Book Review: One of Our Spaceships is Missing
One of Our Spaceships is Missing. Chris Gerrib, Space Wizard Science Fantasy, 19 July 2022, Paperback and eBook, 284 pages.
Reviewed by Kelly Fumiko Weiss.
One of our Spaceships is Missing is a science fiction novel set in a futuristic reality where most of the planets in our solar system are populated, and all have their own histories, governments, and ways of life. Mercury is a lawless, cutthroat crime haven. Mars is militaristic. Earth is similar to how it is now, only there are more factions. Alaska and Texas have seceded from the U.S., for example. However, this is just the start of Gerrib’s world-building. His book revolves around deeply thought-out ways these planets would interact, from seemingly normal things like systems of transit or interplanetary communication to more in-depth views of culture and history. The thrust of the book, though, is the hijacking of a spaceship bound from Mars to Earth and the people, both on board the ship and on-world, who are trying to stop it.
Gerrib creates a vast array of characters: a classic FBI-agent type in Ray Volk, the holier-than-thou hijacker Victoria, the Martian military liaison Mark, and the exchange-student-turned-rebel Kelly. The book switches back and forth between the perspectives of these main characters to show what is happening in different places and the stakes at play. Interspersed between the events of the main hijacking plot are a few will-they-won’t-they storylines, mostly revolving around sex, not relationships, and mostly in the LGBTQ space. These storylines definitely paint a picture of how sexual culture may be different in the future, but only one storyline between Kelly and a character named Spider really packed any emotional punch.
What I would have loved is a schematic or illustration of the ship itself. We spend so much time onboard, and Gerrib spends so much time describing the different rooms, where they were going and how the hijackers were moving around, that the reader spends too much time trying to visualize what he’s describing instead of getting lost in the story. The end is also very abrupt. While most of the storylines are resolved, I would have loved a little bit more of a tail at the end.
Overall, Gerrib’s book is a quick and engaging read, a great example of worldbuilding and the power of imagination. The reader can tell just how much thought and consideration was put into every detail of how things would work and what the rules of this future would be. Gerrib does a great job of making what happens in this book seem not only plausible, but possible, which is very hard to do.
One of our Spaceships is Missing is a great sci-fi adventure, particularly for those interested in a future that isn’t aliens and space wars, but rather a human story with human stakes that make the story more relatable, even in this hyper-futuristic reality.