Hoyt, Sarah A.: Darkship Thieves
Darkship Thieves (2010)
Written by: Sarah A. Hoyt
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 479 (Mass Market Paperback)
Why I Read It: I never wanted to read this book. In fact, I cringed when voters selected it for Dreams & Speculations' book club. But despite my hate of the cover art and lack of interest in the premise, I was going to be a good devil and participate regardless, so read it I did!
The premise: ganked from BN.com: Athena Hera Sinistra never wanted to go to space. Never wanted see the eerie glow of the Powerpods. Never wanted to visit Circum Terra. Never had any interest in finding out the truth about the DarkShips. You always get what you don’t ask for. Which must have been why she woke up in the dark of shipnight, within the greater night of space in her father’s space cruiser, knowing that there was a stranger in her room. In a short time, after taking out the stranger-who turned out to be one of her father’s bodyguards up to no good, she was hurtling away from the ship in a lifeboat to get help. But what she got instead would be the adventure of a lifetime -- if she managed to survive. . . .
Spoilers, yay or nay?: yes, because I highlight some major events (not the ending) that readers won't want to be spoiled on. Skip to "My Rating" if you want to remain spoiler-free. Also, I go on a pity-party about my own foray into science fiction and how if my own thesis novel were currently published, people would think one of us copied the other. See, it's fun being an unpublished author!
Thumbs Up: The book starts off in high gear and the pace really never lets up. Sure, there are quieter moments in the text, but by time you get there, you're so sucked into the book that even those scenes fly off the page as if it's non-stop action! That was a wonderful surprise for me, because to be honest, I was rather dreading this book.
Complicating my dread was the name of our heroine. Athena Hera Sinistra. It's not a long name, by any means, but it has just enough syllables to it to seem long, and coupled with the fact that we know our heroine is some kind of royalty on Earth, I rolled my eyes. I can never swallow big, pompous names for rich, high-up characters in SF. It always strikes me as the author's trying too hard to make it a fantasy, you know?
But we're not reminded of Thena's full name all the time, and when it does come up, it becomes kind of a joke. I rather like that Kit takes the Han Solo route of calling his soon-to-be lady love "Princess," even though she hates it. The humor in this book was just the right touch too. Thena's voice was, more often than not, one I could get behind and support. I appreciated her frustrations and her sarcasm, as well as her fear of being truly vulnerable with another person.The dynamic between Kit and Thena was great too. They didn't fall instantly in love with each other, but the relationship grew when they weren't looking. I also felt like Hoyt used just the right touch when it came time for Kit to grow a pair and really let Thena know how he feels (see page 308-309). This is how you have a forceful hero without annoying the snot out of the reader who's already tired of Alpha heroes. Kit isn't a big, bad Alpha of any sort, but he knows when he needs to be aggressive.
And what's better about this book is while the SFR has a rather large component (take out the romance and you'd lose most of the story), is that there's so much more to what's happening. You get to see the future evolution of humanity and what happens when there's a split in ethics involving those bioengineered, and then there's further ethics as to who should be in charge of a populace and why. While there could be more, and what we have isn't fleshed out as nearly as well as I'd like (but if Hoyt had done that, we'd have a tome of George R.R. Martin portions), we do get fascinating bits and pieces, like this, which seems to speak to even what's happening in today's world: Somehow they'd got themselves twisted around till they confused culture with race and religion with both. (page 257). That's food for thought even in today's age, methinks, and I appreciated seeing it here.
Also, at Eden, people are married by computers! Not that computers choose everyone's mates or anything, but when you decide to get married, you can do so by computer, which tickled me to no end.
Thumbs Down: I have very little to complain about here, legitimately speaking. I kept forgetting the motivation behind Thena's quest for constant rebellion, and short of not liking her dad and resenting the fact her mom died when she was little (?), I'm not sure why she was such a rebel to begin with. Then again, I was going through this text pretty quickly, and could've missed the illuminating moment. Or maybe said moment is what I mentioned previously, in which case, I wish Thena's motivation was a little less cliché and a little more personal.
I wasn't fond, either, of Thena's habit of running away when she didn't want to hear something that was UBER-IMPORTANT to the plot.
Also something of a nitpick and a personal annoyance, Hoyt uses the ever-common flying-is-in-your-genes-literally method for her pilots and navigators. But since that's not the whole POINT of the story, I'll forgive it. I am sorry to see it keep popping up though.
Probably the more disappointing element of the novel, something that's TOTALLY PERSONAL, is how many things Hoyt does with her world-building and even little details that I've also done in my thesis, which is an SF novel. I've mentioned before that I know that my work isn't OMG-ORIGINAL-PRECIOUS in terms of say, mind-melding, but there's a lot of things Hoyt does here that, while I enjoyed as a reader, made my heart sink because it makes me feel like my completed SF novel (which I finished in 2008), probably won't be able to see the light of day as it stands without comparisons and accusations of my ripping off this author. Most of it's little things, mind you, but when you add little things up, it's what makes other readers go "Hmm…" We've got cat people (her cat people and my cat people are, admittedly, very different, but still, theres a calico connection), we've got a woman who's meant to be the mother of a new generation, even the smallest detail of Thena's handprint opening up her father's most protected files. All of this I've done or alluded to in my own work, which tells me a few things about the nature of debuts in genre fiction: when we start out, depending on our interests, we tend to gravitate towards the same things. I suspect if I ever met Sarah A. Hoyt, we'd get along fabulously.
At any rate, it's startling when you're an unpublished writer reading something that's close enough to your own unpublished work that you curse the collective subconscious for being TOO accessible. But there's nothing you can do, and considering when this book was published, it's my own damn fault for not trying to get my work out there sooner. That said, I'm glad I didn't: I don't feel mine's ready for a host of reasons, and reading something like this makes me want to make it better. That doesn't mean I'll change those similarities, but I may be able to arrange it so it's not as BIG A DEAL in my work. Who knows. It's cool, and it's disheartening at the same time.
My Rating
Like, Not Love: But if I had a rating between "Like, Not Love" and "Must Read," this is where that book would fall (seriously, you all, I NEED A RATING HERE . . . hmm… what about Thoroughly Entertained?). I was surprised at how much I ended up enjoying this story. I figured I'd read it bits at a time between sessions of The Wise Man's Fear, but I had a hard time putting it down. It's a helluva lot of fun and if you're a fan of science fiction romance, it IS a must read. If you aren't, it's still a fun book full of outcast, genetically altered humans and a kick-ass heroine who would sound right at home in an urban fantasy. In some ways, Darkship Thieves is reminiscent of Ann Aguirre's Grimspace in that you get the urban fantasy voice with a space opera setting, but trust me, these tales are so very, very different! Also, you learn the future of biker gangs, and I'll give you a hint: it's what happens when you mix motorcycle gangs with Harry Potter's flying brooms. Seriously, there's a lot of good, fun stuff in this novel, and I'm delighted how fun it was to read.
Cover Commentary: I hate it. There's nothing wrong with the technique or anything, but it's really not my taste. It harkens back to old, out-dated covers that made me run away from the SF/F section when I was a kid, and I know that Baen Books thrives on these types of covers, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. Also, is that supposed to be her ripped nightgown or something? Because even if I imagine it not cut down the middle, I can't see it as a nightgown. Also, she's outside the freaking spaceship without a suit on, and that definitely doesn't happen in the book. I suspect this ripped nightgown cover is trying to cater to the male members of the reading audience.
Also, random comparison time: I was afraid of reading Sara Creasy's Song of Scarabaeus because the cover made it look predominantly romance, but when I read the book, I learned it was predominantly SF with a smidgen of romance. Darkship Thieves does the exact opposite: neither the cover nor the back cover blurb do anything to indicate a romantic storyline, but yet, when I read it, I realized pretty quickly this book was science fiction romance. So it just goes to show you: you can't judge a book by its cover.
Next up: Late Eclipses by Seanan McGuire