Book Review: The Jovian Run by James Wilks

The Jovian Run is the first novel from author James Wilks*. Set in the near future and dealing with realistic space travel,The Jovian Run is a fun tale of mystery and adventure.

The plot begins simply enough - a crew on a cargo ship has to make a delivery from Mars to the outer solar system (a "Jovian run"). "Jovian planets" is another name for the gas giant planets. They don't go to Jupiter though so I guess it's like traveling on the Oregon Trail, even if you just go from Nebraska to Idaho. Soon an encounter with space pirates reveals this is not just a routine haul and Captain Clea Staples and her crew have to deal with the fallout.

In this future traveling between planets in the solar system (or "Sol" system as it is called in the book) is common place - at least for professional space fairers. This reminds me the Age of Discovery period in history when international sailing was common but most normal people didn't do it very often. 

The setting of  a Mars colony is not my favorite. (There is nothing there that supports human life and the gravity well makes mining impractical.) Of course Wilks is far from the only one who likes the idea of humans one day living on Mars. Also, the prologue is a bit confusing and slows down the beginning, but makes sense after the story ends.

The cast of characters in the book are great and feel like a family of people who has to live in close quarters with each other. The captain is especially great as well as Dinah - she'll probably be your favorite character too by the end. A weekly show with this crew running missions around the solar system would be great.

One thing I particularly liked was that Wilks tried to keep the fiction part to a minimum in his sci-fi. The crew actually has to deal with the realities of zero gravity in deep space. Also the artificial gravity used by the ship was a clever, and realistic, solution I had never heard of before. How the crew has to deal with this solution is also fun.

If you like television science fiction shows with strong characters and slower paced intellectual stories (such as Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, or Star Trek DS9) you will enjoy The Jovian Run.

I'm looking forward to the sequel!

Score:
   B
Positives: Great and grounded sci-fi with engaging characters
Negatives: Takes awhile before the plot really gets moving


*NOTE: Full disclosure: Mr. Wilks is a friend of mine. I also have a pet peeve with human colonization of Mars. I have attempted  to keep both of these facts from affecting my review.