Godspeed
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
Jay Hara is an ordinary young man growing up on the isolated planet of Erin. But Jay dreams of adventure and escapades and the legend of the lost "Godspeed" drive which allowed humans to travel at faster-than-light speeds.
His life changes when he joins up with the seedy spacer, Paddy Enderton and Captain Daniel Shaker. Captain Shaker is a charming but ruthless adventurer who inspires both fear and admiration in equal measure, and he and his questionable crew are joined by Jay as they race to find the legendary drive Jay Hara used to dream about.
Godspeed is a true coming-of-age tale told in the classic tradition of R.L. Stevenson's Treasure Island. A modern day pirate story, set among the stars.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sheffield, known for both rigorous hard science fiction ( Cold as Ice ) and pulpy space opera ( Transcendence ) combines the two in this space adventure with a background of speculative science and the plot and characters of a Flash Gordon serial. On the isolated planet of Erin, young Jay Hara has grown up on dreams of space and legends of the fabled Godspeed drive, which once allowed humans to travel at translight speeds. After meeting Paddy Enderton, a seedy old spacer, Jay is drawn into a chase which carries him off the planet, into the asteroid belt and its tiny worldlets, and finally to the remnants of an ancient space station where the Godspeed drive may still exist. Along the way, Jay is at once awed and terrified of the piratical spacers who crew the ship, particularly the smooth-talking, ruthless captain, Daniel Shaker. Struggling to reconcile his admiration for Shaker with the man's evident viciousness, Jay eventually comes into his own as a spacer and an adult. With this voyage of development, Sheffield raises his undemanding story above its otherwise rather hackneyed science fiction elements.