It's best to consider this book based on the three perspective characters we follow: Sanda (arguably the main character), Biran (Sanda's brother and a secondary force in her storyline), and Jules (off on her own and completely separate from the rest of the story).

Sanda, despite being a military officer, is rather undisciplined and not particularly believable in that capacity. As a person and the hero of this story, she does very well: between her need for distraction, the pain (physical and emotional) that she experiences, and even the way she interacts with other people (until near the end, which really goes back to her supposed military background) are very authentic. The timeline is a little wonky because of the kind of work she has to do and there's a bit of a forced romance plot. The conspiracy is all a little convoluted and I'm left, at the end, not really understanding who was right - or even if it matters. The enemy nation (planet? empire?) didn't feel like a real threat and when we did meet them, it felt more like posturing than actual threats.

Biran is shot straight to stardom and power in a structure we never quite understand. The Keepers (essentially the government of the Prime intergalactic empire) are never fully explained: their reach, their power, the political red tape. Instead, we focus on Sanda and skip over most of that. Without this background information, Biran's story is irrelevant outside of Sanda and indeed draws the plot out well beyond the necessary.

And then we come to Jules. She's the one I personally was the most interested in. I guess I like the scrappy ones who take the fight into their own hands. But she has a history that we get hints of (and, like the Keeper structure, we don't ever get an explanation). She's living a conspiracy and a tragedy (not unlike Sanda) that continues to get more and more complicated. The real problem with Jules, however, is that, relative to Sanda and Biran, she gets almost no "screentime" and therefore we get no real answers. Perhaps she'll factor more into future books, but because we get no real payoff in connection with the larger story, she felt unnecessary (and, once again, the weird timeline in this book made this worse).

I think this book was too ambitious. There was simply too much to balance: a complex system of planets connected by proprietary technology, two storylines (across three characters) that are not given anything like equal weight, a massive conspiracy that we never really get to understand, and a whole lot of hints to a bigger conspiracy that never comes into focus.

I really enjoyed reading this book! Characters and story were very interesting and I found it very difficult to put this book down (many late nights reading!)

I will definitely re-read this book in the future for fun; I went ahead and even pre-ordered a copy of this book before I finished --- I can't wait to read the next book in the series.

Thanks to NetGalley and Orbit for providing an early copy to review.

This is your run-of-the-mill space opera with a few twists. If you still think "Iain Banks" when you hear "space opera", then maybe not. Most current readers of the genre ought to find this up their alley.

An excellent space opera-esque novel with interesting characters and a unique story arc.

Reading this book felt a bit like taking a glance into Joss Whedon’s Firefly universe, if only in raw feeling and intrigue. The characters develop well, the story has a variety of angles that keep you on your toes, and the ending clearly sets things up for a sequel (please tell me this will be a trilogy, at least‽).

One character, Jules, and another that she ends with definitely feel incomplete, but not in that nagging way that makes you feel disappointed, but in the way that makes you clamor for more.

Overall, I’d give this 5/5, and look forward to future works from Ms. O’Keefe in this universe.

Thought the book could have been a bit shorter. Parts of the book were so boring I wanted to close up and read something else. I did enjoy a lot of it but some could have been left out. This should by a 300 page book. That being said, the entire storyline is unfinished.

A interesting first effort. The story was there it was just hard to see how all the different characters fit together. The jump from one group to another was interesting but hard to find the common thread between the different groups. Will be interesting to see where this goes from here.

A fast-paced space opera, with intriguing characters, one of which is a traumatized AI spaceship, and an intricate and twisty plot. Recommended, and since I'm definitely interested in continuing the story I've given my review page the name of the series title.

"In the upper right of her HUD, text flashed: :-P
"Oh my god. They taught you emoticons."
"I had access to the in-system internet."
"Of course you did. Because what better way to introduce a newly created intelligence to the world than through cat pictures and terrible puns."
"I rather enjoyed the puns."
"But not the cat pictures?"
"May I ask you an embarrassing question, Sanda?"
"Those are my favorite kind."
"Are cats... real?"

Where to begin? Velocity Weapon is both flawed and delightful. Seriously, I had so much fun with it! Is it perfectly written? No. Did I love the heck out of it? ABSOLUTELY. While some of the execution and pacing is a bit rocky at times, two characters in particular kept me coming back for more. Sanda is a sergeant in the military, who has been stranded in an escape pod for hundreds of years – the last human left in the system. She’s picked up and rescued by The Light of Berossus (affectionately called Bero), a sentient AI ship with a dark past and a quirky personality.

"Fuck."

"You say that a lot, Sanda."

"It's a fuck-y kind of day, Bero."

Even on completion, I have to say that Bero and Sanda remain my favorites. Bero is just so damn adorable at times. He’s been raised on classical music and cat videos; what’s not to love about this friendly AI? I suppose Grippy – the little maintenance bot aboard Bero – also deserves and honorable mention here. For a little critter who can only beep once for no and twice for yes, he’s got an impressive amount of personality.

In addition to the skeleton crew of the Berossus, there are several additional POVs present in the book. I was pleasantly shocked and surprised as I watched all the plot arcs tie in together. At about the 45% mark, I found that I had been severely underestimating this book in the first half. It took me a while to become invested in the other POV chapters at first; Sanda’s brother, Biron, seemed irrelevant, given that he has already died in Sanda’s timeline, and the heist team chapters felt a bit shoehorned in as they did not immediately connect with the primary narrative. That said, the payoff for pulling through these chapters is absolutely there by the end.

I dare not reveal too much, but this book has several unexpected twists and turns. Once you start to see the larger picture, Velocity Weapon has its hooks into you. There are a few hints here and there early on which become properly menacing by the end... and promise some very interesting follow up in later books. Darker, bleaker moments and themes balance the humorous, light tone of the writing. If you like trying to put together a plot or enjoy being taken along for a ride, you will absolutely enjoy this book! 

"[She] had experienced a lot of death in her life. Had handed it out herself when the need arose. But she'd never really seen it, she realized. Never felt the cold viciousness of there being nothing where there had once been something. No, not cold. Cold implied intentional indifference. This was... just nothing. [He] was, and now he wasn't. All the fine threads of his life's potential snipped short from one breath to the next."

There’s a tad bit of romance as well, for folks who enjoy that. It’s not a major plot point, but it has some genuinely touching as well as hilarious moments weaseled in to the main story. It’s about the right amount for a book that’s not truly a romance novel, and the couple in question has some great chemistry. True to life, but not overwhelming.

All in all… while there were some fairly severe pacing issues in the first half, this novel was just so much fun and came together so well by the end that I have to give it five stars for pure enjoyment. I had a great time reading it, and that counts for a heck of a lot in my book. The prose was average, but didn’t detract at all – I think this is a novel that works best with a simpler style that doesn’t distract from the story itself. Once Velocity Weapon hits its stride, you won’t want to put it down.

A sister stuck in the future and a brother racing to change that time from 200 years in the past...

Sanda Greeves is plucked out of space by an enemy spaceship... she wakes up from stasis missing half a leg and in a seemingly empty ship. No crew, but an AI named Bero, who holds Sanda's hand through the sudden realization that she had been drifting in space for over 200 years after the destruction of her home world.

Biran Greeves is newly graduated as a Keeper for the Prime citizenry, the holders of the interplanetary gates. After an attack by the marginalized Icarions, he races to find evidence that his sister is still alive. Biran runs into a form of military bureaucracy that opens his eyes wide to the real world, its greed and backstabbing.

Siblings trying to reconnect through space and time. Three distinct voices, Biran, Sanda, and Bero. Themes of family, the future of AI, and galactic system power plays... 

O'Keefe has the power to change characters, plot, and worlds in a few words. She develops a good rhythm of storytelling between two points of view, and slams the narrative through several mind-tipping a plot twists... up is down and left is right.  There are several very good threads that will be waiting to be fettered out in the subsequent books in the series. I can't wait!

Velocity Weapon is a well-paced three-act play of intrigue, moral ambiguity, and science fiction fun. It contains everything I look for in Scifi... a future that is futuristic in every way: Tech, culture, and space. O'Keefe has real talent for describing spacey stuff with everyday metaphors, easy ways of explaining things to laymen like me. 

Highly Recommended for fans of space operas. This one is very good and deserves great praise. I grabbed ahold of this book and for two day, I didn’t let go. 

4.5 out of 5 stars.

This one checks a lot of boxes for me as a sci-fi reader.

Exhaustive world building? Check.
Engaging character dynamics (seriously, the bourgeoning buddy comedy between Sanda and the AI in the early chapters is gold)? Check.
Political intrigue? Check.
Deep philosophical dives into time, simultaneity, and the nature of existence? Big check.

This is accessible hard sci-fi the way it was meant to be; think Becky Chambers meets James S.A. Corey. Very much looking forward to how O'Keefe continues the series!

O’Keefe’s novel raises more questions than it answers — it is the first book of a series — but it also delivers a tantalizing mix of post-holocaust struggle to survive, conspiracy thriller, and caper gone horribly right.

96 points, 5 STARS!

Velocity Weapon was amazing. I could feel everything the characters were feeling throughout the book. I loved the characters, and I loved the story as much as I loved the characters. I have been looking for this book for two years now, and it turns out the reason I wasn't able to find it was because it hadn't been released yet!

O'Keefe made me feel lost and feel hope with the story in Velocity Weapon. I felt lost when Sanda realised she was all alone, when Biran learned that Sanda was lost, presumed dead. I felt hope when they both found their respective paths to productivity. And then...and then I felt more. So much more. The midway point in this book has so many twists and so many emotions. I can't wait to watch others start to read this so I can see their reactions!
Velocity Weapon is also very dreary. Which is one of my favourite tones to read. Sanda is alone now that she has been asleep for 230 years. So alone. Alone enough that she is doing everything she can to not think about it, to just work on survival. She doesn't want to give up hope that easy. Biran refuses to give up hope as well, and is willing to do absolutely anything he can to find his sister again. Even if it means taking on a political role he doesn't really want and that sounds like it will bite him. 

This also features an amazing ship AI, Bero. Bero is like a cross between my two favourite ships. The first ship is Paragon, from Liveship Traders by Robin Hobb, who is a cross between a child and a man, who is improperly used and is left alone for years. Bero, too, never seems to have "grown up" properly, and suffers from moods due to isolation and ill use. The second ship is Owl from A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, who's only goal is to save a young woman who is left alone in a hostile environment with very limited supplies. Which is almost exactly what Bero is, too. He is awesome and I love him. I need others to love him, too.
This was just absolutely spectacular to read. There were just so many twists and turns in Velocity Weapon. It is a masterfully woven tale that made me, on more than one occasion, yell out in shock. I'm already looking forward to book two! 

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Megan E. O'Keefe, Orbit, and Netgalley for providing the opportunity to review this copy!