Audiobook Review – Grimspace (Sirantha Jax, Book 1) by Ann Aguirre, Narrated by Suzanna Duff (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Length: 9 hours and 43 minutes (320 pages)
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Release Date: August 2, 2010
ASIN: B003Y55J86
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Sirantha Jax series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 3/5 stars

“As the carrier of a rare gene, Sirantha Jax has the ability to jump ships through grimspace-a talent which makes her a highly prized navigator for the Corp. Then a crash landing kills everyone on board, leaving Jax in a jail cell with no memory of the crash. But her fun’s not over. A group of rogue fighters frees her…for a price: her help in overthrowing the established order.”

This is the first book in the Sirantha Jax series. There are six books in this series and they have all been released. This was an okay book; I liked some of the witty banter between characters but didn’t like some of the story elements and the way the main heroine constantly over-explained things.

I listened to this on audiobook and wasn’t a huge fan of the narration. Duff has a high pitched voice that made Sirantha sound little-girl like. When Duff did male voices they were kind of shrill and I had to turn down the volume on the audiobook because the male voices physically hurt my ears. So, I wouldn’t recommend listening to this on audiobook.

In general the ideas in here were pretty typical Sci-Fi. Jax has a special gene that basically lets her travel through Grimspace (Grimspace seems to be similar to worm holes)….Farscape anyone? Jax is struggling after her lover/pilot/guide was killed in a wreck that Jax was blamed for. She’s been rescued by a rebel crew to serve as their Jumper; these rebels are trying to start up a group of non-corporate owned Jumpers so that they can move trade from corporate to more private.

Jax is an okay heroine; she is rash and makes a lot of the same poor decisions over and over. She also tends to state the obvious and over-explain things to the reader. The other characters were similarly flawed and I didn’t really engage with any of them very well. Additionally I thought the way the story was tied up was a bit contrived and hokey.

Overall this was an okay, but not great, sci-fi novel. It’s very urban fantasy in pace and tone and reuses a lot of sci-fi themes that have already been explored. I wasn’t super engaged in it and don’t plan on continuing the series.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Goodreads Reading Challenge
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge