Lost Solace
Lost Solace by Karl Drinkwater BooksGoSocial Multicultural Interest , Sci Fi & Fantasy Pub Date 31 Oct 2017
Review
Solace is exciting fluff. What it lacks in plot, it more than makes up for in action - lots of explosions, gunfights, sneaking past enemies, space combat, etc… By keeping the action going nonstop, readers don’t have much time to notice plot holes or question inconsistencies. Drinkwater does a better job developing his two central characters - Opal (a former soldier) and Clarissa ( the experimental AI on the ship Opal stole). It would have been nice to have been given more of Opal’s background and how / why she was able to hack into Clarissa. Too much hand wavy magic ( technology) can do anything.
Simply put, Opal is looking for a lost ship to find something in particular - yup that nebulous. She finds one in the process of falling into the gravitational well of a neutron star. Of course lots of alien stuff tries to a) stop her from boarding b) kill her. And then human military comes. Lots of booms.
Solace would have been better shortened to a novella or fleshed out more with additional plot development. Solace isn’t a great novel, but it does show that Karl Drinkwater has potential as a writer. I would be willing to give the next novel in the series a chance.
3 / 5
I received a copy of Solace from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.
—- Crittermom
Description
Sometimes spaceships disappear with everyone on board – the Lost Ships. But sometimes they come back, strangely altered, derelict, and rumoured to be full of horrors. Opal is on a mission. She's been seeking something her whole life. Something she is willing to die for. And she thinks it might be on a Lost Ship. Opal has stolen Clarissa, an experimental AI-controlled spaceship, from the military. Together they have tracked down a Lost Ship, in a lonely nebula far from colonised space. The Lost Ship is falling into the gravity well of a neutron star, and will soon be truly lost … forever. Legends say the ships harbour death, but there's no time for indecision. Opal gears up to board it. She's just one woman, entering an alien and lethal environment. But perhaps with the aid of Clarissa's intelligence – and an armoured spacesuit – Opal may stand a chance. "Think Event Horizon with a bit of 'Mother' from the Alien movies and that was the overall feel when I first started this book. [...] Opal is a fantastic character, complex, a history we learn a bit more about as we read on, she is heroic, loyal, strong and long long overdue in fiction. I loved the AI too and the relationship that formed between the two, the ballsy choices and bravery through frightening encounters and life and death situations." —So Many Books, So Little Time
