Tempus Interruptus: Dwarves in Space 0

Dwarves in Space

by S.E. Zbasnik

Time’s unraveling across the galaxy and the only hope are two people who’d rather kill each other than work together. Drake Bane is a low-class smuggler and general grit in the galaxy’s wheels of progress. He finds himself on the wrong side of a goblin mob boss and gets the choice to either steal an ancient relic or test space decompression up close. When his ship’s impounded as collateral he’s left to sneak his way onto a ship without bothering to get to know the captain or its cast of interesting characters. Too bad or he’d have skipped right past and saved himself a major headache. Captain Variel Tuffman’s got her own secrets which she’s not about to share with a smuggler that lied his way onto her ship. All she wants is to ditch the guy before the couple on her ship who think they’re on a cruise vacation catch on. It all goes wibbly wobbly when an ancient artifact impales itself onto her hand and she can’t get it off. The crew is sent careening across the galaxy on the run from a bunch of species’ militaries and the dwarven antiquities board. At the heart of it all is a hole in the galaxy that no one’s ever seen before or can explain and it’s getting bigger. When the captain starts speaking gibberish and snaps in and out of comas, their only hope may be the relic jammed in her hand.

234 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 28, 2019

Reviews

[Brad · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first, the story seemed almost ludicrous. Our protagonist, Drake Bane, is hard to like and he seems to spend the story making stupid choices, getting hurt, and never learning.

The crew of the spaceship where much of the story occurs are interesting and nicely developed. Even the rogue AI on board has a personality. The universe is controlled by dwarves, but includes elves, goblins, orcs, and a few humans. It's not your typical sci-fi story.

Not all is what it seems. I kept reading hoping things would get better. They did which is a good reason to stick with the story.

The plot involves time as implied by the title. Suffice it to say that much of the inane events in the first part make a lot of sense once we reach the major turning point of the story.

The sci-fi elements are there as background to the story. Even the fantasy beings are mostly part of the scenery.

[Ronald · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rogue space ship captain picks up a guy at a bar. Deceitful, self-centered, and mob-connected, he leads her to her ultimate destiny, healing a galactic space-time anomaly.

This book is part of a series of books but reads as a complete story. According to the author's "Dwarves in Space" website, each book in this collection is individualistic although using most of the same Tempus Interruptus characters. The next book in this series, Dwarves in Space: Free Radicals, is now on my reading list. I’m sure that it will be followed by others in this series.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting characters

[Torfinn Ingolfsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was ok.