I loved this! Great for fans of Becky Chambers. It's not a perfect novel but really impressive for a debut and I'm sure to keep an eye on future work from Ren Hutchings.

This was a wonderful book from start to finish. It was very easy to read. There is a lot of character work in this and it builds up. Most of the action wasn't until the last 25% of the book, but I'm OK with that. I did see the main romantic interest early on. It was very developed and everything flowed seamlessly. There were lots of surprises along the way, too. 5 out 5 would recommend to any sci-fi reader. You don't have to be into hard or military sci-fi to enjoy this book. It was a very complete, start to finish and wrapped up rather nicely.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

Not only is this my first five star read of the year, it's also my favourite sci-fi since The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet!

Under Fortunate Stars is part space opera, part time traveling adventure. I was a bit confused after the first chapters, then it all clicked into place. 😅 I often find time travel difficult and annoying but this was so well written and made sense to me! 😄

I don't want to say too much about the plot, but basically a large research ship and a junk freighter from different times end up in the same rift of time out of contact with their networks and one rescues the other. As it transpires, the little freight ship was of major historical significance - but they don't know that yet! The story is told in past and present, and it's just super cool!

I'm grateful to @netgalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Under Fortunate Stars' expected publication date is 10th May 2022. Sci-fi fans, I suggest you pre-order a copy! I mean just look at that cover too 😍😍

The crew of the Gallion was not expecting to get sent back in time, but they find something else equally unexpected in the form of a ship crewed by the most famous people in existence; the ones who stopped the war. The only problem is that their engines are not working and they have no connection to the network. Backup power will not last forever. Also, the ‘Fortunate Five’ are not AT ALL what they expected!

I absolutely love the writing style of this book. It is really easy to follow and kept me engaged the entire time. The story is a common one for sci-fi tropes, but it has a nice twist that makes it unique and keeps it fresh and interesting.

The characters are a lot of fun. I enjoy their personalities and the way they playoff each other and live in the world so well. It has excellent world building without being too wordy or detailed. You get the information that you need to understand the story in the form of one of the crew being a history enthusiast with a very narrow interest. It flows quite well.

I did figure out the ending about half way through the book, but the ending had some fun twists and unexpected turns. Overall, I enjoyed the book and I would recommend it to anyone who likes space operas or sci-fi!

This book was my first Sci-fi. From the beginning I really enjoyed the overall plot and the characters within. Jareth Keeven is one of my characters and the sneaky romance Hutchings wrote in was was adorable. The reason why I can't rate this higher than 3.5 is that I felt that the overall story was somehow too long? I feel that the book spent more time with characters walking around the ship then actually doing anything. The overall "mission" that the first portion of the book was leading up to was so good but I thought it was rushed because the first 70ish part of the book was just slow and unnecessary (in my opinion). This book also had a split time-line layout that I didn't think was necessary.. I found myself wanting to skip through the chapters that took place in the past because they just didn't do anything for me. I think they could've been told in a different way. Overall, I did enjoy this book (even though it might seem like I didn't) I will happily pick up more books from the author.

A massive thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this review copy!

What a story, and so complex! It’s a great debut.

This is a time-travelling, fast-moving and compelling book. I loved the characters so much!

I loved Jereth the most. I wanted to yell and laugh all at the same time.

I really enjoyed it, and feel like I’ve found yet another great author. I’m sure I will like every book he writes (when you know, you know). I liked his writing style too.

A highly entertaining space adventure with a great hook and a fun plot! Kereth, Shaan and Leeg were well-crafted characters and overall it was a pleasure to read.

Thanks for the ARC!

Under Fortunate Stars is a survival story about two groups from different points in history coming together to escape a time anomaly before it kills them all. If you like time travel, stories set in deep space, flawed heroes, the history books getting it wrong, and a full cast of characters forging friendships and more, I think you'll really like this book.

I was so relieved to find a story about time travel that I really enjoyed. It's a trope I don't typically read just because of how often it's used, but this story handles it in a way that feels fresh. In fact, I wouldn't necessarily call this a time travel story - that trope is what sets the stage of the novel, but really this book is about survival where friendships and relationships are formed between a mysterious group of legendary people (The Fortunate Five) and a group of scientists who are trying to figure out how the two groups were brought together in the first place. A good portion of the novel takes place in backstory chapters leading up to The Fortunate Five's disappearance inside The Rift (the rift in time), so we get to learn more about these flawed heroes and grow attached to them. What I especially like about this book is that it has a large cast of compelling people, so each reader can have their favorite character since so many of the characters are equally interesting (I really liked Leesongronski and Uma). Uma and Shaan, the primary POV characters, had great arcs, one of whom gets to meet their favorite hero from history and learns just how flawed that person really is, and the other who is haunted by a tragic secret she's never been able to get over.

I loved the voice, the story was well paced, and I will definitely be reading future books by Ren.

This is basically a time warp story about an encounter within a “rift of time/space” that throws two ships from different times together. The context is a war between humans and a telepathic alien in the past where a roguish space crew becomes the key to peace … provided the “future” space crew can figure out who they are and convince them to play along with destiny. The only problem … the heroes of the day are more rogues than saviors … and that would give anybody trust issues. We learn more about this crew with frequently flashbacks that get a little tiresome and the frat house humor begins to annoy by the end … however, despite the ticking clock on life support, everything pretty much goes the way you would expect … and the ending was rather abrupt and unsatisfactory for me … so I am rounding down here.

I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
#UnderFortunateStars #NetGalley.

This is a great book. I really enjoyed it and how it moved along at a great pace. The characters are well developed and the story is packed with action and adventure. The authors do a great job delivering a story with a solid plot and interesting subplots. Can't wait for future novels.

"Whatever happens, I am proud of you. All of you. We existed. We made a difference"

Under Fortunate Stars tells the story of two crews from different points in time that somehow end up meeting through a weird spacetime anomaly, and who realize that history might not be exactly as the records say. As both crews work together to escape the anomaly, which they call the Rift, and to ensure that history does not go astray, we learn more about their individual members' pasts and secrets.

This book has it all: gorgeous writing, lovely characters, terrifying mysteries, and just the tiniest dash of romance. I was completely hooked after just a few chapters, trying to figure out how the different characters fit into the future's apparently warped view of history, as well as what made them into the people they had become. The pieces of the story slowly fell into place, and despite having guessed some of the twists I had to take a moment to process the full picture in the end, because of how masterfully the story had been crafted. It was also incredibly easy to fall in love with most of the characters (please give Uma a break), even if they sometimes acted in non-ideal ways, and their interactions were super fun to read.

The only problem I had were the few times more science-y terms were used, which felt a bit confusing, and that I kind of wished there was more of a found family element to the story (which is on me for not managing my expectations and researching the book more), but the overall reading experience was great.

All in all, this was an absolutely stellar (pun absolutely intended) read. Aside from some darker moments, the story felt full of hope, and if you're a space opera or adventure fan I'm sure you will love it as much as I did.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I really would rate this 4.5 stars, as I enjoyed the novel immensely. It has quite a few point-of-view characters, with the story being told both in the present, and via flashbacks that touch upon and amplify characters' actions/motivations. The ending was, perhaps, a little bit of a letdown (for me), just because I wanted the story to be presented in a certain way, and the author opted to end it differently (nothing wrong with that, and if there's a sequel in the works, which I'm hoping for, perhaps I'll get my way via flashbacks in that book...or, perhaps not, which is fine, lol. I just want more stories from this author!). Oh, one last thing. After finishing the book, it occurred to me that it had a vibe that was similar to another book I love, A Talent for War by Jack McDevitt, so if anyone has read that and enjoyed it, I think you'll like Under Fortunate Stars quiet a lot.

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. I will update Netgalley once I read & review a physical copy.

My review will be based on the physical ARC I read.

Time travel sagas are my thing and this was a fast-pace, well-written novel. I think space opera fans will enjoy this truly. Think of the twists and turns in this book as a spaceship ride. I love how the genres (mystery, action, etc) all came together seamlessly. Such a fun, unforgettable read. Looking forward to what Ren Hutchings has in store!

Full review to come!

As a huge fan of all things time travel, from chronal loops to temporal distortions, I loved the set-up here. It opens the door to an inventive sci-fi narrative that, while a lot of fun, also explores headier themes related to how perspectives shape history and the human flaws and frailties that reside within the heroes we worship. The author does a nice job of introducing a fascinating future world, its backstory and politics, while also offering up a cast of intriguing, mostly relatable characters. All of the pieces are there for an engaging adventure but, as the story unfolds, it becomes evident that one crucial element is missing: the clever plotting that typifies the very best of this SF sub-genre. Specifically... When it comes to writing, my pet peeves are something I call the Three C’s - coincidence, conveniences, and contrivances. They’re not quite as objectionable if they serve to complicate matters for our protagonist, but when they help our protagonist achieve their goal, it’s the equivalent of writing taking a shortcut. You’re robbing the reader of a dramatically satisfying journey in which our hero earns their victory rather than having it fall into their lap through fortuitous events.

UNDER FORTUNATE STARS is a book that is at once about the past catching up to you, but also about forming your own future—figuratively and literally. It weaves many backstories together to develop excellent, rich characters with complex pasts, full of traumas, past relationships, and regrets.

In this way, it’s a very personal novel. While we don’t get to know all characters on this personal level, it really does work with the ones we do. It’s also a very “big” book, about people literally saving human civilization. Full of doubts, human heroes, time travel, and hope.

Very well plotted (there’s a lot of coincidences, but they felt logical in the context of the story… Might break the story for some other people, however) with a bit of a puzzle throughout the entire thing.

Great debut!

Disclaimer: I received an ARC for this book in exchange of an honest review.

I read this book in one sitting—and I knew this was gonna be the case after reading the first couple of chapters. Why? Because the tension in this book is off the charts. It’s in every single chapter, on every single page, even across several POVs. Hutchings is a master of microtension as well as macrotension, and you feel it from the second you lay eyes on their words. The stakes are palpable and high as all hell, but presented to you through a narrow, character-oriented scope. Add in that Hutchings is a master of subtext and narrative omission, and you have the perfect locked-room mystery on hand.

But it’s not a locked-room mystery in the traditional sense. A lot of the elements are there, however, to give the illusion of it. It reminds me a lot of Harrow the Ninth, in fact, in that there’s that same feeling of being trapped in a (space) place with the risk of death imminent until a mystery is figured out. In this case, the mystery isn’t a traditional mystery. It's more a matter of figuring out how to survive, but the characters are shrouded in so much in mystery themselves that it feels less like they’re trying to survive, and more like they’re trying to hide from each other and themselves. Hutchings unveils the flawed and complicated history of the characters throughout the entire book, adding a locked-room feeling not just to the external plot, but also to the internal character arcs. It feels a little like a puzzle being pieced together backwards, if such a thing was physically possible.

At this point, I should probably include that a lot of this mystery (both external and internal) derives from Hutchings's expert play with time as a concept. The motley cast of the book are on a mission to restore the past in order to secure the future—but not in the traditional sense here, either. Hutching plays with the time travel trope that “altering history will alter the future”—but they put a spin on it. The spin is that no one travels back in time. Rather, people from different timelines end up accidentally in a timeless existence relative to each other. In a sort of limbo-space (read: an anomalous energy field) that’s neither the present, the past, nor the future, but timeless. Connective tissue between the past, present, and future, we could call it. And here people from different timelines in the same universe collide. The people from the future want to mold the people from the past into fitting history, whereas the people from the past reject the history that the people from the future are trying to squeeze them into. It’s a truly fascinating play of character motivations and stakes—especially once you realize that righting the timelines to their natural states is necessary to prevent annihilation of humanity and stop a past/present/future war between humanity and an alien species.

Loyalty, loss, and legend make up the thematic core of this book. It’s about the choices you didn’t make, and those you did. It’s about living up to being a legend, learning to live with loss, and understanding the sacrifices that loyalty demands and willingly making them. It also raises questions about chance, luck, and destiny. Most interestingly, the book highlights the power of communication as a theme, slotting the alien species into the position of sympathizer rather than the humans by making the alien species regretful over the lives lost once they realize humans are sentient via—you guessed it—communication. Cross-species communication, of course, but communication nonetheless.

Then there’s the twist at the end of the book. It blew my mind. While Hutchings doesn’t use a 100% unreliable narrator (like, we’re not talking Gatsby and Shutter Island level, you know?), the feeling is there towards the end. This is mostly because pivotal information is omitted from the reader until the very end where it serves as a wild twist of a perfect answer to everything. And because the omission is driven by a character’s denial and willful ignorance, it feels less like an unreliable narrator than if the character had deliberately lied to the reader.

As for comps, some of the character dynamics reminded me a lot of the Star Trek reboots—which I absolutely love—and the ending of the book paradoxically reminded me a lot of the beginning of the movie Gravity (2013). Last, but not least, we have stellar LGBTQIA and diversity rep.

If you like mysteries in space and time, with a heavy dose of existentialist dread and deeply flawed, but admirable character dynamics, then this book is for you.

Got an ARC from Netgalley.
Would recommend to fans of Firefly, Star Trek and maybe Becky Chambers. A band of rogues and a science vessel from 150 years in the future hit a worm hole and end up in sub-space. They, then combine their resources to get back.
Overall I liked this. It was a take on time travel that I don’t think I’ve read before. It managed to avoid all the clichés like the grandfather-paradox. The science wasn’t over-explained, but at the same time easy enough for anyone to understand, sci-fi and non sci-fi reader alike.
The characters were likeable, albeit a little tropey. For example, you have Jereth the cavalier leader and Leeg the quiet genius. (Not sure, but I think Leeg is autistic. Bonus points for the possible autism rep). There was good use of flashbacks to help contextualise the characters and their motives.
The book was more character driven than plot driven. So it might not be for everyone. Fans of Becky Chambers might appreciate it more.
A fairly decent story, for a debut novel.

Date finished: 21/12/2021
Date published/released: 10th May 2022

4.5⭐
📱

Thank you to Netgalley for approving this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was really excited when I found this one on Netgalley. A sci-fi with a hint of mystery. And it didn't let me down at all. I was absolutely hooked on this one from the start.

I loved all the characters (expect for one). Loved how they interacted with each other.
I really enjoyed the flashbacks, which goes into more detail about each character and how they ended up where they are.

I did find the mystery element a tad predicable. However, I still really enjoyed the journey the book took me on.

After reading way too many SF books by cis white dudes, I’m willing to give almost any space opera written by a woman a chance, but the time-travel paradox bent to this one had me especially intrigued.

Hutchings builds two varied and vibrant worlds – future and even more future – as well as multiple locations within those worlds and the space within the rift, a great backdrop for a story with some really relatable characters and a plot that relied on physics but wasn’t full of technobabble. The story was focused on the who and the why more than the how, but I never felt like it was glossing over the how in a dismissive way. If anything, Hutchings seems to know what she’s talking about, but also knows how much detail to give without getting overly technical.

Most of the main characters are fully realized and complicated, though one struck me as uneven and less nuanced than I wanted them to be. I’m sure that was partly intentional, but some of their transitions felt too abrupt to me. Most of the secondary characters were quite nuanced as well, which made the ones that weren’t stand out more than they might otherwise have done. My only other issue was that that plot felt a bit predictable, but then Hutchings managed to surprise me at the end. I love it when I think I know exactly what’s going on, then end up shouting “OH! Wait, WHAT?!” Definitely makes it worthwhile!

All in all, this is a really good read with great worldbuilding and a satisfyingly complex plot and characters. I look forward to seeing what Hutchings puts out next.

Thanks to NetGalley and Rebellion/Solaris for allowing me access to an ARC so I could review it!