Have I talked about how much I love heist stories? Because I do. Both in books (think Six of Crows) and movies (Ocean’s Eleven, The Italian Job, etc). Earlier this year I read Patrick S. Tomlinson’s novel Gate Crashers and loved it, so when I saw he had a new novel coming out that was more heists in space, how could I resist?
Starship Repo actually takes places in the same universe as Gate Crashers, but rest assured you don’t need to read that one first at all. There are some small callbacks for those who did, but you could read them completely separately. It follows a human teenager named, hilariously, Firstname Lastname (she goes by First). Ridiculous, right? But also amazing. There was a clerical error somewhere along the line, and since she’s a runaway she just stuck with it. At first she makes her living as a small time pickpocket, aircar thief, and con lady. She eventually gets kinda forcibly recruited into a crew of “repo men”, who repossess ships from rich beings who haven’t kept up their payments, and return them to the banks/owners for a fee. Basically, legal space pirates. What’s not to like??
If that didn’t convince you to read it, here is the cast of characters (aside from First) in the author’s own words: “There’s a transgender crab alien, a brain in a jar, a communal organism, and a hentai tentacle monster living in the sewers with strong opinions about music piracy.” Seriously though, the characters make the book. Each one is so unique, and has an amazing personality. I’m majorly impressed with Tomlinson’s creativity, since all of the characters is a different species of being, and all the different species are so COOL. I’m also a sucker for found family stories, and this is definitely one. First is like their semi-rebellious child that they adopt along the way and I loved seeing the bonds develop between her and the rest of the characters.
There’s plenty of action and lots of heists in the novel, which keeps it going at a great pace. The only thing that brings it down to 4.5 from 5 stars is that I wanted a tad more of a larger plot. There is a background overarching plot through the whole novel, but it was pretty light. The plot focuses on a handful of different heists, which was awesome! I just wanted a bit more cohesiveness. But on the plus side one of the heists involves a high speed space race, so that’s pretty awesome.
The writing is also really fun to read, and the science part of the science fiction is never overwhelming. I noted this in Gate Crashers and I’m pleased to see it here as well – Tomlinson has clearly done his homework with space/physics/science/etc. The reference to Lagrange points killed me!! My astrodynamics loving heart.
There is also so much humor! Not the laugh out loud kind, but the kind that keeps you smiling and brings out the occasional snort. More so than Gate Crashers in my opinion, or maybe it just flows better in this one. There are also funny little pop culture references that are amazing and well done. For example:
“Yippee ki-yay, motherfu—”
Patrick S. Tomlinson, Starship Repo (quote taken from eARC, subject to change)
“Language, young lady,” Hashin said from his own seat as he applied some sort of medicated patch to his upper arm.
“But how did you even know . . .”
“We’ve all seen Die Hard. We have Christmas out here, too, you know. It’s mostly a retail-driven holiday, but then, what holiday isn’t?”
Anyway, I truly enjoyed this and highly recommend it to everyone!! Especially if you’re a scifi fan, or a found families fan, or a heist fan.
Thank you SO MUCH to Tor Books for providing me with an eARC via NetGalley for review!
