Russ Allbery: Review: Full Speed to a Crash Landing

Review: Full Speed to a Crash Landing, by Beth Revis

Full Speed to a Crash Landing is a science fiction novella and the first of a series. Beth Revis made the New York Times bestseller list for an earlier series of young adult science fiction novels, but somehow I had not heard of her before this series.

Ada Lamarr is a salvager. She picks up material from crashed or dead ships for resale. As the story opens, she has a large hole in the side of her ship, she's running out of oxygen, and the other ship nearby is refusing to answer her distress call. By the time they finally respond, there is barely enough time to get aboard before she is entirely out of air.

Ada's first-person narration drops hints that she may not be entirely what she seems. But then, neither is the Halifax , so it's only fair.

The captain of the Halifax treats Ada with a great deal of suspicion and wants her out of the way of their ongoing salvage operation. However, the captain does not appear to be entirely in charge. Ada is immediately struck by the mysterious Rian White, who seems to have some authority over their mission and is more thoughtful and calculating than the rest of the crew. He's also handsome, which doesn't hurt.

I was tempted to keep writing about the plot, but given the short length of this book, I should stop there and let you enjoy the twists and turns for yourself. This is a fun science fiction action romp: lots of banter, lots of tense moments, and a cagey first-person protagonist with an irrepressible sense of humor and a knack for brazening her way through conversations. It's not long on world-building (there isn't enough room), but Revis works in enough details to be intriguing and to set up some interesting motivations.

This is the sort of book that lives and dies by how much you like the protagonist, something that you will easily figure out by the end of an ebook sample if you're the sort of reader who uses those. Ada is irreverent, talkative, and very adroit at diverting attention (entertainingly) onto anything other than the critical piece of information other people are missing. If you want to, I suspect you could easily figure out most of what Ada is up to before the book reveals it explicitly. It's not that complicated, and the book isn't really trying to hide, although it doesn't give you all the necessary information in advance. Personally, I was happy to sit back and enjoy the ride.

There is no romance in this book beyond frequent comments from Ada that she would have liked there to be a romance in this book under different circumstances, but I will be surprised if that romance doesn't show up later in the series. Ada and Rian are clearly being set up as a pair. I didn't like Rian as much, mostly because he's less memorable as a character, but he comes into his own in the appendices after the plot proper.

I thought those concluding appendices were the best part of the novella and question the Kindle formatting decision to treat them like supplemental material. They purport to be a series of government memos, fill in a lot more of the backstory and world building, and have the best footnotes. Don't skip them!

This isn't the sort of book that I am inspired to immediately push into everyone's hands, but it's a fast, well-paced story that delivered a few reading sessions of entertainment. I'm not sure the political philosophy in the background makes a lot of sense, but at least not a standard stereotype of current politics seen in so much science fiction. It's going to set up some interesting character conflict in later books. I'm certainly intrigued enough to keep reading.

Recommended when you're in the mood for some fast-paced fun that's short and undemanding.

Followed by How to Steal a Galaxy.

Rating: 7 out of 10