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It had been one hell of a way to start the day––being rudely snapped from a deep cryo-sleep, and in the middle of a ship-wide crisis to boot––but Daisy was pleased to note that the ship had not decompressed, the crew hadn’t been blasted into space, and, most importantly, they hadn’t simply blown up. At least not yet. So, they had that going for them, but being stuck on a damaged ship in the inky depths of space as it limped toward Earth was not exactly the relaxing trip home she’d imagined.
With the powerful AI supercomputer guiding the craft beginning to show some disconcerting quirks of its own, and its unsettling cyborg assistant nosing into her affairs, Daisy’s unease was rapidly growing. Add to the mix a crew of mechanically-enhanced humans, any one of whom she suspected might not be what they seemed, and Daisy found herself with a sense of pending dread tickling the periphery of her mind.
Something was very much not right––she could feel it in her bones. The tricky part now was going to be figuring out what the threat was, before it could manifest from a mere sinking feeling in her gut into a potentially deadly reality.
Excerpt :
“Should we wake them? I mean, the ship is on fire, after all.”
Barry didn’t seem stressed. In fact, his voice rarely showed any extremes of emotion at all, though that was to be expected of a cyborg.
“It is a bit early, but yes, given the problems I am experiencing with my internal sensors and fire suppression systems, I think that would be prudent,” the disembodied voice of Malorie, the ship’s artificial intelligence system, replied. “Though I would like you on hand, just in case there are any issues cycling the crew out of cryo-sleep so early, and on such short notice.”
“Of course, Mal. Understood.”
The handsome flesh-and-metal man with sandy-blond hair rose from his seat in the control room and stepped into the double airlock leading to the central passageway network. Starboard Peripheral Corridor One would have been the faster route, but after the impact, with the possibility of undetected depressurization in any of the damaged and offline pod sections or one of the unmonitored inter-compartmental conduit routing spaces, he’d just have to take the long way. The inconvenience, he reasoned, was certainly preferable to being unceremoniously blasted into space.
The Váli was a sturdy ship, and she had only been nudged slightly off course by the collision. There was time to set things right, but sooner was far better than later. At the speed and distance they were traveling, “slightly” could easily become “a lot” quickly.
Normally Mal would simply right the course herself, diverting a fraction of her attention toward adjusting the maneuvering thrusters to gently ease them back on target. In the event of a fire of any significance, however, protocol required her to wake the crew of the Váli.
The ship’s unusual name had been taken from old Norse mythology, given to it by a cybernetically-enhanced engineer with a fondness for ancient texts. Váli, the son of Odin, brother of Thor. A god prophesied to survive Ragnarok, the end of times.
She was a fast ship, no doubt, and extremely nimble, when not laden with additional research, living, and lab pods locked to her support frame for such a long voyage. That bulk-saving performance, however, came at a price. The multiple layers of outer shielding found on larger, sturdier vessels—the kind that would have prevented such a minor impact from damaging them in the first place—were sorely lacking, and so it passed that the ship had succumbed quite spectacularly to what would have been an otherwise minor incident.
My thoughts :
Even as a kid growing up in the 80's with all the "firsts" of space exploration, I never dreamed about being an astronaut. Oh, sure, I'm a TNG Star Trek fan but beyond that, I can't say there's anything about space or science fiction that I really geek about. (And I'm not so sure that I'm not just a Patrick Stewart fan, because, c'mon, it's Patrick Stewart.) Ya'll are probably tired of hearing me say "I'm not that big of a sci-fi fan", yet I still keep reading it, don't I? Well, here are some reasons I couldn't say no to Daisy's Run.
First and foremost, Daisy is a strong, yet flawed, female protagonist and boy, is she snarky, which I love. You get this sense of her somehow being the underdog from the start and I always like to root for the underdog. Occasionally her internal dialogue and prejudices against AI and her more mechanically enhanced shipmates got a bit dreary, but overall, she was a lot of fun. The rest of the characters are equally delightful, even the ones that are a bit more stoic and aloof. While there wasn't necessarily a lot of time spent on character growth, I enjoyed the characters' interactions. The exception to that was the inelegantly phrased "romance" scenes. Egad, those were painfully awkward. Ahem. Moving on...
There's an impressive amount of world-building, which sounds strange since they are on a spacecraft for the vast majority of the book. I didn't feel like I got bogged down with any of the atmospheric constructs, which I tend to find quite boring in a lot of sci-fi. There's a big distinction between being shown something and being told what something looks like. A good author excels at being descriptive without becoming tedious, and Scott Baron has this concept firmly in his grasp. I also was intrigued by cybernetic parts that many of the characters are sporting. Even with all the advanced (theoretical) technology, I never felt that it was killing brain cells just trying to understand it. Indeed, some of the technology probably isn't very far off!
There's a lot of intrigue surrounding Daisy and her shipmates and a slow build of drama in the first half. While not a lot really happens other than Daisy's paranoia, you just know that there is a big twist coming. From there, it's a rocketship of a ride to the end.
I read the last page only a few hours after beginning, which is always a tell of a good book, and I was sad to see it go, which is the sign of an exceptional book. Maybe I'm fooling myself that I'm not a huge fan of science fiction. Or maybe kick-ass sci-fi like Daisy's Run is steadily
converting me.
I read the last page only a few hours after beginning, which is always a tell of a good book, and I was sad to see it go, which is the sign of an exceptional book. Maybe I'm fooling myself that I'm not a huge fan of science fiction. Or maybe kick-ass sci-fi like Daisy's Run is steadily
converting me.
About the Author
A native Californian, Scott Baron was born in Hollywood, which he claims may be the reason for his off-kilter sense of humor. Before taking up residence in Venice Beach, he spent a few years studying abroad before settling into the film and television industry, where he has worked off and on for some time. Scott not only writes, but is also involved in indie film and theater both in the U.S. and abroad.
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