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A relevant SciFi story by an amazing cast of authors with strong protagonists that took a bit to get rolling and never developed the way I expected it to.

In the fading light of a dying star, a soldier for hire searches for a missing refugee ship and uncovers a universe-shattering secret.
Orphan, refugee, and soldier-for-hire Asala Sikou doesn’t think too much about the end of civilization. Her system’s star is dying, and the only person she can afford to look out for is herself.
When a ship called The Vela vanishes during what was supposed to be a flashy rescue mission, a reluctant Asala is hired to team up with Niko, the child of a wealthy inner planet’s president, to find it and the outer system refugees on board.
But this is no ordinary rescue mission; The Vela holds a secret that places the fate of the universe in the balance, and forces Asala to decide—in a dying world where good and evil are far from black and white, who deserves to survive?

I received an ARC and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

Content warnings include: violence, death, refugee crisis, military leadership, injury, climate emergency.

When I saw The Vela‘s author lineup in combination with it being a SciFi book, I knew I just HAD to read this. It admittedly took me a while to get into the book, but I think that was more due to outside circumstances than the book itself.

Each chapter is written by a different author, so that each of the four wrote at least 2 chapters. I found the switches between authors seamless, and to me it seemed like it truly was written by one person, not four!

The Vela starts of strong, and intrigues immediately in the both its characters and its plot. Asala is fascinating and a wonderful protagonist: an orphan refugee and military veteran, now mercenary in contract with a wealthy planetary leader; competent and gruff, but with a heart much softer than she wants you to believe. There’s also Niko, child of said planetary leader, young and idealistic, with a conviction and passion for justice and a hand for programming. Niko is also nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, and Asala is a trans woman (possibly lesbian), which was another huge plus for me!

I found the core situation around with the plot revolves relevant and harrowing: the solar system’s sun is dying due to humanity sucking it dry, causing the outer planets to become too cold to live on, thus creating droves of refugees that the inner worlds do not welcome with open arms (some more overt about their lack of care than others).

On a smaller scale, the mission of Asala and Niko to find a missing refugee ship, the Vela, was interesting too. There were a lot of political entanglements that nicely offset the fast-pace and frequent action-sequences, making the plot a balanced mix.

The book is more plot-driven than anything else, but it truly were the characters that made it come alive. Aside from Niko and Asala, there were a couple more POV characters that occasionally got sections written from their perspective. Every single POV character, as well as most side characters, have their own agenda and their own goals, and often had opposing stances on the same issue and different amounts of information on the current situation, which made the POV switches always intriguing.

Despite all the praise, I must say that I found the book a bit aimless at times. There were high stakes from the start, but it often wasn’t clear what the stakes were for or where things were headed. The story could have gone in a variety of directions from its starting point, and while it was cool to see where it would be headed, a bit more structure would have helped. (My theory is that this was due to the book being written by multiple authors)

Either way, I found this book relevant and exciting. I do recommend it, and I liked the ending in particular, even if it was a cliffhanger. I’m looking forward to book 2!

Check the book out on Goodreads and buy it here.

~iam