Galactic Hellcats

December 14, 2020
Even more fun than the title suggests, Vibbert’s debut is a rip-roaring space heist that details the origins of the Galactic Hellcats gang. Ki’s a street rat who steals, scavenges, and scams to survive, so when she inherits a solo-flyer, designed to carry a single passenger through interstellar space, from a friend, she’s not about to give it up just because a repo man says she has to. After escaping the repo man on the solo-flyer, Ki marks Margot Santiago-Nguyen, a Sol Navy veteran who’s been living with her wealthy parents while searching for a new job, as an easy target for a free dinner—a plan that goes awry when Earth authorities arrive and Ki is forced to flee the scene. Margot impulsively follows, and the pair end up on the planet Ratana, where Margot is promptly arrested by the fascist Ratana government. Ki teams up with Ratanian local Zuleikah Mangan to free her, and in return, Ki and a reluctant Margot agree to help Zuleikah save Ratanian Prince Thane from his abusive family. Tongue-in-cheek humor, delightfully absurd (if sometimes over the top) action, and heartening themes of found family keep the pages turning. With snark and hijinks to spare, this high-flying adventure is sure to entertain.

March 15, 2021
Ki is a young thief and hustler in a far flung future who is desperate to escape her poverty when she inherits an interstellar solo-flyer from her only friend. Margot is a Navy veteran searching for a job and a purpose--and to escape her parents' expectations--when she stops in at a solo-flyer dealership. The two meet up on a joyride and end up fleeing the police to Ratana, where they meet Zuleikah, a woman from a wealthy family looking to escape her boredom. As the three learn about each other and how well they work together, they decide to rescue Prince Thane from his world of brutal political intrigue, whether he wants to be rescued or not. From there, they plunge down an interstellar path of escape, pursuit, and theft. On their solo-flyers, they gain friends, allies, and adventure in pursuit of freedom. Prolific short story writer Vibbert's debut novel is a fun, fast-paced, girl-gang romp that introduces a new universe ripe for further exploration.

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Three very different young women in a space-traveling future form a quasi-successful criminal gang. Set in an unspecified, spacegoing future, Vibbert's novel revolves around the conceit of "solo-flyers"--zippy little one-seater (very occasionally two-seater) minispaceships, capable of faster-than-light travel. The technology occupies a niche akin to that of motorcycles. The author's native Cleveland, Ohio, makes an appearance (pretty much as dingy and unfashionable as the present-day Cleveland) as the territory of Ki, a petite, young petty crook, con artist, and aspiring adventurer, who inherits a swanky solo-flyer from a boyfriend dying of a genetic ailment. While joyriding within the solar system, Ki meets Margot, almost her complete opposite. Former low-ranking military and now unable to find a job, the ultracautious Margot has, untypically, overspent her budget on a solo-flyer; she dreads having to go back and live with her stifling Vietnamese parents on Luna. Ki drags her into a police chase and then a fortune-hunting excursion to the distant, exotic planet of Ratana. There, they find a third kindred spirit, Zuleikah, a poor-little-rich-girl member of Ratana's nobility, for whom solo-flyers are an escape from the boredom of aristocracy. The incorrigible Ki pronounces their trio an official criminal gang--the Galactic Hellcats--and they fumblingly try to pull off their first big caper, the kidnapping of Ratana's handsome Prince Thane. The prince turns out to be gay and closeted, unhappy in his royal role, and a pawn in a brewing palace coup that was going to put him in jeopardy anyway. Not quite as outwardly comedic as it sounds, the material zips along in extravagant space-opera fashion, with the subplot about Prince Thane making a sort of straight-faced salute to vintage Ruritanian adventure yarns of yesteryear. It overall plays breezily and well, considering the author is revisiting a premise she started drafting in adolescence. Fans of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series might take especially well to these idiosyncratic space outlaws, and the material's gender switches on character roles do not feel forced or gimmicky. The result is a noncondescending space ride suitable for savvy YA readers as well as older genre fans. An interplanetary biker-squad romp that's less cheesy than the Russ Meyer-esque premise suggests. (acknowledgments)

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