Name: Killing Gravity
ISBN: 9780765395085

Corey J. White

Mars Xi can kill you with her mind, but she'll need more than psychic powers to save her in Killing Gravity, the thrilling science fiction space adventure debut by Corey J. White. Before she escaped in a bloody coup, MEPHISTO transformed Mariam Xi into a deadly voidwitch. Their training left her with terrifying capabilities, a fierce sense of independence, a deficit of trust, and an experimental pet named Seven. She’s spent her life on the run, but the boogeymen from her past are catching up with her. An encounter with a bounty hunter has left her hanging helpless in a dying spaceship, dependent on the mercy of strangers. Penned in on all sides, Mariam chases rumors to find the one who sold her out. To discover the truth and defeat her pursuers, she’ll have to stare into the abyss and find the secrets of her past, her future, and her terrifying potential. The Voidwitch Saga Book 1: Killing Gravity Book 2: Void Black Shadow At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Killing Gravity

Mars Xi can kill you with her mind, but she'll need more than psychic powers to save her in Killing Gravity, the thrilling science fiction space adventure debut by Corey J. White. Before she escaped in a bloody coup, MEPHISTO transformed Mariam Xi into a deadly voidwitch. Their training left her with terrifying capabilities, a fierce sense of independence, a deficit of trust, and an experimental pet named Seven. She's spent her life on the run, but the boogeymen from her past are catching up with her. An encounter with a bounty hunter has left her hanging helpless in a dying spaceship, dependent on the mercy of strangers. Penned in on all sides, Mariam chases rumors to find the one who sold her out. To discover the truth and defeat her pursuers, she'll have to stare into the abyss and find the secrets of her past, her future, and her terrifying potential.

Ryan LaFerney

Killing Gravity by Corey J. White

Killing Gravity by Corey J. White (2017), the first entry in the Voidwitch Saga, is a tight scifi novella, that is an enjoyable blend of pulp space opera action and cyberpunk aesthetics. The story is about Mariam Xi (“Mars”), who is a voidwitch, a posthuman weapon with strong telekinetic powers. She was transformed into this “weapon” by an evil militaristic lab (named MEPHISTO). She eventually escaped and has lived life on the run, trying to escape run-ins with a bounty hunter. We find her at the beginning of the novella hanging helpless in a dying spaceship, after an encounter with a bounty hunter, dependent on the mercy of any spaceship that will rescue her. When she's picked up by a small spaceship crew who befriend her it's the first in a series of events where she learns more about her past and confronts the people who are pursuing her and would use her for their own ends. With the revelations of her past, Mars story quickly becomes one of reuniting and revenge. 

This is a tight story that gives the barest sketches of the Empire that these people live in while providing plenty of detail on the immediately relevant stuff. Characterization of Mars and her friends is also great and done in a very small space. The comparisons are true. Mars and her friends do remind me of the crew in Firefly. They’re all a bit eccentric, grumpy, familial - the way Mal and the good folks aboard Serenity are. Plus River Tam and Mars have a bit in common. White handles gender norms and sexuality particularly well through low-key commentary. Various forms of sexuality and gender identity appear to be ubiquitous in the universe White establishes. These sorts of lifestyles/preferences are just part of the everyday experience in this space adventure. 

While the story isn’t completely fresh (villains treating humans as military experiments, protagonists with telekinetic powers, etc. are all very old sci-fi tropes), this novella, while not completely original, is still entertaining. It’s pulpy, thrilling, violent, and often touching.

And did I mention Mars has a cat-like pet named Seven? What's not to love?

Sarah Escorsa

Let's see, what can I say about this literary masterpiece? Well, there's about zero world-building. And the characters are all unlikable as fish. And so one-dimensional that they're flatter than my favorite herd of ironing boards. (Then again everything is flat in this book/world/whatever, so maybe the cast is just trying real hard to practice mimicry.) Also, the storyline is about as interesting as watching lethargic barnacles go into hibernation.



What else? Well, the author obviously attended a How to Write More Diverse and Inclusive Books 101 class before writing this fascinating story, because we've got a) a non-binary character, b) gay/bisexual/whatever/choose all that apply characters, c) disabled/physically impaired characters and d a Space Kitty Thingie (SKT™) character. While I commend Mr White's efforts in terms of diversity (especially when it comes to the SKT™, since puny humans have the revolting tendency to completely ignore the—superior—animal kingdom in their books—as my murderous children will attest to), doing so as if going through a checklist defeats the purpose and feels ridiculously fabricated, contrived, forced and generally artificial and unnatural and stuff.



But hey, it's not ALL bad. Of course not. There's something to be learned from every single book one reads and something positive to get out of the experience. In this particular case, I learned that it was probably not a good idea to read another book by Corey J. White. "What about the something positive," you ask? Well, the book was free. (view spoiler)[Ha! (hide spoiler)]

P.S. Not even the delicious gore and lovely violence made this story work better for me. This should tell you something, methinks.

Scott Vandehey

I grabbed the first book of this series after reading this recommendation from Warren Ellis:

…As modern a piece of genre pop space opera as you’ll find this summer, with a nicely diverse cast, a cute space ferret of death and a female protagonist most often referred to as a void-damned space witch.

I mean, who could pass that up? Then, as if to hammer the recommendation home, I saw it in a twitter list of “novels where a woman with a mysterious past joins a spaceship of 3-4 quirky chosen family and gets gay with a crewmember.”

I’m happy to say it doesn’t disappoint. It’s fast, fun, satisfying, and I sure hope some TV studio out there is grabbing the rights because it would make a phenomenal series in the style of the Expanse.

Melissa Eder

This was better than I expected. It was dark, gritty sci-fi, and kinda what I hoped "The long way to a small angry planet" would be like like.
That being said, I thought the solutions at the end where a bit too easy and it didn't move me as much as I wanted it to, but it was still highly enjoyable.