beefy fighter, the smooth operator, the man with the plan, the hacker, and the pilot, featuring all your favourite tropes and settings: skeezy casino, slimy white collar tax evasion, shopping montage, an outer space overpriced mechanic shop, technobabble, and of course a prison break.
I had such a blast reading this - it's brain candy. The characters are all fun, each chapter from a different character perspective running through the main heist alongside flashbacks to the Heist Where It All Went Wrong. It's action packed, I never skipped a paragraph, all the settings were fun. It actually reminded me a bit of a star wars dnd campaign I was running earlier this year. It has the beefy fighter, the smooth operator, the man with the plan, the hacker, and the pilot, featuring all your favourite tropes and settings: skeezy casino, slimy white collar tax evasion, shopping montage, an outer space overpriced mechanic shop, technobabble, and of course a prison break.
July 11, 2024
So, this is an "Ocean's 11 in Space" story, and I mainly loved it. I mean, it's hard to NOT love that concept. I would have given it a 4 or a 5, but it took me like 3 months to get through. Why is that? It makes no sense. This has everything I want in a book, but it didn't turn pages for me.
This is probably my fault.
Anyways, I have no complaints. The concept is awesome, the execution is awesome, just, I couldn't immerse in it completely and I don't know what to say about that. I'd recommend it regardless.
This is probably my fault.
Anyways, I have no complaints. The concept is awesome, the execution is awesome, just, I couldn't immerse in it completely and I don't know what to say about that. I'd recommend it regardless.
October 10, 2024
Great space opera with older character and disability inclusion! Also love the plot twist I had enjoyed the Arabella trilogy, and it was fun to see Levine working in a more traditionally high tech SF mode, versus a more steampunky vibe, which is not to say that I didn't LOVE the steampunky-Edgar Rice Burroughs flavor of Arabella! More that I would like to be reading more space opera/high tech SF but find I seem to defer to more fantasy-adjacent texts.
March 2, 2024
I just finished “The Kuiper Belt Job” by David D. Levine. Quite satisfying! It’s a Space Opera wrapped around a puzzle box of heists and capers, with a mystery that kept me guessing till near the very end. Each section of the novel was narrated by a different member of the crew, adding their insights, suspicions, and past experiences to the narrative, and was very well executed. I enjoyed it quite a lot.
May 26, 2024
A planner, a hacker, a pilot, an athlete, and a thief reunite to steal stuff in the outer solar system in David D. Levine’s The Kuiper Belt Job. Think Leverage or Ocean’s Eleven more than The Expanse or Firefly because the capers don’t make the best use of their high-tech future setting. I like sci-fi caper stories. However, this one is a bit too episodic, and the shifting first-person narration and multiple flashbacks put me off.
May 22, 2024
The Cannibal Club must decide whether to get together one more time after the job that split them up, to bust one of their former members from an isolated prison on the Kuiper Belt, based on the conflicting stories—lies?—from a kid who purports to be his son. Rollicking good fun! A complex plot that twists to a satisfying ending.
December 10, 2023
Recent Reads: The Kuiper Belt Job. David D Levine's far future heist novel rebuilds a criminal gang in order to rescue its leader. Twists, turns, crimes, and cons, across a populated solar system. It's an episode of Leverage or maybe Hustle, IN SPAAAACE! A well-constructed caper.
December 16, 2023
Enormous amounts of fun. Predisposed to like SF heist novels but this is a particularly good one. Get the gang back together, grifts, heists, a few explosions, and a pretty decent twist to finish. Hope we get more with this set of characters and this setting; it's a really good time.
December 26, 2023
Oceans 11 in space!
10 years after a job went bad, the Cannibal Club is getting back together again for one last job, to break one of its members out of prison. But as each chapter gives another character's POV, not all is as it seems. An enjoyable caper as stakes rise with each heist pulled.
10 years after a job went bad, the Cannibal Club is getting back together again for one last job, to break one of its members out of prison. But as each chapter gives another character's POV, not all is as it seems. An enjoyable caper as stakes rise with each heist pulled.
April 3, 2024
A heist in space - my favorite things together, but didn't come together for me. A few of the characters really sullied the rest.
November 22, 2023
There once was a heist gang called the Cannibal Club, led by a man named Strange. Strange’s son, Cayce, shows up and begins contacting the remaining members of the gang to try to get them back together for a new job to rescue Strange, who is being held in a remote space station. They’re starting from scratch, with no ship, money, supplies, or anything else, but since life hasn’t exactly been exciting lately, Cayce manages to talk each one of them into going along with his scheme. There is quite a lot of action, as they try to acquire resources without getting caught and run into trouble but always manage to get out of it by working together. The story is told from different points of view, as the different characters come on board the scheme. When they get to their final goal, things aren’t what they expected and there are a lot of surprises in store, which leads to an exciting conclusion to the story. I enjoyed coming along for the ride with diverse characters, exciting action, and unexpected plot twists.
November 14, 2023
This is an excellent, page-turner of a novel, the story of a found-family crew of rogues taking on a series of high-stakes science-fictional heists. If you're at all nostalgic for shows like Firefly, you're likely to love this book. It offers all the joys of reading "classic sci-fi," but updated for the 21st century, with a diverse and engaging cast of characters and a richly drawn, fascinating future where humans are living on asteroids, space stations, and moons across the solar system. It also touches on deeper themes of identity, friendship, and trust. Highly recommended!
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