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Lightspeed Frontier: Kicking the Future
“When you play pool, do you see it as an exercise in advanced trigonometry or do you just pick up a stick and poke?” That’s the question that space-punk heroine Exia asks in this idea-fuelled sci-fi comedy as she pilots her scavenger space ship to the frontier of human colonisation and inflicts her personal brand of chaos on an already messed up galaxy. If you want adventure, wit, original thought, a future full of imaginative charm and a burning tortoise that picks out grant applications, this is the book you’ve been waiting for. It is truly unlike anything else ever written in science fiction.
Lightspeed Frontier the novel has been released alongside Lightspeed Frontier the video game, by Vid Rijavec and Philip Devine, developed at Crowdwork Studios and published by Riveted Games.
Lightspeed Frontier the novel has been released alongside Lightspeed Frontier the video game, by Vid Rijavec and Philip Devine, developed at Crowdwork Studios and published by Riveted Games.
215 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 11, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 9, 2016
I wrote it and I'm going to give it a 5 star rating. So there.
April 24, 2017
The cover first attracted me to inquire further and the blurb enticed be to buy it. So far the author has done everything right, but will what's inside prove to live up to my expectations.
First of all, as this is a video game tie in, I expected it might be a bit different from my normal read, and it was, but not too detrimentally so.
Yes, it sometimes goes off in a tangent talking about stuff that seems irrelevant, but it soon comes back on track.
Characters aren't over fleshed out, but that suits me as I'm more of an action, good plot and a few laughs kinda guy, and the book has all of these. The sassy, wisecracking, sarcastic Exia, was great and such a fun girl. I loved her sarcasm.
So, to sum up. I liked the book and if you want a lighthearted fun read, you will find it in this book. Nuff said. Goodbye.
First of all, as this is a video game tie in, I expected it might be a bit different from my normal read, and it was, but not too detrimentally so.
Yes, it sometimes goes off in a tangent talking about stuff that seems irrelevant, but it soon comes back on track.
Characters aren't over fleshed out, but that suits me as I'm more of an action, good plot and a few laughs kinda guy, and the book has all of these. The sassy, wisecracking, sarcastic Exia, was great and such a fun girl. I loved her sarcasm.
So, to sum up. I liked the book and if you want a lighthearted fun read, you will find it in this book. Nuff said. Goodbye.
February 12, 2020
Ya'll, I did not even know what to make of this book. I started it back in April, 2019 and DNF'ed it because I just couldn't get into it at the time. It is definitely a book you have to be in the right mood to read. I picked it up the second time just after New Years because one of my family members asked about it and I felt guilty that I never finished it. It was better, but it was still remarkably slow reading for such a small supposedly light book.
It is really hard to quite pin down exactly what my issue is with the story. I think, in part, because it is exactly as the description says "unlike anything else ever written in the genre". And hey. so was Firefly once and a lot of people didn't get that and I hate them all for it. (J/K)
I can totally see this developing a cult following just like Firefly. Mind you, I am not really comparing it to Firefly because I am a total Firefly Fangirl for Life and this was just... meh? I mean, I finished it and I don't regret finishing it so it gets 3 stars. It was well written, no major plotholes, the grammar was pretentious at times, but well done. The world-building is excellent and if even half of that went into the game, then I imagine the game would be quite fun.
I think one of the elements I struggle with is the way in which the "story" is told. During the story, I was very annoyed because we kept jumping from character to character and yet most of these characters didn't ever connect, and the few that did didn't do so until about halfway through the story. In a way, looking back, it kind of reminds me of a first-person shooter where you meet a lot of different characters, sometimes more than once, and get different bits of story that help with worldbuilding but the only thing that really ties them all together is you. Except this didn't play out as a choose your own adventure novel and that is the only time in which I can recall that this style of character hopping with little to nothing except the worlds to tie them together has ever really happened in books. Maybe it is wildly innovative and a way to pull gamers back into reading. Maybe the game and the book work better as a package deal. Not sure.
For me, it missed the mark.
It is really hard to quite pin down exactly what my issue is with the story. I think, in part, because it is exactly as the description says "unlike anything else ever written in the genre". And hey. so was Firefly once and a lot of people didn't get that and I hate them all for it. (J/K)
I can totally see this developing a cult following just like Firefly. Mind you, I am not really comparing it to Firefly because I am a total Firefly Fangirl for Life and this was just... meh? I mean, I finished it and I don't regret finishing it so it gets 3 stars. It was well written, no major plotholes, the grammar was pretentious at times, but well done. The world-building is excellent and if even half of that went into the game, then I imagine the game would be quite fun.
I think one of the elements I struggle with is the way in which the "story" is told. During the story, I was very annoyed because we kept jumping from character to character and yet most of these characters didn't ever connect, and the few that did didn't do so until about halfway through the story. In a way, looking back, it kind of reminds me of a first-person shooter where you meet a lot of different characters, sometimes more than once, and get different bits of story that help with worldbuilding but the only thing that really ties them all together is you. Except this didn't play out as a choose your own adventure novel and that is the only time in which I can recall that this style of character hopping with little to nothing except the worlds to tie them together has ever really happened in books. Maybe it is wildly innovative and a way to pull gamers back into reading. Maybe the game and the book work better as a package deal. Not sure.
For me, it missed the mark.
October 12, 2017
It was hard giving this Goodreads giveaway book so few stars, but it just didn't quite deserve more overall. It's a very insightful book, in places, coming up with hilarious and yet also believable plots for how things might go down in the future. For example, world debt will get so ridiculous they start printing negative money. Or everyone will clone themselves to escape earth and then be faced by the moral dilemma of having killed the original and yet not being the original who made the decision. All these make the book quite entertaining, but they couldn't quite distract me from the lack of story. Is it a story about trying to prevent the AIs from taking over? Is it a story about exo-archaeology? Is it about Exia determining if she's a clone? I wanted to like this a lot, but the prose meandered a little too much, dipping into theoretical physics a little too often, and that left me at the end completely missing the relevance of half the stuff I just read. For a book to accompany a game, it's probably pretty good, and maybe most people would consider the lack of flow as innovative, but it left me confused and frustrated.
I'd recommend this book to people who enjoy spunky space opera with pirates and heavy science and hope they find it more fulfilling than I did.
I'd recommend this book to people who enjoy spunky space opera with pirates and heavy science and hope they find it more fulfilling than I did.
June 1, 2017
Este libro fue una sorpresa completa, y si te gusta la ciencia ficción y los juegos esto es definitivamente para ti. Lo he leído en apenas tres días y es que es bastante divertido. La historia va relacionada a un video juego pero se puede leer individualmente y no te perderás en la historia. Hay bastantes momentos cómicos, el autor usa una estilo de escritura ágil y divertido, los personajes son muy interesantes y te abre la imaginación hacia una aventura de ficción en el futuro. Espero ver mucho más de este tipo de libro en el futuro.
August 29, 2017
firstly let me say this is a book I would of just walked by in my local bookshop because the cover looks slutty which is my be what the teens want or those guys in dirty rain coats look for. But like they say don't judge a book by its cover this is a funny book its well written as a good story line can see why its going to liked by the sc fi fan and will be turned in to a video game my be even a film who knows
October 20, 2017
In space fiction, no one ever cleans their teeth, so this book has one up on the genre. An offbeat, quirky, fun read for people who really like the written word, but don’t take their science fiction too seriously. Some readers may be put off by the meandering and the tangents the author goes off on, but it is part of his conversational style of writing, and the place where you find most of the cloaked jocularity. The characters are colorful and realistic. His future is as dysfunctional as our present. I gave it the ‘Full Monty’ of stars because it is not the cookie cutter, sci-fi book that fills the shelves. It’s unique and odd and a fun literary journey.
April 26, 2019
not my usual sort of book, but I try and read all the giveaways, I get from authors as they have been good enough to select me for a book. The characters were quite interesting, the plot a bit hard to understand.
May 14, 2017
A poor simulacrum of Douglas Adams. A lot of prattle searching for a plot.
October 14, 2017
i won this book on goodreads giveaway. was okay but not the best read
March 11, 2020
"This is an expansive ideas book unconvincingly portraying itself as a slacker space adventure."
Lightspeed Frontier isn't from the usual pulp science fiction mould, more like a scientist trying to shrug off their image and get down. I think the idea must have been to shake up what's become predictable about the sci-fi format, but experimentation also comes with a risk of hit and miss. I was always thinking reading this whether the value of the occasionally genuine signs of brilliance outweighed the long anecdotal ramblings and info. dumps that weren't even necessary. Cutting out the banter to leave the plot and original ideas would have been best. How about a revised edition?
Most readers will probably give up in the opening pages as the prologue is too heavy (the famous double slit experiment, told through an obscure Lewis Carroll Snark reference that nearly everyone out of a thousand won't get - It was a boojum, you see?). The human race teleports off the planet to save itself, but what spills out of the machine at the other end is a copy constructed from transmitted information, i.e. the original human race has made itself extinct through teleporting to escape the extinction threat, doh. The new humans do not have the same quantum traits, the difference between a wave and a particle, suggesting maybe the soul can't be copied and science can't reach everything? That's one interpretation. The other would be: WTF is this saying?
The readability of the book then gets much better as it becomes more like the cartoon cover, moving into an easy stride where the funny moments come out. It doesn't work well as a light comedy because of the factual knowledge smuggled inside it, including dangerously real explanations like how to find a nuclear submarine underwater and how to unencrypt the public bank card system by reverse engineering. I liked the idea of the alien plant which can reproduce by transmitting its genetics optically instead of moving pollen or seeds, but you can see that going wrong if the transmission ever got broadcast to pot plants in people's living rooms.
My groan about the book has to be the dour opening pages, where a good editor would have deleted that section and begun with the protagonist on the spaceship in Chapter 1, which is an edgy and readable conversation. I would also limit the part about satellites as that conversation needed adrenaline. The tortoise picking grant proposals was so much better than this, the explorers like characters from a saga or the malicious pizza delivery bot. Dexy's Midnight Runners?
The reason I gave the story a high rating is that it made so many thoughts line up. I don't think it always made sense or was well structured but there are ideas in this that are ridiculously clever, powerful and in a wider bubble than most people encounter in their day to day normality. This is a big ideas book unconvincingly portraying itself as a slacker space adventure. There were set-piece images, subtle insinuations and then a big cut-and-reveal disaster scene that I didn't see coming. The ending narrowed into a reckoning and then went wide open. The book is packed full of content but only repays readers who don't put it down in the prologue. Start reading this at Chapter 1 is my advice.
Lightspeed Frontier isn't from the usual pulp science fiction mould, more like a scientist trying to shrug off their image and get down. I think the idea must have been to shake up what's become predictable about the sci-fi format, but experimentation also comes with a risk of hit and miss. I was always thinking reading this whether the value of the occasionally genuine signs of brilliance outweighed the long anecdotal ramblings and info. dumps that weren't even necessary. Cutting out the banter to leave the plot and original ideas would have been best. How about a revised edition?
Most readers will probably give up in the opening pages as the prologue is too heavy (the famous double slit experiment, told through an obscure Lewis Carroll Snark reference that nearly everyone out of a thousand won't get - It was a boojum, you see?). The human race teleports off the planet to save itself, but what spills out of the machine at the other end is a copy constructed from transmitted information, i.e. the original human race has made itself extinct through teleporting to escape the extinction threat, doh. The new humans do not have the same quantum traits, the difference between a wave and a particle, suggesting maybe the soul can't be copied and science can't reach everything? That's one interpretation. The other would be: WTF is this saying?
The readability of the book then gets much better as it becomes more like the cartoon cover, moving into an easy stride where the funny moments come out. It doesn't work well as a light comedy because of the factual knowledge smuggled inside it, including dangerously real explanations like how to find a nuclear submarine underwater and how to unencrypt the public bank card system by reverse engineering. I liked the idea of the alien plant which can reproduce by transmitting its genetics optically instead of moving pollen or seeds, but you can see that going wrong if the transmission ever got broadcast to pot plants in people's living rooms.
My groan about the book has to be the dour opening pages, where a good editor would have deleted that section and begun with the protagonist on the spaceship in Chapter 1, which is an edgy and readable conversation. I would also limit the part about satellites as that conversation needed adrenaline. The tortoise picking grant proposals was so much better than this, the explorers like characters from a saga or the malicious pizza delivery bot. Dexy's Midnight Runners?
The reason I gave the story a high rating is that it made so many thoughts line up. I don't think it always made sense or was well structured but there are ideas in this that are ridiculously clever, powerful and in a wider bubble than most people encounter in their day to day normality. This is a big ideas book unconvincingly portraying itself as a slacker space adventure. There were set-piece images, subtle insinuations and then a big cut-and-reveal disaster scene that I didn't see coming. The ending narrowed into a reckoning and then went wide open. The book is packed full of content but only repays readers who don't put it down in the prologue. Start reading this at Chapter 1 is my advice.
November 23, 2016
A funny/clever science fiction story. Very cool.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews