Wine Dark Deep

Wine Dark Deep #1

by R. Peter Keith

A hard science-fiction space opera.

The First Book in the Epic Odyssey of the Spaceship Ulysses and its Crew!

When the solar system’s key asteroid mine is seized by revolutionaries, it puts the secret mission of the spaceship Ulysses in jeopardy. Without a refueling launch from the asteroid, the survival of the ship and its crew is uncertain. The safest course for the Ulysses? Abandon the mission and limp home.

But Cal Scott, captain of the Ulysses, is an astronaut of the old school and failure is not an option. He has a head straight for the asteroid belt and get their fuel—one way or another.

Genres: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Science Fiction Fantasy, Space, Fiction

149 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 12, 2020

About the author

R. Peter Keith is the creative director of a NASA Space Act Agreement partner company that specializes in the design, fabrication and exhibition of museum exhibits and interactive experiences. He’s flown the NASA-Langley Lunar Lander Simulator to a landing in front of the Moon McDonalds* and has spent research time inside an original Apollo LM and the Orion Spacecraft with one of its engineers.

Keith collaborated with NASA to produce a simulation-based exhibition that focused on the basic concepts of spaceflight and their possible application in the colonization of our solar system. On it’s premiere, the exhibit broke all attendance records for Space Center Houston, the official NASA Visitor Center for the Johnson Space Center, home of the astronaut program.

The many long, thoughtful and technical conversations with NASA experts and advisors from Houston, Langley and JPL that occurred during the creation of this exhibition and its seven simulations and related programs provided the germ of the idea that became the WINE DARK DEEP series.

Keith lives in Vermont with his wife, kids and dogs. He has hung on to an old car for so long it has become cool again and has done the same with a few pairs of pants. He has an unreasonable love for all speculative fiction, having grown up with both classic literary and film works as well as the wonders of Marvel comics, Star Trek and Star Blazers. He’s an avid video game fan as well as a voracious reader.


*There really is a McDonalds on the moon in that NASA simulator. He has pics.

Reviews

[Dannii Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating 4.5/5 stars. This is the first instalment in the Wine Dark Deep series.

The spaceship Ulysses is low on fuel and supplies. They are nearing one of the solar system's key asteroids to refuel when they are denied access and resigned to leave their fate in the wealthy hands of those who reside there. The Ulysses crew have become pawns caught up in a political battle between planet earth and its distant space neighbours. They might be unwilling to enter into these negotiations, or the potential future war that could blossom from it, but if they are forced to do so their Captain, Cal, won't allow them to become passive participants. New players have now entered the game!

I was initially hesitant to read a sci-fi that measured in at under 150 pages yet I need not have feared. This might have been on the smaller side but sacrificed none of the atmosphere, evocation of setting, or character creation for it.

This was heavy on the scientific explanations for the myriad of technological advancements that were featured here, and I really appreciated their inclusion. These slow-paced explanations neatly offset the surrounding suspense and action, which was only enhanced by the increasingly shortening chapter lengths.

What was also increased throughout were the stakes at play. The last 40 pages were an especially tense race for escape or capture, depending on the perspective, with multiple lives on the line. I was entirely unsure where the narrative would go and the final chapters had me eager to dive into the second series instalment, immediately.

[Aristotle · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the polar ice caps continue to melt the natural resources under the Artic and Antarctic will be fought over as to who has the rights to them. So to think we will fight over the natural resources on Ceres's is only a matter of time.

This was an okay read. A good premise but over simplified story telling.
The 250 or so settlers of the dwarf planet Ceres are revolting. Claiming that Earth is not giving them their fair share of the profits. The science ship Ulysses is caught in the middle of this revolt.
Part one of three part novella. The other two are available.
The next novella has to be better for me to recommend. 2 1/2 stars

Thanks to goodreads giveaway

[Sue Plant · Rating 4 out of 5]

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this fun book

if you are a big fan of star trek then this is the book for you....
space travel and exploration are abound in this short story and i for one cant wait for the second book in this exciting new series...

[Laura (crofteereader) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read. Where a lot of space scifi goes heavy on biology (how terraforming works and how to classify alien flora/fauna, etc) this one was very into physics (relative velocity, normal forces, parabolic trajectory, etc). It's short and easily devoured in one sitting.

But the characters... It felt like this wasn't the first book. Like we were supposed to understand how each of these characters (the crew of the Ulysses and Helen Donovan on Ceres) knows each other and fits together. Several times it's asserted that Helen and Cal have some kind of past but we get pretty much none of it. And the book is so plot-focused that the characters exist solely to fulfill their roles in the narrative (a pilot, an engineer, a captain who does a whole lot of kind of ridiculous things, a "smart" villain, and a "thug" villain).

Speaking of, the villains were really dumb. There's two whole conversations about how their plans were based entirely on unrealistic expectations and when things totally fall apart they just kind of... Yell at each other? It was rather disappointing.

I'm still intrigued to see where Cal and the Ulysses go from here, since the book ends rather suddenly as soon as the immediate danger has passed.

{Thank you Smith Publicity and Uphill Downhill Press for the review copy; all thoughts are my own}

[Eridiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading this novella I feel like I could be ready to go to space myself because it read more like an instruction manual than a story. 99% of the writing is focused on explaining the physics and how everything looks and works down to the smallest detail. Just imagine watching a scene and then spending pages upon pages on describing absolutely everything about it, down to the exact parameters of a door or the color of the buttons.

I like reading hard sci-fi because it helps make a futuristic world more tangible and realistic but only when it's used in addition to an interesting story with compelling characters. This novella only had the sci-fi part. The story itself was simplistic and the characters never had any depth to them and no established relationships for me to care about what was happening to them.

This eARC was provided by Uphill Downhill Press via Netgalley.

[Tamahome · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty fun and short traditional hard sf, like "Star Trek by Carl Sagan". Sometimes I could do with some visual aids. Would definitely make a good movie, live action or animated. And there's no kings or princes, one of my space opera pet peeves. I thought the villian situation was fairly fresh. For once a Facebook ad actually showed me a decent book with more than one Goodreads review. Yes, there's a Star Trek comic with the same name. It's actually taken from Homer's The Odyssey.

[DEGEN Psychonaut · Rating 4 out of 5]

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars


Wowzers!! I highly recommend this tightly written, Science fiction space opera, and this short review is my brief love letter to a book I feel deserves the love and attention.

Its hard to find quality space drama that isn’t set centuries beyond our present day spaceless epoch. I feel like Wine Dark Deep could be now, not fifty, or five hundred years down the road. To feel like space travel, REAL space travel is a tactile possibility, and not just a dream, is a joy and I didn’t realize was something my SF reading was lacking. In no way does this take away from the futuristic mind bending tech, and leaps of science, I enjoy immersing myself in Space Opera of course. It just reminded me that to get There, we have to start Here.

This high drama and tense adventure takes place right here within our solar system. A fantastic example of a calm and gutsy captain, who tries to win the day and pull of the impossible to save his crew,, with a whole lot riding on his success.

I didn’t expect to be so entertained by a story like this thats set within our part of the neighborhood, as i love the “out there” stuff, and I don’t know if the next part in the story goes out of system, but I love to think it will. Either way, this worked for me.

It pits a science ship, The USS Ulysses, advanced, new and shiny. Against a small, but extremely wealthy, and soon to be (if plans go their way) powerful community on Ceres. Because of the abundance of natural resources, and very low gravity and atmosphere, the cost to lift off, or move products from ground to space being almost negligible place where almost all the fuel used for space travel, comes from.

The crew of scientists find themselves having to make a tough choice, more like a gamble, in order to reach the location of their long awaited scientific study. Each crew member was distinct and felt…real! How many times do we read a book where we either cannot keep the characters, their names, personalities all nicely visualized, or we don’t care about them enough to really try to see them. Each member of the crew, and even the adversaries have that ease of imaginings, at least for me anyway.

The insane series of events that happen in rapid fire sequences were pure joy to read, and enjoy.

This was a fast paced, well constructed space adventure that I flew through. I won it from a goodreads giveaways, and when I started it, it was just to get the feel as I was reading a couple books already. I was not expecting to become fully engrossed in the story as quickly as I did.

This is high caliber writing, and I’m compelled to move on to part two right away.

[Niel (Thelectorem) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a space-freak and a nerd who often gets his kicks by exploring and learning all that he can about the universe and its elements, reading a hard space science action can be a very overwhelming experience for him. Being that nerd, I never miss any opportunity to read such science fiction. The last space science fiction I read was Andy Weir's 'Artemis' where I explored and experienced the premise that was set on the moon. And now, in R. Peter Keith's 'Wine Dark Deep', I got to read a very intriguing story which was set on Ceres—the largest asteroid in the asteroid bet, millions of miles away from our mother Earth.

The story revolves around Calvin Scott and his crew who were on the scientific exploration voyage on their interplanetary spacecraft, Ulysses. In the middle of the voyage, they needed to refuel their spacecraft and Ceres was their only hope if they didn't want to return Earth. But the people on Ceres have other plans and their rebellion acts simply conveyed that they didn't want to help Earth anymore and wanted to develop independently from the earth. In the middle of such political conflicts and conspiracies, Cal couldn't risk his mission to go in vain and puts himself among the rebellions and that leads the story to take the most exciting and thrilling turns.

There's no second opinion if either I enjoyed it or not, I certainly found it very exhilarating. The start was a bit slow for me, but as soon as Cal gets down on Ceres, things started moving at a great pace. The author successfully managed to create that constant rush where I could not help but wonder about what would happen next. My favorite part was the chase between rovers and Cal's escape plan—which was quite insane. It was a very intense reading experience which gave me many thrills and goosebumps through its plot development, the narration and premise building was at it's best as well, even I like the scientific description of the places and processes, but that can also be its down point for the readers who may not have enough idea about space and technologies related to it. Ordinary readers may probably find it overly descriptive, but yes, people who are completely into space and exploration would certainly enjoy this read.

If there were ten elements in the book then I loved and enjoyed nine of them, but the one that I think the author should consider is its characterization. There were many characters like Helen, Paul Arthur, Henry and Sarah, and as a reader, I could not find them enough engaging in the matter of their background. Sometimes we read characters and we know who they are, where they come from, and what's makes them exceptional as an Individual character and that was missing in this book. This was just the first book of the series, and characterization is not the matter if the author has worked on it in the following two books of the series.

Overall, it has all the elements that a science-fiction reader will love to read and it's also quite challenging when certain descriptions and animation in the scenes demand some extra imagination muscles to picture it in the reader's mind. If one can obtain that imagination state than this will be no less than an insane science-fiction movie. I will highly recommend it to people who prefer intense and hard space science-fiction.

[Tomislav · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wine Dark Deep is the opening novella of R. Peter Keith’s yet-to-be-concluded space opera series, Wine Dark Deep. The first three volumes, including Encounter at Jupiter and The Odyssey, were released simultaneously. All are tightly coupled, and should be read in order. I will warn you now that the end of this opening novella is abrupt, concluding the action, but without concluding any of the characters’ stories.

It is a future setting on board a crewed science mission to Jupiter, and on a crewed mining facility on the asteroid Ceres. I enjoyed the detail with which the gravitational effects and perils in these settings are worked out. The use of contemporary NASA vocabulary and specific numerical parameters helps with the plausibility of such a story, although I have to say that realistically I would expect there to be more evolution of terminology over the century or so needed to reach the time of the story. But the language does create a near-future realism. But rubber tires? Rubber? Natural rubber comes from rubber trees, and synthetic rubber is a petroleum product – neither of which can be found on Ceres.

The characters are particularly flat, playing their parts in the action, but little else. This series opens as hard-sf, so characters are not the main concern, but anything more about them would be helpful. Later volumes evolve into plot-driven space opera, which is more scientifically forgiving – but character development will be needed.

I received ebook advance reader copies of volumes 1-3 from Uphill Downhill Press (the author’s own company) and Smith Publicity through netgalley in exchange for honest reviews. All three books were released on 12 October 2020.

[Tim Healy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hey, you know what? This book is really fun. It's a bit of a throwback to the science fiction books of my youth...it's not overly long. It's also really focused on telling you a story. The plot moves, but mostly because it doesn't bog you down with unnecessary side "stuff". That's a good thing, in my opinion. The plot is based around the dwarf planet/large asteroid Ceres, and takes a very different view of Ceres than you see in The Expanse series. I like the fact that Keith cares about making the science of space travel as accurate as possible. I'm sure there are SOME liberties taken, but they aren't things that I could put my finger on with my knowledge of physics.

Anyway, there's an issue of willingness to refuel an interstellar voyage, so the Captain decides to take it in his own hands to get his ship refueled. I don't want to give a lot away, but I'll tell you that I just read more than half of the book, this evening. I couldn't stop because Keith picked a really gutsy way to resolve the plot line he had opened. I didn't see it coming. I recommend this for sci-fi lovers. It's good stuff!

[Rachael McMillen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short SciFi novella was a lot of fun! A revolutionary force on the mining colony of Cerce decides to take a stand, refusing Cal Scott the refuel his ship needs to complete their scientific mission. In such a short page count, the author creates such an engaging storyline. I was sucked in and finished this novella in one sitting! If you like classic SciFi, you'll likely be a fan of this! If you are interested in dipping your toes into this genre, here's a good, non-intimidating place to start!

[Julie Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I heard this being talked about on the Shelf Wear podcast. More science than I usually like, rather at the expense of the story which is fairly simple. Enjoyable enough though.

[Jade · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm rather conflicted when it comes to this book. I must honestly ask something to the author (if you see this review, I would truly enjoy getting the answer !) : Why is this book so short, yet the series has 3 books ?

We follow Cal, the captain of a spaceship in need of refueling on a major inhabited asteroid, who discovers a rebellion is brewing there. They won't give him the fuel, so Cal need to be smart and find a way to get it to save his crew and his mission.

First of all, the plot is a little shaky. I didn't connect to it much. I think this is largely due to the fact I couldn't connect with the characters, so I didn't really care about their lives. This is why I'm asking why the book is so short.

There could have been sooooo much more developpement in every area of the book ! Tell us more about the Ulysses crew ! Tell us more about the rebellion, about the asteroid. Why are they really revolting, what does the population think ? We don't really get answers to that. This could easily have been a 400-500 pages book ! There is so much potential that remains unexploited !

What was really cool in this book though is the fact that the author is former NASA. That means the science and the tech in the story is quite detailed and focused on. Since I love space etc. IRL, I was bound to love that aspect of the book, and I did !

All in all, you can tell it's written by a science oriented person. I think it's both cool and a disadvantage, because it led to the plot and characters being neglected in favor of techy stuff.
That being said, I saw a lot of people enjoying the series, so maybe it's just not a book for me and my brain. I hope some of you will enjoy it more than I did !

[Aleah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy of Wine Dark Deep! This novella is a light read for fans of space opera who could also go for some hard sci-fi. I had some trouble staying engaged; just as the story would get going something would interrupt the groove: an awkward change of perspective or a sudden resolution to the dramatic arc. But I did find myself melting into some well-executed bits, such as: "Technically, all paths in space were orbits, this new one the taxi was falling along just happened to intersect with the ground. Now, Cal thought, it was all about mitigating the fall" or "But you must realize that you close minds when you put lives at risk. You look small when you try to look big."

I was also left scratching my head when characters referenced their "space phone" or a "Hot Wheel set." The action is taking place on a mining colony on an asteroid, presumably well into the future? The references to modern artifacts was jolting. Another nitpick, this story is told from a third person omniscient perspective, and in a couple of chapters the focus shifted rapidly between characters, which I didn't care for at all.

Overall, I would have appreciated more time being spent on the backstory between Cal and Donovan. What is this tension between them? Is it romantic? It's never explained. And let me read about more Cal and less everyone else - he was by far my favorite character. He reminded me a lot of Mark Watney from The Martian, who knew his science but wasn't afraid of a dirty joke now and then.

[Isabelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got intrigued by the pitch of Wine Dark Deep: "Equal parts The Martian, Star Trek, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and The Expanse". Of these four, I love 3, and I'm neutral about the fourth (I probably read it at some point, but I don't remember anything about it). That, plus an intriguing title, made me ask for a review copy on NetGalley, and be happy when I got it.

In Wine Dark Deep, some parts of the solar system are somewhat settled; Ceres is used as a refueling base for ships that go for a longer journey. The Ulysses is such a ship - destination Jupiter, for a scientific mission, and gets quite annoyed when the Ceres base refuses their refueling, for reasons that are initially unclear. A tug of war ensues between the two factions and we follow in particular Cal Scott, the captain of the Ulysses, and Helen Donovan, who's part of the Ceres colony.

I usually see myself as someone who loves all the "space details" that make me feel like a book is believable and well-researched - that go beyond the handwavy "yeah, we have cool engines and we can go to space today". I will admit that the level of these details in Wine Dark Deep was too much for me, especially since it seemed to come at the detriment of character development. I had a very hard time caring for any of these characters and what they were doing, and no amount of nerdy details could compensate for that.

Wine Deep Dark is the first part of a three-part story, and it's possible that the following parts alleviate the issues that I have with the first part, but I also regret to say that I will not try to find out by reading them.

[Jeff Koeppen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wind Dark Deep is the first of a trilogy and gets its name from a quote in The Odyssey. This was a short, fun, hard science fiction adventure written in the style of Andy Weir - the science which drives the plot is believable and well thought out, and much of it explained to the reader.

The story centers around Cal Scott, the captain of the spaceship Ulysses. The Ulysses is on a deep space mission to Jupiter but is denied refueling from the base on the dwarf planet Ceres as the inhabitants are in the middle of an independence rebellion against Earth. This puts their whole mission a risk. Captain Scott decides to drop in on Ceres despite warnings to stay away and, upon arrival, drama and conflict ensue.

The book's setting was interesting and well imagined. Most of the book is set in the human habitats on Ceres, the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system which is full of water (possible more than earth) and other chemicals so it would be a great place of human base someday despite its low gravity.

I really liked this and I'm looking forward to continuing on with the second book in the series.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exciting science based fun! Highly recommend
Fans of “Star Trek” and “The Martian” would also like this book.
Good news - there’s more! Gets better with each installment.

[Liviu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hardcore sf that lacks memorable characters to be a true winner but offers enough interesting stuff to try the next book in the series

[DarthVixReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This hard sci fi novella was so much fun and honestly rivals sci fi novellas published by big publishers. I cannot wait to dive deeper into this story especially the character relationships between the crew and also between Cal and Donovan. If you are looking for a fast but compelling Sci Fi read you can enjoy in an afternoon, this is it. Ordering the next one now!

[K Saju · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a copy of this for review from the publisher via NetGalley for a honest opinion.
You know the feeling, when you have the team that can win the match for you but it falters at so many steps that it stresses you out? Well I have so many mixed feelings for the book that am actually confused.
It's a good story, the concept is intriguing, the plot is there but i felt that it was lacking enough information. Yes the hero is the captain, yes there are individuals who think he is dangerous but why? What did he do, where did he proved himself? Where is the back story for that? An AI that can do so much at such a short time?
Yet this book has many merits, fast paced, short chapters, as this is a series I definitely would want to go through book 2 before deciding on the next steps but for this one, yes it's good enough for a quick fast paced action, ignore the missing details, go for it.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, not great. Good premise, but a bit disjointed, and not always engaging. It's a short read and the first of 3, and not surprisingly doesn't resolve everything in a tidy knot. Let's see how the series pans out.

Thanks very much for the review copy!!

[Jennifer Fernandez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wine Dark Deep is a really short Hard Sci-Fi novella. The Ulysses and its crew are on their way to an important mission to Jupiter. However, the fuel they sorely need to get there is held hostage by the citizens of Ceres. They're in the middle of a rebellion against Earth and Ulysses has arrived at a bad time.

I must commend the author for his extensive knowledge of physics. He has a background on NASA and he let it show in every detail of the novella, making everything seem plausible. However, as much as I liked these details, I have to admit they soon became the novella's greatness weakness.

As soon as the action turned intense, it immediately became bogged down in the details, halting the momentum to a complete standstill. For its short length the story sacrifices plot development, character development, and even the stakes to develop the science.

We are constantly told the mission to Jupiter is super important for Science, but we don't know why or what exactly they expect to do there that makes it imperative that they get there instead of turning home when fuel was denied. We are told they can just go home, so the stakes never resonated. It was hard for me to care, especially since characters where just names on paper.

We don't anything about them or why we should root for them. We're told Cal, the captain, is dangerous, but we never know why or how. There's tension between him and Donovan because of something in their past, but never told what it is.

I guess the series continues and maybe these things get resolved in later novellas. The fact that this ends so abruptly in a cliffhanger makes it feel like an incomplete story, and I know this is my opinion, but I prefer my books to have a good wrap up even if they belong to a series. It's a series of three novellas, and I think it would've been better to unite them all in a complete, better rounded, novel.

If you like Hard Sci-Fi books solely for the science then this is the book for you. I prefer character development and plot over the details. This is wasn't for me (I enjoy hard sci-fi but this one was too much). Don't let this sway you, though, I can see how other types of readers might enjoy it more. The writing is smooth and the science details are easy to read and follow.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC through Netgalley and decided to leave my honest review.

[Kayla (krakentoagoodbook) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was pretty quick to read! It really only focuses on this refueling situation, so it felt almost like an episode of a TV show. I did like that there was an AI (Odysseus) in the story. However, I feel like this snapshot of the world was just not quite enough for me. I generally don't have the best sense of any of the characters, aside from (maybe) the captain.

I did feel a bit confused while reading this, as we're just thrown right in to the world. I do wonder if it would be better to read all of this series at once. On its own, I'm not sure the story was enough to be particularly memorable for me.

All this being said, if you're interested in a more episodic sci-fi, this might work for you.

I received a copy of this for review from the publisher via NetGalley - thank you! All opinions are my own.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a slow start, the novel turns into a race against the odds for the crew of the Ulysses as they orbit Ceres.

Captain Cal Scott is a man with a mission, and nothing will stop him from getting to Jupiter.

I liked the fast pace and short chapters giving us a sense of urgency. The science seems totally plausible and falls in the hard sci-fi category, with lots of descriptions and details.

I really enjoyed my ride and am looking forward the next part of the series!

I received the book as an ARC from NetGalley.

[Sourav sharma · Rating 5 out of 5]

BOOK REVIEW

AUTHOR:- R. PETER KEITH

GENRE:- SCIENCE FICTION

FORMAT:- KINDLE

MY RATINGS:- 4.8/5

📚 WINE DARK DEEP is a great short story by the author. This is the first book in the series. I was actually thrilled to read to this one.

📚The story is about Calvin and his team, who are on a mission, unfortunately in the half way to their destination, they were short of fuel and Ceres was the only option because they don't want to go back to earth without completing their mission at any cost. So their hopes were on Ceres.

📚 But the there is a twist in the story , the Ceres refuses to help them due to their reasons. It was at this very moment when I was hooked up and couldnot keep the book down. This was something that cal didn't expect. But he is determined and thinks of getting the fuel one way or the other.

But how , is this going to be easy?
Find out the answer yourself , go get your copy now.

➡️ I think I had a wonderful time reading the book, it is like 140 pages long and seriously telling you can read it in one go because the story is so engaging. You can connect to the characters and situation. The narration was smooth and easy. The author has to be appreciated for the great work.

➡️ The book cover and the title both look superb. I would give a 2/2 for the book cover and the title. The moment you reach the last page you will be wanting for more. The book will keep you guessing. I just finished the part-1 and I am eager to grab the remaining books.
This a complete book alot of action, adventure and suspense. I would recommend every sci-fic lover to grab this one.

[Catherine Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story when I took the time to visualize all the descriptions of what was happening: the spaceship maneuvers, the action on Ceres, and the happenings in space. It would make a pretty cool looking movie (a la Ad Astra). There was so much of the novel devoted to the descriptions that I felt the action was a little sparse, and I didn't understand why Helen Donovan was acting the way she was. Her actions and motivations seemed very inconsistent. Cal seemed like a good captain but I actually saw very little interaction with him and his crew.

[Scott Whitmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick, entertaining read. The action rarely slows in what amounts to an extended opening scene that lays the groundwork for a series that looks very promising. I'm in.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really interesting book! It has a lot of really plausible science and technology, and a look at some near future political possibilities with space stations trying to emancipate. The story is told with a light touch, so the grim moments don't dip into horror. It's more of a dashing space cowboy heist tale, and highly enjoyable with it!

[Reid Baccio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exciting

A trip to Jupiter, a revolt on an asteroid, an escape from rebels, and capturing space tankers! Love this book.

[Shelby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly enjoyable hard science fiction novel

A political storm is brewing on the asteroid Ceres. Miners in the habitat are seeking independence. And they are willing to use anyone and anything to grasp their chance.