At twenty five thousand miles an hour you’re lighting up the sky. Hypersonic breakout from your last and future life. Relativistic calculations; distance, time and speed. A conscious and ballistic object, can you reach escape velocity? Let’s fly into the great unknown Escape Velocity, by Victor Manibo.
Synopsis:
Space Habitat Altaire is the premier luxury resort in low Earth orbit, playground of the privileged and the perfect location to host reunions for the Rochford Institute. Rochford boasts only the best: the wealthiest, most promising students with the most impressive pedigrees. Complete with space walks, these lavish reunions are a prime opportunity for alumni to jockey for power with old friends and rivals—and crucially, to advance their applications to live in an exclusive Mars settlement. Earth is dying, and only the best deserve to save themselves.
Aboard the Altaire for a 25th reunion, finance magnate Ava pursues the truth about her brother’s murder during their senior year. Laz, ambassador and political scion, hopes to finally win Ava’s heart. Sloane, collecting secrets to conceal his family’s decline, angles for a key client. And Henry, heir to a healthcare empire, creates an unorthodox opportunity to get to Mars in a last-ditch effort to outrun a childhood secret.
While these erstwhile friends settle scores and rack up points, they fail to notice the other agendas developing at the Space Habitat Altaire. Their own futures aren’t the only ones at stake—“the best” will soon regret underestimating those they would leave behind on Earth.
Source: Goodreads
SPOILERS BELOW
Escape Velocity follows a group of four former friends visiting a space station for a class reunion. Each is pursuing a secret agenda: Ava wants to learn the truth about her brother’s murder 25 years ago; Laz wants to win Ava’s heart; Sloane needs money; and Henry wants to make a backroom deal to get on the list of those headed to a Mars colony despite not meeting the requirements. However, the staff have a secret agenda of their own – to strike the first blow in a violent revolution.
This book lost me right from the start, when the first few chapters were an achronological mess. We begin with Henry dying in space for the first chapter, then the second flashes back to an unspecified amount of time earlier when the characters first arrived on the station, then the third flashes back 25 years more to their school days, then the fourth is an in-universe magazine article that was published in the year 2084 – which is not the year that the story is set, as it mentions that the space station is still under construction. Assuming, of course, that “the year the story is set” can have any meaning when we’re ping-ponging to a different time period every chapter.
Another problem is that the characters are all very unpleasant. The only one I found sympathetic was Ava, as she’s the only one who wasn’t involved in Ashwin’s murder, or covering up Ashwin’s murder, or Coen’s murder, or covering up Coen’s murder, or whatever the hell it was that Sloane was doing. Which, given the revolution plotline, the fact that they’re unsympathetic may be the point – but, you know, that doesn’t make it any more pleasant to have to spend all these pages reading about them.
Since Ava was the only one of the main characters I found sympathetic, I was hoping that she would survive. But no, she dies. And that means I have to hand out a Dead Lesbian Penalty for her, as she was previously in a relationship with a woman, Daniela. Heck, I might as well hand out one for Daniela, too – normally I say that backstory deaths don’t count, but how do you even define that when the plot is so untethered from time? A fair number of the chapters as set in the “25 years ago” period, when she’s alive, and one of them covers her death; that’s good (bad) enough for me. Well, not like it’s gonna affect the book’s grade, as my scores don’t go below 1.
Escape Velocity was a very confusing time with very unpleasant people, and I didn’t enjoy it at all.
Final Rating: 1/5
