Review: Full Speed to a Crash Landing

I sort of stumbled upon this book. I was on the hunt, as I have been for the last year or more, for a great space opera adjacent story. It scratches a particular itch for me. When I found this one, it was mixed in with a slew of other books that were recommended to me because I’d read similar books. Because of how it was recommended to me, it feels silly to say something like “this was unexpected” - I truly had no expectations because I simply hadn’t heard of the book before.

Yet, that is the best way to explain Full Speed to a Crash Landing. It’s unexpected. From the unreliable narrator in Ada, to the twists and turns in the plot points. It’s just unexpected. Maybe it’s because it’s been so long since I read a novel with a blatantly unreliable narrator? So many of the books I read have these main characters who are so earnest. People who are finding their way and trying to find themselves at the same time. Ada, in contrast to that is so self possessed. She knows herself - she knows what she’s doing ands he knows why she’s doing it. There is never a doubt in her narration that above and beyond anything else she knows who she is, and more importantly, no one around her truly knows her.

The overall premise of the book is that Ada, our lead character, is in her disabled ship. There has been some sort of explosion while she’s been working to salvage materials from a crashed ship on a proto-planet that is mostly lava. She sees a government ship arrive in system and as she watches her oxygen meter run down to zero, she waits to see if they will respond to her call for help.

I really enjoyed this one - not in small part because of the unexpected nature of the narrative. The characters have real depth and the writing is well done. There is an excellent balance between scene setting and dialog that keeps the pace crisp. Each character is interesting in their own way and their motivations are different and varied. I really appreciate when a book balances that.

After finishing this one I plowed through the other two books that are currently available and loved them, too. The balance of the snappy dialog and story telling continues into the next two books, though, I do think Full Speed is the strongest of the three so far.