Salvation Gambit

The word "romp" gets thrown around a lot in book reviews, but if there was ever a book that deserved that label, this is it. A bit Ocean's 11, a bit Expanse. Our main character, Murdock, is a young hacker/aspiring con artist, captured along with her crew by local authorities and turned over to the Justice, an ancient ship built by a long-fallen empire, whose AI styles itself the redeeming deity of all the "sinners" it takes aboard. From pickpockets to moon-eaters, everyone gets a life sentence, and that means one of three options: become a raider, preying on "ingest" (the newbies); become a settler, trying to carve out a space for regular human activities like farming, having families, and putting on music festivals; or become an agent of the Justice, essentially, the jail wardens of this massive spacebound Alcatraz. Murdock and her wannabe Robin Hood friends reject all three options, of course, but the how of it is quite entertaining. Why does everyone carry swords? I assume it has something to do with the dangers of projectile weapons aboard spaceships, but I can't recall if that was ever spelled out. Anyway, the characterization is great. The action sequences are lots of fun, though sometimes I felt they could be compressed somewhat. I also wished there was more time spent exploring the various settlements and attempts at recreating human society inside a prison society. I definitely enjoyed it, so much so that I'll be checking out more of Emily Skrutskie's books.

A dysfunctional team of four conwomen (the boss, the hacker, the distraction, and the driver) get caught and imprisoned in Justice, an ancient spaceship whose AI goes around collecting tithes of prisoners to run it; despite their fraying relationships, the four of them have to find their footing in the cultures and towns that are flourishing on the ship, escape the eyes and hands of the AI, and run one more con to escape the ship together.

Genre-wise, there's a lot of "low tech" here, such that it almost felt like a fantasy book of towns, swords, and politics but on a space-ship. It reminded me a good bit of Elizabeth Bear's Jacob's Ladder books.

The character dynamics really drove the book. Murdock (the hacker) is the first person perspective here; her main goal is to prove herself to Hark (the boss), and she has an icy relationship with Fitz (the distraction) because of Fitz's attention from Hark. From the get go, the Justice AI creepily sticks its nose into these relationships and tries to win Murdock over to its side. The book revolves around all of these shifting relationships.

Overall, this was a fun romp if you want some conwomen spaceship escape adventures.