The ending could be interpreted as a beginning of sorts: perhaps there will be a part two for readers to eagerly look forward to. She’s earned it through merit, and her skills bring the story together. Genevieve Autumn is a First Officer, and she absolutely deserves her position. Not often are science fiction stories told through the lens of a female character who is more than just a pretty face. If you are looking for an exciting science fiction book that will keep you engaged and on your toes as you flip through the pages, then you must pick up a copy of Taken Away by London Knight. There is a bigger conspiracy at play here and a much bigger reveal the deeper you travel within these pages. It seems like everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, but that is just the beginning.

And that’s just what happens at the start. There are problems with the ship, with the sleep, with the awakening of the crew, and the unexpected side effect they find themselves experiencing after their freezing. The excitement is present from the get-go and doesn’t stop. It has been done before, but Knight peppers the awakening of the team with an interesting side effect that hasn’t been done before. London Knight does a great job building the characters that will carry this story and gives a slightly different twist to the trope of a space crew that is frozen for a big adventure. This style of narration lends a sense of ownership to the reader. The world of Taken Away is carefully constructed and told in the first person. But the conspiracies have been in play for much longer than we realize, as the cryogenic sleep that was supposed to support Genevieve and her crew until they reached their planet of salvation goes wrong, and the new world is more hostile than they expected. With the building blocks of so many preceding science-fiction tales firmly supporting it, we travel on an adventure that takes us across the universe and spans hundreds of years. A dying planet: a desperate race for resources out there in the vast blackness of space.

A fantastic race through space told from the first-person perspective of First Officer Genevieve Autumn graces the pages of Taken Away by London Knight.

Space opera novel