#Review - Pax Novis by Erica Cameron #YA #SyFy

Series: The Pax Archives # 1
Format: E-Galley, 400 pages
Release Date:  November 4th 2019
Publisher: Entangled: Teen
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult / Science Fiction

A gritty sci-fi thriller trapped onboard a spaceship with a ticking clock and a forbidden romance, for fans of Illuminae and Carve the Mark.

Cira Antares has disavowed all ties to any planet. Her citizenship and loyalty are tied to only the Pax Novis—a treaty ship from a fleet of cargo transports carrying supplies across war-torn star systems.
 
For years, Cira has been violating intersystem treaties to sneak war-orphaned children on board. Some she takes somewhere safer. Some stay. Like Riston, who's been hidden on Pax Novis for three years. He’s been her main ally in helping pilfer supplies for the others and making sure the ship’s tech doesn’t pick up their presence.

But Pax-class ships start disappearing, leaving nothing but a radiation signature. It’s clear Pax Novis is next when the ship’s systems start breaking down. Someone is sabotaging the treaty ships. Cira and her stowaways know the ship’s passages and secrets even better than the crew—they’ve lived in her tunnels for years. They’re the ship’s best hope. But time is running out and the crew is searching for traitors. If they can’t catch the attacker first, treason charges won’t be the worst they face. The entire ship, everyone on board, and the stowaways themselves may simply disappear.
 

Pax Novis is the first installment in author Erica Cameron's The Pax Archives series. The story largely takes place onboard the spaceship Pax Novis and told by Ensign Cira Antares, the daughter of the Captain and Chief Engineer, and Riston, a stowaway and war orphan. The story also includes documents like communication transcripts and news articles to give the reader a broader understanding what has taken place and what is happening to other Pax ships. They also give indications as to who the real enemies are in this universe.

For Riston, Tinker, Treble, Shadow, and Greenie, the only safe place to be in the universe is onboard a Pax ship. It is fair to say that Riston's group is the most interesting, especially those like Tinker and Greenie who are brilliant. All of the stowaways have suffered various forms of trauma, from seeing their homes and families destroyed in a war to child abuse, but were generally trying to make the best of it on the Pax Novis. That is until they are blamed for items on the ship going missing, following by other Pax ships disappearing leaving only a radiation signature behind.

The group independently tries to trap the villain in order to prove they are innocent. The person sabotaging their ship is tricky and smart and always one step ahead of them. Riston's group knows its passages and secrets better than most of the crew, especially since Riston has been onboard the longest. The clever use of technology and a ticking clock add to the high-stakes, entertaining brain game of the plot. When the group suffers a great loss, Riston comes out into the open. This is bad news since now any stowaways found can be put in a cell for a month, or executed by the commanding officer. This also puts the spotlight on Cira's actions.

Cira is the youngest officer onboard. Unfortunately, she has no hope of going any further up the chain unless she transfers to a Space Station and away from her family. Cira also has a cybernetic arm as a result of a birth defect. She has been committing treason by harboring the stowaways and providing them with food to survive until she can find them another home. Her family and her ship are basically her whole life since nobody in this universe has any loyalty to any particular planet. She’s convinced she doesn’t have room for anything else, including her crush on Riston. 

Her weakness is that she's quick to jump to conclusions believing the stowaways are guilty based on flawed evidence. She eventually redeems herself by working with Riston and the others to suss out the villain, but she loses respect from much of the crew, including the Captain and others she's supposed to be trusted by. There's a bit of romance, but it’s very mild and more of the pining-from-afar sort. This story works way too hard to be inclusive to everyone. So, Cira has two moms, and considers herself to be asexual. Riston and another character are apparently non-binary, even though there are parts that clearly related to calling them either he, or she. 

Without reservation, the last chapters of this book were the most exciting to read. Otherwise, the pacing is really slow to the point of abandoning the story for something else and then coming back to it.

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