Velocity Weapon – Megan E. O’Keefe

Sanda and Biran were siblings destined for greatness. Her: a dedicated soldier with the skills to save the universe. Him: a savvy politician with ambitions for changing the course of intergalactic war. 

However, on a routine maneuver, Sanda’s gunship gets blown out of the sky. Instead of finding herself in friendly hands, she awakens 230 years later upon an empty enemy smartship who calls himself Bero. The war is lost. The star system and everyone in it is dead. Ada Prime and its rival Icarion have wiped each other from the universe.

Now, separated by space and time, Sanda and Biran will find a way to put things right. 

Smart, slick sci-fi with brilliant characters and a cracking plot, Velocity Weapon is everything I love about science fiction. The worldbuilding is superb, spanning hundreds of years of political shenanigans and a planetbusting doomsday weapon wouldn’t be amiss in an Iain M. Banks novel.

We’ve also got a super smart ship AI in the form of The Light of Berossus – who prefers to be called Bero, a brilliantly complex character who might just have a little more to him than meets the eye.

The action unfolds across multiple timelines – the ‘now’ of Sanda’s awakening on Bero playing out against the ‘then’ of Sanda’s brother Biran, 230 years earlier when the battle which ended up with Sanda in a survival pod for a couple of centuries. Then there’s a third timeline involving a heist on another world which feels rather disconnected from the main narrative, at least initially. But of course everything is connected…

It’s hard to say too much about Velocity Weapon without spoiling the plot, and it’s really something you need to go into without knowing too much. Suffice it to say that if you like your space opera played out on the grandest, galaxy-spanning stage, with some brilliantly diverse characters and a whip-smart plot, then this book is for you.

Loved it. Ten sentient AIs out of ten. Hugely recommended.

Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O’Keefe is published by Orbit Books. Huge thanks to Nazia Khatun for the advance copy to review.