In Ageless Sleep by Arden Ellis

In Ageless Sleep
by Arden Ellis
Pages: Unknown - short story
Publish Date: April 12 2017
Publisher: Less than three Press
Series: --

Review
Rating: 4.88
Read: March 24 2017

*I received this book from NetGalley, and Less Than Three in return for a fair review.*

This is a really really good short story. The story snuck up on me unexpectedly. It just kept building, my heart actually was racing there at times.

Not really sure what to say, though, without saying everything.

The universe: Colonists, mainly the lower classes (or however that was worded), headed off to new planets. Only to find that they'd been tricked. They promptly decided to return 'home', but the homeworlds didn't want them. War broke out. It still occurs at the time of this story, but now less with soldiers, and more with assassins, missiles targeting . . . everything, and the like. The two sides are the Reaches (colonists/poor) and the Sovereign (homeworlds/rich).

This story: The book description is good enough. The book opens with Mal, a member of the Reaches, sitting around on a spaceship traveling through space. She'd snuck aboard and taken it over - relatively easily since, for the most part, while the ship contains 100+ people on it, only roughly 2 crew members are awake at a time. The rest are in sleep, frozen sleep. Cryo-sleep.

Why did Mal take over the ship? Because she was told to do so. More specifically, because the Sovereign Princess was aboard.

The story consists of a slow meeting between the princess, Aurora (or Rory), and Mal. Over weeks/months as the ship travels to a specific location. And the tension mounts, for they are enemies, and one needs the other for a specific ship task (being purposefully vague here); and tension mounts because of the risk - which will arrive first, the Reaches ship, or the Sovereign?

Everything is from Mal's point of view, but, even so, I felt like I got a good look at both characters (there are more than two, but - other than a few messages here and there and things seen on a view screen, there really are just two characters in the story). The relationship between the two was neat to watch.

Short, simple, neat story.

Rating: 4.88

March 24 2017