Jaydium, my debut science fiction novel from back in 1993, was included in a recent StoryBundle. I was pleased to have my book selected but then thought no more about it. Then I saw this review from 2020 by Jemima Pett:
Jaydium starts off on a deadbeat planet with miners slouched around causing havoc in a bar. It sounded terribly familiar. The girl is different, but the arrival of her ex-partner, and his new partner, and his friend, seems to send it off on a trite space romance. This gets worse when the friend insists on helping the girl out by flying duo with her to help her cut some jaydium. Jaydium is much like orichalcum is in my universe, but it enable faster-than-light travel, rather than instantaneous communications. It’s still highly prized and only found in a few places.
At that point I was thinking… meh.
Then it all changed. And then it changed again! I wondered how many changes we were in for, but the development of the later change and the attention to possibilities both sociological and temporal had me completely hooked.
Ms Wheeler writes a mean story, with great action sequences, and she keeps the action going. The relationships develop at a sensible and realistic pace, especially when dealing with four beings out of time with each other. The need for a double helping of translation tech was a nice touch. I would quibble over a few things that needed editing, and I sometimes felt the switched of point of view were confusing. like the author couldn’t quite decide who she’d rather have tell this part of the tale.
There is potential for further adventures of the pair we are left with departing together on a spaceship at the end, but really, I think it would be hard to develop their characters from there. But more convoluted space adventures from Ms Wheeler, please!
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