Wanderlust - a review

Wanderlust (Sirantha Jax, Book #2)
Ann Aguirre
320 pages
Ace Books

This is a sequel to Grimspace. Click here for my review of it.

The sequel to a book in a series--not a trilogy--can go one of three different ways: it could suck, it could be awesome, or it could be a filler book; one that expands the universe and adds new characters along with new plot elements. Wanderlust is the last one of those things. It's a complete filler book.

And I ain't complainin'.

Sirantha Jax is back. She's broke because her previous employer (also the de facto government) has collapsed. That means she's out of a job and all her currency is worthless. So she's forced to take a new job as an ambassador to a planet of bugs. These are not your typical space insects  (these aren't Starship Troopers bugs either). They can mimic humans almost as well as Cylons can.

Also, her mother has been kidnapped, someone is trying to kill her, she's having guy problems, and there are those damned flesh-eating aliens that keep popping up every now and then. Not to mention space politics.

Compared to the break neck plot that Grimspace had; Wanderlust is lacking. It's got as much action as the first, but it's mostly a novel to setup the next novel. This became a problem early on because it felt like Sirantha was only put in certain situations to meet new characters.

The other problem being that it was taking forever for the crew to get to their destination. The interruptions went on for a while. "Hey, let's go here!" Oops. Fleshing-eating aliens. "Hey! Let's stop here!" Caught in a planet's civil war. But apparently one cannot simply walk into Ithiss-Tor.

This is very much a universe building and character building book. The new characters were very much worth the trouble, though. And Sirantha changes fundamentally by the end of the novel, and I can tell that things are going to be different in the third book of the series.

Space politics, flesh-eating aliens, and a girl with bad habit of getting in trouble. I will can't get enough of Ann Aguirre and Sirantha Jax. I enjoyed this one. Even if it was all setup for the rest of the series.