Set on a family-run interstellar freighter called the Harland and a mysterious remote space station, E. K. Johnston's latest is story of survival and self-determination.
Pendt Harland's family sees her as a waste of food on their long-haul space cruiser when her genes reveal an undesirable mutation. But if she plays her cards right she might have a chance to do much more than survive. During a space-station layover, Pendt escapes and forms a lucky bond with the Brannick twins, the teenage heirs of the powerful family that owns the station. Against all odds, the trio hatches a long-shot scheme to take over the station and thwart the destinies they never wished for.
This is a mixed review, I'm afraid. I loved the idea of this story, I've enjoyed other stories by EK, and some of the writing was brilliant...mostly Pendt, and how she reacts to things throughout the story. EK has clearly thought very hard about the realities of space flight and how things might work on a generational ship. Unfortunately, I didn't feel like the worldbuilding was there to support this story. I was never sure of the history and how it fed into what was happening during the story.
For one example; does everyone have some ability with Aether, or just every character we run into? For another, given that the Harland clearly understand the value of a genemage, why is Pendt so despised? For one more; I didn't realise until I read some reviews after finishing that one of the main characters is trans. They're twins and only one has the necessary gene sequence to run the station, but twins aren't genetically identical, so that didn't raise any flags for me. And if it's described anywhere else, I just missed it.
SPOILERS BELOW
There's an epilogue that seems to imply that Pendt has a twin out there somewhere. She herself seems to think that she is the twin of her older brother, she was just held back in the womb. (Creepy, by the way, but I suppose potentially useful.) Given that she's aware enough to know about her younger brother's twin years after they've left her behind, how is this possible? Or was she misleading the twins?
END SPOILERS
Overall, although I did enjoy this story and will definitely check out EK's next novel, I feel this wasn't as good as her other novels and could have benefited from a little more explanation.
Aetherbound publishes on the 25th May, 2021. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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