FIRST ELITE

After losing his wife, a man embarks on a mission to gain his revenge—but the galaxy has other plans in Arriaga’s SF novel, one in a series.

Chief engineer of the spaceship Foundra Ascension,Neven Kenk, just watched his wife murdered by the villainous Entradis. If that wasn’t hard enough, despite all the scientific advancement the crew of the ship has access too, and all the repair work they did on her body, Neven must effectively watch her die all over again when they have to pull the plug due to her Do Not Resuscitate order. When Entradis’ ship is located, Neven, his AI bot Ellipse, and crewmate Tashanira are in one of the several sent to scout the location and see what the psychotic killer’s craft is capable of. But in his grief-ridden, enraged state, Neven cannot keep himself from firing at Entradis, and returned fire sends them crashing onto a planet. Stranded (“The cockpit and half of the storage bay is all that remains. Everything else is gone: no engines, no suplight drive, no communications array…”), Neven has to change his plans from revenge to survival. The third installment in Arriaga’s SF series, this novel is a direct continuation of the previous entries, with events picking up right where the previous book left off. The author does a fair job walking the fine line between not overloading continuing readers with excessive repeated information and providing enough context to help newcomers find their footing. Readers new and old will feel intense sympathy for the protagonist as he mourns the loss of his wife at the outset of the story—Arriaga effectively portrays how quickly Neven can switch from heartbreak to intense fury as he grieves and demands revenge. The uninitiated may not expect just how much sex and nudity occurs in the narrative; those seeking a more chaste, straight-up SF yarn may want to look elsewhere.

A stirring story of survival and revenge with a little more steam than SF readers might expect.