Space Opera Fans discussion

The April 2021 Limited Pick is A Line in the Sand by Judith Moffitt. Please use this thread to post questions, comments, and reviews, at any time.

Official description:
Rob Michaels had lost one war. The last thing he wanted was to be involved in another. He just wanted to trade and fly his ship, GEM, in peace. Mark Haver was career military. A recent widow, all Mark wanted was to raise his teenage daughter and keep his ship, the UPS Unity, running. Jobel Famarion was third in line for the throne of the United Planets. Somewhere along the line, he had become a spoiled brat. The King sent him to the UPS Unity as punishment for causing a riot. Three men, who had no reason to be friends, needed to come together to fight the takeover of their government in a military coup.

I enjoyed reading this book last year and will be doing a reread of it. I also enjoyed the sequel. The third book is due out later this year.

Here is my review from my first reading:
Held my attention nicely. Needs polishing and editing but good for a first indie book. Lots of action, reasonable motivation for most of the characters, multiple alien species. At one point it brought tears to my eyes and books hardly ever do that to me. I’ll be buying the sequel.

I started my reread a couple of days ago, and am a bit more than more than halfway through now. It’s definitely worth rereading, with both action and characterization. The point of view tends to switch quite often, sometimes in the same scene so that we get the inner thoughts of different characters. I don’t enjoy the parts that have the point of view of one of the bad guys but they are few and rather short. I’m noticing character growth on some of the characters already.

Finished my reread last night. This morning I started rereading the sequel To the Bitter End.

In A Line in the Sand there are subtle things that tend to be overlooked, which are made far more obvious in the sequel. One of the minor characters is transsexual. In the sequel we get details about zie’s childhood, marriage, children, and the way zie’s in-laws react to it all. Another minor character seems to be an alien analog of being on the autistic spectrum.

I also like the way that after an extremely traumatic event, those involved are urged to get help dealing with PTSD.

The way that the crew of the GEM is mostly a family, including the aliens and the AI that runs a lot of the ship reminds me of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Completely different plot, but the same making of a found family out of a bunch of assorted mostly rejected beings.

Note: I likely got the dang pronouns wrong, but I’m sure you get the idea.

Just so you know, the first draft of book three is done. It will be out by the end of May or early June.

I was most surprised and delighted to be selected for this month's Limited read. I hope you all enjoy.

There's much to like in this book, but please, please, please -- Hire an EDITOR! The grammatical mistakes, missing words, and mostly non-existent transitions make for too many jarring moments that steal from what might be a solid 4 star book. As it is, I'm likely to finish it, but give it two stars. Every Writer. Every Single One. Needs an editor. And a proofreader. (No, they're NOT the same. ) Hire the best editor you can. Your readers will thank you. (And buy more books!)