"Avalon" by Mindee Arnett

I saw mixed reviews of this novel on goodreads.com and decided to read it so I could judge it for myself. This is a sci-fi novel where the entire story takes place in space in distant future. Humans have colonized numerous planets and built space stations throughout the known universe. They are able to cover huge distances in a matter of minutes. But despite such great technological advances, the world is a bleak place. The entire known world is ruled by a corrupt monopoly whose only competition are ruthless crime lords. The main protagonist - Jeth Seagrave - is the head of a gang of thieves. He works for a powerful crime lord and steals spacecraft and other valuables for a living. Jeth hopes that one day he'll be able to save enough money to buy back Avalon, the spaceship that used to belong to his now dead parents. What he truly wishes for is freedom.

The plot has lots of unexpected turns, and I could never predict which way the story will go. The bad guys in this book have no redeeming qualities whatsoever and you can't help but hate them. The main protagonist - Jeth - feels trapped and at the mercy of someone else's wishes for most of the book. Arnett did a great job describing what it feels like to be desperate with no way out. Despite the difficulties that her characters face, they never give up and fight to the end. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It does have quite a bit of violence and torture. As I said, the bad guys are truly horrible and seemingly have no humanity left in them. In that sense perhaps her characters lack complexity. In addition, even the main protagonist is mostly moved by personal attachments and pursuits. Nobody in the story has a bigger goal of, so to speak, saving the world. Survival and protection of loved ones are the only things that move the characters. Perhaps given their situation, basic needs are the only things one can think of. Nonetheless, I do think it is a good choice if you are looking for a space novel. A sequel to Avalon called Polaris was released in January of this year. I will be picking it up sometime soon to see how the story ends.