Starship Repo by Patrick S. Tomlinson

Review by Ernest Lilley
Originally Published on SFRevu 5/1/2019:
Starship Repo by Patrick Tomlinson
Tor Books (May 21, 2019)

Her name is Firstname, Lastname, thanks to a clerical error, and she’s human, not something you see every day walking into a galactic hub like Junktion Hyperspace Station. After all, humans have only been feed from their wildlife sanctuary for a few decades, and the Galaxy is a big place. If the customs inspector who greeted her knew how much trouble a teenaged juvenile delinquent could cause, or that his wallet was about to go missing, he’d have had second thoughts about granting that temporary visa. But then things would have been a lot less interesting.

Starship Repo is the second book in Patrick S. Tomlinson’s Breach series, which started off with Gate Crashers, where mankind discovered that the final frontier was bounded by a fence marked “Human-Wildlife Sanctuary” and took a pair of cutters to the fence. Humans have been free-range for a while as this book opens, but still a pretty rare sight.

In fact, Firstname Lastname, which is what it says on our main character’s galactic travel documents due to a “clerical error’ is the first human most of the inhabitants of Junktion station, where she winds up at the beginning of the book, have ever seen. First, as she likes to be called, is a 17-18-year-old human female who lit out from the colony on Beta Centauri to get away from bad choices there and move on to bad choices out in the galaxy.

She’s been making her way into the unexplored regions of galactic civilization by conning, stealing, and generally cheating the more gullible elements of galactic society.

At least until she goes ‘straight’ after being caught by the head of a firm that can use her talents for, if not good, at least more or less legal pursuits, like repossessing starships. Now her roommate is a sentient rock, her supervisor is a member of the race that tried to wipe humanity off the face of the cosmos, and her talent for getting involved in other people’s problems has put her on probation.

Teenagers, go figure.

The ‘novel’ is really a series of short stories, one for each of the increasingly escalating capers, among which we’re surprised to learn that stealing, I mean repoing a galactic cruise ship isn’t nearly the biggest thing you could repossess. The capers are fun, but the real deal is the interplay between this particular band of misfits and our plucky gal.

Hopefully, she’ll be back in future stories set in this universe, because she’s just what humanity needs to make its mark in galactic civilization.

Starship Repo is as smart as it is funny and well worth reading for fans of space opera and YASF, especially if you like it with a touch of humor. And when I say humor, it’s not potty humor, but more absurd situation humor with a lot of classic SF references tossed in for fun.

Links / References

Amazon Post: https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_wr_but_top?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=B07GVC69LC 

Firstname Lastname (Thanks to a clerical error that’s going to be fixed any day now) is an 18-year-old troublemaker who’s the first human the aliens on Junktion Station have ever met. After all, humans have only been free range for a few decades and she only just got there. That’s why they’re not watching their wallets more closely, which you really should do when she’s around. Firstname settles into a life of grifting on the station, but she attracts the wrong sort of attention when she steals a ride and gets’ caught in the web of someone running a starship repo service who’s always on the lookout for talent…and we’re off to the races.

Ok, the races actually come later in the book when Firstname is tasked with repoing a racer, but you get the idea. Also, it turns out to be the right sort of attention, but she’s on probation more often than not.

Starship Repo follows Gate Crashers, in which humanity discovered that galactic civilization had put up no trespassing signs at the 30 light year limit around our solar system and then found out that you really shouldn’t leave alien tech around for humans to play with. Now faster than you can say “A Piece of the Action,” we’re part of the galactic federation and starting to spread out.

The book is a collection of episodes, each showing a more outrageous starship repossession, and new opportunities for Firstname to get herself in trouble. Tomlinson has a lot of fun tossing in enough pop-culture sci-fi references to make a fair drinking game,  and it’s written to be humorous, but that’s more a matter of tone than outright joking. The overarching story is about our gal finding a home with the team and growing into herself, and he does a pretty good job with it.

It’s a fast read and if you try to stuff it into too hard a science fiction hole you won’t enjoy the result. I had fun with it and hope we get more from Tomlinson, though my sources tell me that the future is uncertain. That would be a pity because Firstname Lastname is just the sort of spunky kid humanity needs to make (or take) a mark in the galaxy.

Note: I read Starship Repo in an advance reader copy. I’ve also posted a review on SFRevu.com, where I’m editor emeritus, along with an interview with the author. Check it out.