Velocity Weapon

The last thing Sanda remembers is her gunship breaking up around her as her preserving pod expanded, sealing herself away for salvage-medics to pick up. She expected to awaken in friendly hands, patched up and patched back into a new gunship. Instead, she awakens 230 years later upon an empty enemy smartship, The Light of Berossus or, as he prefers to be called, “Bero”. The war is lost. The star system is dead.

However, Bero may not exactly be telling the whole truth.

-Goodreads


Title: Velocity Weapon

Series: The Protectorate #1

Author: Megan E. O’Keefe

Page Count: 544

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: 4.75/5.0

Date Read: December 7th, 2022


Opening

To be honest, Velocity Weapon hit my radar sometime last year. I hadn't worked it into any of my active TBR lists this year until December when our group picked this as our buddy read. I'm glad it happened this way, I'm not sure if the timing was just spot on for me or not but I really enjoyed this read.
 
The first thing I noticed getting into this book was we basically have different stories going on at once. Each of them have a different feel to them. Two were very obviously connected to each other and the third seemed like a one off for a very long time. All I'll say is hang in there and enjoy the ride! Our group had expressed which of these stories seemed interesting to them and it was interesting to me to see we didn't all agree. I think this is rather expected though when you have three different stories like this moving forward at once.
 
Beyond that I thought the different levels of intelligence and possible personalities of AI's throughout this book. Many are their own characters in their own right for sure. Without trying to give too much away, I'll just come out and say Grippy is the unsung hero!


Pacing

The pacing of Velocity Weapon was done really well. This book was easy to read, not very long and was a breeze to get through. It was certainly one of those reads I was constantly trying to pickup and continue. I never felt like I was slogging through any part of the book. The beginning was clearly setting things up but I think that is very common with many reads as well.


World Building

The world building was interesting overall. I definitely feel the author has left a lot on the table by the end of book one giving many opportunities to further explore so much that has been introduced in book one. I've already mentioned the AI's of this world. We also explore the history of how we ended up colonizing the stars which was interesting. It was interesting to get a glimpse at the different cultures and locations throughout book one. We obviously have an entire universe with potential to explore in the rest of the series.


Character Development

The character development was also done well, especially when you're trying to find ways to make AI have their own character traits and personalities as well. We certainly see our main protagonists grow as the story progresses. We have some really good twists as characters are introduced and then things begin to reveal themselves later on in the book. The mid point of Velocity Weapon was the major turning point for me. From that point on things got rather exciting and stayed that way through the end.


Closing

I'd recommend this book for any readers of science fiction who don't mind multiple POV's with a good mix of political intrigue and mysteries. I will certainly be continuing this series as I've already gotten my hands on books 2 and 3 as well.


Scoring

Pacing 4.5 / 5.0

Worldbuilding 4.5 / 5.0

Character Development 5.0 / 5.0

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Priest of Gallows