Book review: Sirantha Jax series
The Sirantha Jax series by Ann Aguirre: Grimspace, Wanderlust, and Doubleblind
A jumper down to her very DNA, Sirantha Jax is used to leaping into the chaos of grimspace first and asking questions later. She’s one of the elite few who carry the gene that enables them to parse through space and time, bringing her pilot and her crew to safety and to a destination lightyears away. Trouble is, the job has been killing her piece by piece (jumpers rarely last for more than ten years), and if she keeps on going, one day she’ll jack into her ship’s controls and never come back.
Which means she should be happy she at least has a new job, as Ambassador to the insect-like, highly intelligent Ithtorians. With legal and illegal bodies of power back home warring for control, as well as a ruthless alien race known as the Morgut poised to take over, everyone’s counting on Jax to cement an alliance with the Ithtorians-the only ones whom the Morgut fear. On top of everything, her precarious mission isn’t the only thing overwhelming her: her pilot and lover, who’s also a mind-reading Psi, has reverted back to his cold-blooded, “assassin” persona, who distantly remembers loving her-but doesn’t feel it. Can Jax save the day and bring back the man she loves? Or will it have to be one or the other?
[Mild spoilers below]
It’s only while summarizing these books do I realize: holy moly, there’s a lot going on! And my summary has really only focused on the latest book, Doubleblind. But the breakneck plot is what I love so much about this series: where you think the story will go when you start is vastly different from where you actually end up: characters change, the stakes grow higher, and people are forced to make choices they never thought they’d have to. I strongly recommend, though, that the books should be read as close to each other as possible. In Wanderlust, I felt the plot was almost too haphazard and trigger-happy; I didn’t feel that Jax, March, and the rest of her crew were building toward that indefinable climax in a story-but rather, were just being pushed around. However, having read Doubleblind, I think the chaotic, violent events in Wanderlust help explain what Jax is trying so hard to avoid should her diplomatic mission fail.
In addition to being quite marvelous at plotting, Aguirre is also adept at characterization. The Jax in book one is a complete 180 from the Jax who emerges in book three, and we’re not even done with the series. I’m re-reading Grimspace now, and it’s amazing that this whiny, self-absorbed, albeit grieving woman (Grimspace opens with the catastrophic explosion that kills Jax’s first pilot) has turned into someone responsible, thoughtful, but still kick-ass. Aguirre isn’t afraid to reconfigure her characters, for better or for worse, halfway through the story, and that especially can be said for the pivotal relationship in the story, March and Jax. Those two can’t work without each other, but they have to work harder to be together, and it's thrilling to watch their story unfold. The scene when Jax figures out how to fix March? Hands-down brilliant, and goosebump-inducing too.
A word about Aguirre’s secondary-building. (Yes, I think I just made that word up.) Usually in stories with such a magnetic duo, the author can be forgiven (somewhat) for not fully fleshing out other characters or the setting. Aguirre doesn’t relax one bit. Vel, the outcast Ithtorian who chose to travel off-world and become a bounty hunter, takes almost as much of a center stage as Jax in Doubleblind, which again you’d never expect when you first meet him (I think) in Grimspace. Aguirre peels back his story layer by layer until you fully see why he and Jax are fully in simpatico, in an “I got your back” kind of way. And friendships like that, as Jax slowly realizes, are priceless.
I can go on forever, but I’m going to stop because I’d like to get back to my re-reading. All I can say, if this is where space opera/romantic scifi publishing is going, sign me up!