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Shooting the Rift (1)
ORIGINAL TRADE PAPERBACK. Space opera with a bang, as a young castout is caught up in an interstellar war.
DISOWNED IN A HARSH GALAXY
Cast out by his family and exiled from the Rimward Commonwealth, Simon Forrester must make a new life for himself as an apprentice to the powerful Commerce Guild. But others aboard the merchant vessel Stacked Deck have a hidden agenda that might lead directly to interstellar war. Now with rising tensions between the Commonwealth and the neighboring League of Democracies threatening to erupt into open war, Simon finds himself forced to choose between old and new loyalties, with the fate of an empire at stake!
DISOWNED IN A HARSH GALAXY
Cast out by his family and exiled from the Rimward Commonwealth, Simon Forrester must make a new life for himself as an apprentice to the powerful Commerce Guild. But others aboard the merchant vessel Stacked Deck have a hidden agenda that might lead directly to interstellar war. Now with rising tensions between the Commonwealth and the neighboring League of Democracies threatening to erupt into open war, Simon finds himself forced to choose between old and new loyalties, with the fate of an empire at stake!
336 pages, Paperback
First published April 5, 2016
4 people are currently reading
145 people want to read
About the author
Alex Stewart
87 books14 followersAlex Stewart also writes as Sandy Mitchell.
Alex Stewart writes tie-in novels for the Warhammer 40,000 game under the name Sandy Mitchell, including Death or Glory and Hero of the Imperium.
Alex Stewart writes tie-in novels for the Warhammer 40,000 game under the name Sandy Mitchell, including Death or Glory and Hero of the Imperium.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 27, 2016
More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/
Sometimes the story blurb can be very misleading and other times it is spot on. With Shooting the Rift, what is stated at the back of the book is exactly what we get: a breezy sci fi with minor cyberpunk trappings. This isn't deep sci fi - and David Drake's influence is obvious here. But the story flows smoothly if perhaps a bit too easily for our expert hacker hero. Shooting the Rift makes for a great Summer read, following an endearing main character.Story: Simon's Commonwealth is one dominated by women - where the women hold the high positions and men aim for careers of 'estate management' (due to their inability to control their aggression, natch). His mother may be an admiral and his sister a feisty marine, but Simon wants more from his life than simply marrying to advantage. An attempt to enter the military academy turns out disastrous and his is not only expelled but promptly disowned. Thankfully, he has an Aunt willing to help him out and use her influences to get him assigned as an apprentice on a merchant guild ship. The only problem? She wants him to use his hacking skills for Commonwealth espionage at the same time.....
The matriarchal society was an amusing twist but fortunately author Stewart didn't play it for laughs and kept it credible. Our protagonist is a mixture of social cunning (due to growing up in high society and playing the perfect son), high end hacker, and ball of guilessness (clueless when female shipmates are hitting on him/blurting out unguarded observations that get him in trouble). I'm not quite sure the combination worked other than to provide situations for drama or to further plot points. But Simon is fun to follow as he navigates new worlds.
The story is fairly straight-forward with a few small twists at the end. The arc completes in a satisfactory manner, setting up the premise for more books in the future. Stewart does a great job creating a wide cast of characters - from mercenary guilders to desperate freebooters. And although the first half of the book doesn't have a lot of action, the instantly likable character of Simon more than balances that lack. This is the first in a new series so there is a lot of necessary worldbuilding and set up that is neatly laid here - the story never bogs down. Certainly, we left at a very intriguing place and it will be interesting to watch these characters interact and grow. At times, I was greatly reminded of the TV series Farscape.
In all, an enjoyable and uncomplicated read full of quirky characters and a protagonist readers will want to cheer on as he hacks his way through dangerous situations. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.
February 3, 2016
Not bad, I look forward to the next one.
March 3, 2021
I couldn't decide between two or three stars. There are moments where it reaches those three stars, but there is so much about the book that was unfortunately uninteresting.
There is a disconnect between the use of American and British English that can be jarring. The worst part is the lack of proper world-building to better utilise the difference. Avalon is clearly meant to be British, with the rest being American - however, despite being constantly told that Simon has this Avalonian (British) way of speaking, absolutely everyone uses British dialect words, and even slang terms. Restricting this would have made for a better setting.
Likewise, the gender-swap doesn't go far enough. If we were to swap them back, the main character would be the 'Black Widow' type of character. A woman who is highly intelligent, skilled, athletic and a knock-out fighter. That works on the real world meta level, but if you swap Black Widow for a man, much of the fighting aspect of the character is rendered moot - fighting is a traditional masculine routine in our real world anyway. Defeating the point of gender-swapping in the first place. Having the main male character relying on the women around him to do the fighting would have spoken much louder. As it stands, as soon as he is out of his homeland and in the lands of equal opportunities, the gender-swap is barely ever an issue with only mild references to it here and there, mostly in the context of the main character's memories. This fighting ability also comes out of nowhere as he is suddenly thrown into an alley to fight some guys and turns out to be a ninja assassin.
Despite his absurd fighting skills, Simon maintains that he is a simple boy who is out of his depth throughout the book. I will wave some charity here and class the book as young adult, rather than mature sci-fi, allowing for this kind of silliness. He is capable of hacking just about anything, including military hardware, despite zero training in either espionage or, seemingly, hacking. He just happened to invent this infallible 'sneakware'. When hired by his aunt to be a spy, one has to wonder why? Why did she not have him design this sneakware to give to all the qualified agents!? And this is the nonsensical part that you really have to struggle to overlook and take it as meant for a younger audience, who will relish is the idea that they too could be secret space agents.
The part in the book I liked most was definitely the hacking. Which is fortunate, because that's the backbone of the book. I find it interesting and well written in keeping it clear what's going on, despite it being an intangible and completely fictional system. Opening with everyone having this neural interface to hack, and later building up to the enemy military complex where they don't have any such interfaces to make his task harder was a nice build up. His escape from prison was especially exciting.
Unfortunately, we are then left with many uninspired characters with just a few that stand out. The most interesting characters wound up being Simon's two love-interests, Jas and Clio. Clio as a character and Jas due to their positions on opposite sides. Post-prison break, however, the ending of the novel felt rushed and so the last of Jas seemed thrown in, and Simon's new friends, the Freebooters, are 2D caricatures - one of which is a barely clothed font for sex-jokes, which does undo some of the good-will the original gender-swap might have had. Though, admittedly, the photosynthesising skin was a nice touch and an excuse for the character to parade about in her underwear.
In the end, it started to feel like 40% of the novel was just fluff to fill time and greater care could have been spent on making the world. Your mileage on the main character himself may vary, but I feel he could have been so much better and more interesting than he turned out. There is ability here, both in technical writing skill and ideas, but maybe more time in the oven would have produced a better story.
There is a disconnect between the use of American and British English that can be jarring. The worst part is the lack of proper world-building to better utilise the difference. Avalon is clearly meant to be British, with the rest being American - however, despite being constantly told that Simon has this Avalonian (British) way of speaking, absolutely everyone uses British dialect words, and even slang terms. Restricting this would have made for a better setting.
Likewise, the gender-swap doesn't go far enough. If we were to swap them back, the main character would be the 'Black Widow' type of character. A woman who is highly intelligent, skilled, athletic and a knock-out fighter. That works on the real world meta level, but if you swap Black Widow for a man, much of the fighting aspect of the character is rendered moot - fighting is a traditional masculine routine in our real world anyway. Defeating the point of gender-swapping in the first place. Having the main male character relying on the women around him to do the fighting would have spoken much louder. As it stands, as soon as he is out of his homeland and in the lands of equal opportunities, the gender-swap is barely ever an issue with only mild references to it here and there, mostly in the context of the main character's memories. This fighting ability also comes out of nowhere as he is suddenly thrown into an alley to fight some guys and turns out to be a ninja assassin.
Despite his absurd fighting skills, Simon maintains that he is a simple boy who is out of his depth throughout the book. I will wave some charity here and class the book as young adult, rather than mature sci-fi, allowing for this kind of silliness. He is capable of hacking just about anything, including military hardware, despite zero training in either espionage or, seemingly, hacking. He just happened to invent this infallible 'sneakware'. When hired by his aunt to be a spy, one has to wonder why? Why did she not have him design this sneakware to give to all the qualified agents!? And this is the nonsensical part that you really have to struggle to overlook and take it as meant for a younger audience, who will relish is the idea that they too could be secret space agents.
The part in the book I liked most was definitely the hacking. Which is fortunate, because that's the backbone of the book. I find it interesting and well written in keeping it clear what's going on, despite it being an intangible and completely fictional system. Opening with everyone having this neural interface to hack, and later building up to the enemy military complex where they don't have any such interfaces to make his task harder was a nice build up. His escape from prison was especially exciting.
Unfortunately, we are then left with many uninspired characters with just a few that stand out. The most interesting characters wound up being Simon's two love-interests, Jas and Clio. Clio as a character and Jas due to their positions on opposite sides. Post-prison break, however, the ending of the novel felt rushed and so the last of Jas seemed thrown in, and Simon's new friends, the Freebooters, are 2D caricatures - one of which is a barely clothed font for sex-jokes, which does undo some of the good-will the original gender-swap might have had. Though, admittedly, the photosynthesising skin was a nice touch and an excuse for the character to parade about in her underwear.
In the end, it started to feel like 40% of the novel was just fluff to fill time and greater care could have been spent on making the world. Your mileage on the main character himself may vary, but I feel he could have been so much better and more interesting than he turned out. There is ability here, both in technical writing skill and ideas, but maybe more time in the oven would have produced a better story.
October 25, 2017
Social/cultural shift in gender roles in the book, which could have been more interesting to explore had it been carried out to its extreme. Alas, the book is about Simon, a hacking punk-type who tries to get into the (female) Naval Academy, only to hack his way through the final exam, get caught, and expelled. Whereupon he is recruited as a spy.
The book starts out rather slowly, but picks up and isn't that bad, but it's part space opera, part cyberpunk, and that makes for a strange marriage at times. It's light reading, no hard science here. I've read that this is the first in what is supposed to be a series, and I'm intrigued enough that I'd read the sequel, but if the sequel isn't an improvement, even slight, I'd probably stop there. I have too many other quality sci fi books on my table to read and review to merit time in a slightly above average series. Cautiously recommended.
The book starts out rather slowly, but picks up and isn't that bad, but it's part space opera, part cyberpunk, and that makes for a strange marriage at times. It's light reading, no hard science here. I've read that this is the first in what is supposed to be a series, and I'm intrigued enough that I'd read the sequel, but if the sequel isn't an improvement, even slight, I'd probably stop there. I have too many other quality sci fi books on my table to read and review to merit time in a slightly above average series. Cautiously recommended.
April 25, 2016
A military brat with a penchant for (literally) hacking his way through life is disowned by his family and ends up being recruited as a spy.
Shooting the Rift is a breezy outer space adventure with a colorful cast of characters, an expertly written and mostly likeable novel that never really gets to the next level. Might be a good rec as gateway SF for teen readers, but just off the top of my head I could name a dozen or so better books that you could say the same thing about.
Shooting the Rift is a breezy outer space adventure with a colorful cast of characters, an expertly written and mostly likeable novel that never really gets to the next level. Might be a good rec as gateway SF for teen readers, but just off the top of my head I could name a dozen or so better books that you could say the same thing about.
October 29, 2019
It is a fun and quick read with some charming British humour, roguish characters and space political intrigue.
The main character, Simon, is born in Avalon, a matriarchal society where women are the head of the clans, captains of ships and have a pretty clear sexual power of sorts. Imagine if the society you know now in real life took a cultural flip.
Ironically men are still the ones competing and getting themselves the best status possible to be the most suitable, except they’re clear pieces on the board.
Simon is at odds with some of this. He’s well off and wants to make the family proud, but being born in comfort didn’t get him the proper Military Academy skills. Rather he preferred the hacking world to game theory.
Avalon people use some form of technology on their heads allowing them to send messages by thought and hack devices, and Simon has a knack to get into other peoples “heads” without leaving much of a trace. Circumstances lead him to use this to his advantage and pretty much sets up enough trouble to move the story.
Humanity has various military and economic sides with much individual and cultural diversity in the technological sense.
Some sides don’t trust Avalon hardware; Transgeners are voluntary genetically modified people, like growing tails, fur or photosynthetic skin (the latter leaving very little to the imagination having to go around almost naked). All this also makes part of the action and obstacles the characters face.
Most of the story takes part out of this matriarchal system, which I found somewhat disappointing. But the short time there was very plausible.
Overall its pretty much an espionage tale with agents that are not very aware they’re agents, just trying to get by. Specially Simon whose guilelessness is both charming and frustrating because it can be so relatable. At the end of the day, he seemed like a high status nerd working lower status jobs because he’s virtually clueless about the world yet incredibly adaptable. He’s the type of guy clueless about girls and people might think he’s gay because of it, yet if the gates of Mordor opened he’d be on the front lines (somewhere).
There are no big themes to think about If I’m being honest. There’s always something fun happening and its satisfying the ingenious way Simon faces the challenges.
The matters get resolved and it all ends like a Summer read. There could be more adventures coming, but for this one, there’s closure.
Got this book from Humble Bundle
The main character, Simon, is born in Avalon, a matriarchal society where women are the head of the clans, captains of ships and have a pretty clear sexual power of sorts. Imagine if the society you know now in real life took a cultural flip.
Ironically men are still the ones competing and getting themselves the best status possible to be the most suitable, except they’re clear pieces on the board.
Simon is at odds with some of this. He’s well off and wants to make the family proud, but being born in comfort didn’t get him the proper Military Academy skills. Rather he preferred the hacking world to game theory.
Avalon people use some form of technology on their heads allowing them to send messages by thought and hack devices, and Simon has a knack to get into other peoples “heads” without leaving much of a trace. Circumstances lead him to use this to his advantage and pretty much sets up enough trouble to move the story.
Humanity has various military and economic sides with much individual and cultural diversity in the technological sense.
Some sides don’t trust Avalon hardware; Transgeners are voluntary genetically modified people, like growing tails, fur or photosynthetic skin (the latter leaving very little to the imagination having to go around almost naked). All this also makes part of the action and obstacles the characters face.
Most of the story takes part out of this matriarchal system, which I found somewhat disappointing. But the short time there was very plausible.
Overall its pretty much an espionage tale with agents that are not very aware they’re agents, just trying to get by. Specially Simon whose guilelessness is both charming and frustrating because it can be so relatable. At the end of the day, he seemed like a high status nerd working lower status jobs because he’s virtually clueless about the world yet incredibly adaptable. He’s the type of guy clueless about girls and people might think he’s gay because of it, yet if the gates of Mordor opened he’d be on the front lines (somewhere).
There are no big themes to think about If I’m being honest. There’s always something fun happening and its satisfying the ingenious way Simon faces the challenges.
The matters get resolved and it all ends like a Summer read. There could be more adventures coming, but for this one, there’s closure.
Got this book from Humble Bundle
March 28, 2023
Absolutely fine little sci-fi/ space opera novel. Its main claim to fame is the male/female role reversal in the initial society - which I'd imagine some would find pretty unattractive, but really just highlights some of the injustices which still go on in our society today. It doesn't really work as men as still much bigger and stronger, so are only in social not physical danger, but good try I guess.
The rest of it's fine but not terrific, the Guild and the contracts don't really work, but good try.
The rest of it's fine but not terrific, the Guild and the contracts don't really work, but good try.
March 8, 2020
Rather enjoyable space adventure with a fast thinking hero and an interesting universe with matriarchal societies and diverse cultures (with their culture clashes). Some of the details got a bit draggy in the middle: the bureaucracy of trade and contracts were a little too much of the plot for me, but I loved the action and any part of the book describing Simon's "hobby" of cracking technical systems and what he does with it.
July 24, 2017
Interesting twist of a gender role exchange. Story line was good, but not great. I got it to read in the evenings to relax before bed and wanted light reading. I enjoyed the book and it more than satisfied what I was looking for.
August 20, 2017
Light reading for a beach. Nothing to get too wrapped up in, but entertaining enough. The gender stuff is a bit timeworn these days-- I've seen other authors do the same switch with more elegance-- but points for the attempt. It didn't make it any less fun to read.
September 28, 2019
The one thing I did not like about this book is the ending leaves way too much in for a sequel that hasn't been written yet.
November 23, 2023
A disclaimer, just in case you don't know, but Alex Stewart is a long-time friend of mine and therefore I'm probably biased in my review. So I'll get that out of the way right now: go buy this book.
OK, plug finished.
I really liked Shooting the Rift. The story felt very comfortable to me. It had the feel of putting on a pair of slippers and dressing gown and curling up in comfort. At times the book read like yesterday's future of tomorrow, but Alex managed to remind me that the future will be unevenly distributed and the mix of tech levels as his protagonist travels from one world to another. Shooting the Rift features a fascinating melange of cyberpunk in a trans-human future where mankind has spread out across the stars; so while this is not full-fat, high caffeine, raw meat science fiction, it is in the tradition of grand sweeping space opera.
I'm so glad that I really enjoyed reading this, because so often when I read friends books they're OK but, they don't grab me and make me want to read the sequels. The denouement of Shooting the Rift leaves everything with the promise for more.
Quite frankly I want more and it can't come soon enough.
OK, plug finished.
I really liked Shooting the Rift. The story felt very comfortable to me. It had the feel of putting on a pair of slippers and dressing gown and curling up in comfort. At times the book read like yesterday's future of tomorrow, but Alex managed to remind me that the future will be unevenly distributed and the mix of tech levels as his protagonist travels from one world to another. Shooting the Rift features a fascinating melange of cyberpunk in a trans-human future where mankind has spread out across the stars; so while this is not full-fat, high caffeine, raw meat science fiction, it is in the tradition of grand sweeping space opera.
I'm so glad that I really enjoyed reading this, because so often when I read friends books they're OK but, they don't grab me and make me want to read the sequels. The denouement of Shooting the Rift leaves everything with the promise for more.
Quite frankly I want more and it can't come soon enough.
March 3, 2017
Good old fashioned space opera that starts slow, but hits it stride after about 40 pages, gets increasingly entertaining, and comes to a rousing finish. Fully self-contained, but room for sequels. Our narrator, Simon Forrester, is something of a screw-up, but a genius at hacking future computer systems. Plus, he has, at various points in the book, up to three girls (OK, one mature woman, who's also green) competing for his attention. Neither the backstory nor the actual events would stand up to close attention, but it's a fun, light read. Recommended for rainy-day reading.
Here's the review that led me to read it, by the reliable Paul di Filippo:
http://www.locusmag.com/Reviews/2016/...
I liked it a bit less than he did: I found the swap of patriarchs for matriarchs very heavy-handed, to the point that I thought I might put the book aside. Fortunately, this stuff is over with early on. When his Aunt Jenny enters the tale, you'll know you're in good hands.
Here's the review that led me to read it, by the reliable Paul di Filippo:
http://www.locusmag.com/Reviews/2016/...
I liked it a bit less than he did: I found the swap of patriarchs for matriarchs very heavy-handed, to the point that I thought I might put the book aside. Fortunately, this stuff is over with early on. When his Aunt Jenny enters the tale, you'll know you're in good hands.
April 15, 2016
Simon is the son of a naval officer on a world with Victorian gender roles, except the gender roles are reversed with males being the inferior gender. He is a screwup and has just been kicked out of University, much to the disappointment of his family. He ends up on a merchant spaceship with the Commerce Guild, where his skills as a hacker get him into and out of trouble at regular intervals.
It is a measure of the dullness of this book that the day after I put it down, I couldn't remember the name of the main character. The gender reversal would have been more interesting if there had been anything to it but the reversal. The dialogue is flat and even the supposedly "controversial" gene modified characters are uninspiring. I kept waiting for the story to go anywhere but nothing seemed to be happening. Despite a concerted effort after half the book I never picked it back up.
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1946
It is a measure of the dullness of this book that the day after I put it down, I couldn't remember the name of the main character. The gender reversal would have been more interesting if there had been anything to it but the reversal. The dialogue is flat and even the supposedly "controversial" gene modified characters are uninspiring. I kept waiting for the story to go anywhere but nothing seemed to be happening. Despite a concerted effort after half the book I never picked it back up.
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1946
May 9, 2016
Simon Forester comes from a Naval family in the Commonwealth where Women dominate. Because his mother and sister have solid naval careers, and he’d be bored with the normal male pursuit as estate manager, he takes the tests to join the Academy, but panics enough to hack the computers for the answers. This gets him kicked out, but his aunt, noting his hacking talents with his built-in neuroware, suggests he joint the merchant guild as a ordinary space-man on a freighter, Shooting the Rift( trade from Baen) That would have been ok, except that the League of Democracies suspect a spy and through a bunch of merchant crews into custody. Alex Stewart would have had a more exciting tale, exciting tale, except the time in prison last too long. Still I’m willing to try the sequel because the action scenes were worth the wait.Review printed by Philadelphia Weekly Press
May 30, 2016
Very good read
Easy book to read and enjoyable
One person view
Would recommend this book to anyone
Light and easy but could not put down
Easy book to read and enjoyable
One person view
Would recommend this book to anyone
Light and easy but could not put down
June 12, 2016
Fun story
Space opera at its best. Young man finding adventure and profit in space as he joins a trade ship traveling between enemy empires.
Space opera at its best. Young man finding adventure and profit in space as he joins a trade ship traveling between enemy empires.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews