Inside Out by Thorne Moore

 

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You can buy Inside Out.....Here

You can find out more about Thorne Moore.....Here

You can find an article by Thorne Moore about writing Sci Fi.....Here

The Blurb...

Triton station, Outer Circles headquarters of Ragnox Inc, on the moon of Neptune, is as far as the intrepid can go. It’s a place to make money, lots of money, and for seven lucky travellers, bound for Triton on the ISF Heloise, that’s exactly what they intend to do.

Maggy Jole wants to belong. Peter Selden wants to escape. Abigail Dieterman wants to be free. Merrit Burnand wants to start again. Christie Steen wants to forget. No one knows what David Rabiotti wants. And Smith, well, Smith wants everything.

Does it really matter what they want? The journey to Triton will take them eleven months – eleven months to contemplate the future, come to terms with the small print of their contracts, and wish they’d never signed. But changing their minds is not an option.
Sometimes it really is better to travel… than arrive.

My Review..

7 desperate and disparate people, 3 women and 4 men, sell themselves into what amounts voluntary penal servitude in the lawless outer reaches of the Solar System. If they survive their 7 year stretch there is the opportunity for enormous wealth.

But its an 11 month journey on ISF Heloise. Captain Foxe, a latter day privateer, is their captor but as the journey progresses and we discover more about the downfall of our less than magnificent 7, Foxe becomes their mentor and catalyst.

I do not usually read Sci Fi. I chose this book because I have read, and enjoyed, a few short stories by the author (Thorne Moore.) This is her first sojourn into future fiction, so I thought we could take the journey together and it does not dissapoint.

In her previous writing Thorne was very good at writing "creepy" things so I was half expecting "Space Creepiness" ala Alien or similar but no, this is a straight forward ensemble odyssey both in space and within each characters souls and that is the beauty of this book.

Being a very good author Thorne realises that Sci Fi isn't really about spaceships and ray guns any more than crime fiction isn't really about vials of poison and twirling moustaches. It is always about people and their stories and how they interact. We may come for the genre but we stay for the universal stories. So we learn their backstories, how they fell from grace and how they came to do a deal with the devil incarnate. As we take on board their histories we fear for their future when Captain Foxe delivers them to Triton. I can give no higher praise than to say for vast tracts of this book, I forgot I was reading a Sci Fi novel. The intertwining character arcs and plot development were that engaging.

A major part of  any Sci Fi is the world building and Thorne builds an intriguing and often scary scenario. A few Super Corporations dominate from top to bottom and throughout space. To get a "contract" is akin to getting citizenship in ancient Roman society. There are connections with our generation too, chandeliers, T shirts, snooker tables et al. All these things remind us that we are connected to that time and place. It's a very clever trick, its helps us to invest in the story, it could be us. There are laws as far as Jupiter but from there on outwards, it is the wild west rule of the ruthless. The rationale for Thorne's scenario is an added appendix in the book and it is fascinating, and more scarily quite possible given the way society has progressed in recent years. 😧

Really good book. I enjoyed my time with the crew and passengers of the Heloise. We made good progress together. We started as strangers and ended as friends. What started as  

journey towards fear may yet end in redemption.

Selected Quotes...

‘Hey, this is Platinum City, we’re talking about. The real thing.’ Selden picked his teeth. ‘Is that so?’ Merrit sneered and moved on to Christie. ‘How about you?’ ‘I’ve seen the real thing,’ she said, hidden behind her dark glasses. ‘It stinks.’

"That was the rub. He’d shown her the leash. Gilded it might be, but she wanted no more of it. She’d command her own life, her own money– assuming she could acquire some. Abigail had never given a thought to the exacting science of economic management. Inexhaustible funds had always been on tap. Now she had to go prospecting."

"No longer the bee’s knees, or the cat’s whiskers, just the donkey’s arse."

"David didn’t seem capable of comprehending crime, let alone carrying it out, but one had to wonder why he’d been packed off to the Outer Circles. It was a common ploy to mislay the black sheep of the family."

"As they approached, they could see three other freighters docked on, like piglets on a sow."

About the author....

I grew up in Luton but I have lived in north Pembrokeshire for the last few decades. I decided to be a writer at the age of about five, which is why I ignored my headmaster’s advice to study law and make a lot of money. Instead, I studied history at Aberystwyth, and much later, sneakily took a law degree through the Open University when my old headmaster would know nothing about it and couldn’t say I told you so.

I worked for some years in a library before deciding that I wasn’t fit to be an employee, so I left to become self-employed, making miniature furniture and running a restaurant with my sister Liz. These days I more or less write full time in my old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.

With my fellow author and good friend Judith BarrowI ran the Narberth Book Fair for several years, before handing it on to the Queen’s Hall.

I am a member of Crime Cymru, a Welsh crime writers collective.

Thornes Other Books...

A Time for Silence...Here

The Covenant...........Here

Motrherlove.............Here

The Unravelling......Here

Shadows..................Here

Long Shadows.........Here