“On Earth, they depicted justice as blindfolded and neutral, however out right here on the frontier, she was pink in tooth and claw.”
It’s not each guide that begins with the unanticipated dismantling of a planet. However that’s what occurs right here, when folks in South London watch by means of a telescope the disassembling of the planet Saturn.
Neptune and Uranus have already gone. Jupiter then follows.
The reason for that is an alien race who, for causes initially unknown, they use the planetary materials to type eight shards of a segmented hole sphere measuring 340 million kilometres from tip to tip, and 85 million throughout at their widest factors. These are in stationary orbit between the Earth and Mars, separating the Inside Photo voltaic System from what’s left of the Outer System. All of that is defined within the first ten pages!
The story then leaps ahead a few century. People, being the resourceful creatures that they’re, have settled upon the inside surfaces of this sphere, now generally known as The Swirl. It’s now that we meet Copernicus Brown, bounty hunter and proprietor of the spaceship Jitterbug and its crew. With Copernicus is Kiki, the younger bundle of vitality that’s the co-pilot, Ulf is the Viking-like engineer and McKenzie is the nineteen-year-old new crewmember coaching with Ulf, Copernicus’s youthful cousin, taken on as a favour to her mom. There’s additionally the spaceship itself, run by an AI who has taken to speaking to Copernicus and his crew within the type of a parrot (as a result of… Area Pirates, clearly!)
Following a tipoff from certainly one of their not too long ago recaptured criminals, the crew journey to a location hoping to search out one thing precious. There they really discover Amber Roth, sole survivor of a pirate assault.
The results of that is that the Jitterbug finds itself of curiosity to a variety of highly effective political factions, together with Danielle Lazlo, Deputy Speaker of the Photo voltaic Meeting who govern the worlds contained in the Swirl, and the remainder of the novel is about how that is resolved. The scenario is sophisticated additional by the purpose that the aliens could also be returning…
As an SF story with a robust ensemble really feel, it shouldn’t be a shock for me to say that Jitterbug jogged my memory of the TV sequence Firefly or of Chris Wooding’s Retribution Falls, in that it’s an attention-grabbing mixture of old-world and new, of know-how (human and alien!) and historical past. There’s a pleasant sense of humour unfold all through the novel, however there’s additionally just a few conditions the place characters that you just develop to look after are put in peril.
The chapters are usually brief and written from the standpoint of a variety of characters – Jitterbug’s newest proprietor Copernicus Brown, reluctant stowaway Amber Roth, politician Danielle Lazlo and the AI that’s Jitterbug itself, who has a pleasant sense of snark about it.
Lots of the chapters finish with a variety of posts from the equal of an Web discover board, that cleverly provide you with glimpses of the broader world exterior the Jitterbug. (These jogged my memory slightly of what Robert A Heinlein did in a few of his later novels, or maybe John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar.)
It’s slightly sweary, and there’s some romance with out being too specific, however as you may count on from veteran author Powell, the novel reads rapidly and simply in direction of an applicable ending. While some parts felt slightly rushed towards the top – specifically for me what might be a long-term romance appears to occur far too rapidly to be creditable – it’s fairly self-contained, with the plot resolved satisfactorily. After all, ought to the guide do effectively (I believe it is going to!) there’s the potential of extending this right into a sequence now that the characters and the scenario have been created.
Jitterbug is just about what I hoped for in a Area Opera, and bought: an thrilling and solidly written character-driven science fiction story with an attention-grabbing setting that reads simply and effectively.
© 2026 Mark Yon
Hardback | Titan Books
JITTERBUG by Gareth L Powell
March 2026 | 320 pages
ISBN: 978 1835 414 514
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