Avalon (Avalon, #1)

by Mindee Arnett

For fans of Josh Whedon's cult classic television show Firefly comes a fascinating and fast-paced sci-fi thriller from author Mindee Arnett, which New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White calls "a heart-pounding, tense joyride of a novel."

Jeth Seagrave and his crew have made their name stealing metatech: the devices that allow people to travel great distances faster than the speed of light. In a world where the agencies that patrol the outer edges of space are as corrupt as the crime bosses who control them, it's as much of a living as anyone can ask for. For years Jeth's managed to fly under the radar of the government that executed his parents for treason—but when he finds himself in possession of information that both the government and the crime bosses are willing to kill for, he's going to find there's no escaping his past anymore.

With pulse-pounding action, a captivating mystery, and even a bit of romance, Avalon is the perfect read for hard-core sci-fi fans and non-sci-fi fans alike.

• ISBN10: 0062235591
• ISBN13: 9780062235596
• Publish Date: 21 January 2014
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 432
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

Imagine the crew of Firefly as teenagers and send them to the Bermuda Triangle of space. You've got Avalon! Jeth, his sister, and a few more teens make up a group of professional thieves. The crew steals ships and brings them back to the crime lord, Hammer. Jeth has been taking all the jobs possible so he can buy back his parents' ship, Avalon. Well, Hammer has a very special mission for Jeth. One that will earn him enough to get Avalon, if he survives it. They have to take Avalon out to the Belgrave, an area of space known to cause ships and their passengers to disappear, plus other weird happenings. Avalon has been equipped with special upgrades that allow it to safely pass through Belgrave, but that doesn't help Jeth and his crew when they find their target ship with long-thought dead passengers still roaming on it.

Avalon was nonstop action and fun! It's set about 500 years in the future and humans have colonized new planets all throughout space. Metatech allows them to hop great distances in the blink of an eye, but something is going wrong with this technology. No one really understands how it works or how to fix it, but that's one of the mysteries that Jeth and his crew stumble upon during their mission. They're suppose to find a missing ship that contains a very dangerous weapon and bring it back. Well, they find the ship, but from there nothing goes right. There's mutiny, a creepy kid, dark secrets, space fights, and much more! I was never bored and had to keep reading, since there were so many twists and turns!

There's really not much else I want to say about Avalon. It's a super fun space adventure, full of amazing new technology, conspiracies, and science! I did figure out one twist, since I feel like it's very obvious (especially if you've seen Firefly), but everything else was a surprise!

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[KitsuneBae]

This review first appeared on: Thoughts and Pens.

I really don’t know what to expect in a book that is recommended to the fans of Joss Whedon’s cult hit show Firefly. Yes, I know Joss Whedon’s the celebrated director of the box office hit The Avengers but Firefly? Nope. Nonetheless, I picked this up because it’s sci-fi and the premise is appealing.

I must admit, however, that when I went into Avalon, I had some doubts that it might not live up to its stellar GR rating or to its interesting synopsis. Let’s face it, sci-fi is an overdone genre and almost everything about it has already been explored by a lot of authors. But pals, Avalon turned out to be everything that I want in a sci-fi book. It’s stimulating, mysterious and full of adrenaline.

The first book in a series, Avalon is a story of teenage mercenaries who are tasked to pull off a heist on one of the forbidden planets in the intergalactic system, the Belgrave (it’s the outer space version of the Bermuda Triangle). While the mission is clearly doomed from the start, Jeth Seagrave and his crew still pursued it in the hopes of finally getting their freedom and Avalon (the spaceship previously owned by Jeth’s parents) from their master, Hammer.

Avalon’s beginning immediately drew me in. It was strong and immediately showed us how Jeth and his crew worked as a group of teenage thieves outwitting planetary officials. Factor in that the story was told from Jeth’s (a male MC) POV—a bit rare in YA books these days—I found it hard to put the book down. Jeth and his thieving crew were a bunch of adorable characters and there was never a moment that I got confused about who’s who.

I must warn you though that Jeth is not someone who could easily be loved by everyone. On one hand, he’s a very family oriented person who is always looking after the welfare of his sister and crew members. Not to mention that he’s defiant and very loyal to those he loves. On the other one, him being a leader of a big time heist group didn’t sit right with me. In the book, he was described as Hammer’s new Golden Boy which, I would assume, means that he’s extraordinarily cunning, wise and able to achieve feats of mindblowing thievery that would put Ocean’s Eleven or Lupin’s gang to shame. Or I could be ambitious here and compare him to Artemis Fowl. Instead, I saw an incompetent leader who has the habit of making unwise decisions. All throughout the story, he always got out of tight situations because of Sierra or his crew’s talents. And if you ask me, Jeth is more of a liability than an important role player to the group. Why would I say that? Every time he made a decision, just expect that on the next day, some psycho is chasing them around space because he failed to use his brain.

Anyway, enough of Jeth and let’s move on to the villains. While Mindee failed to create a totally lovable MC, she, however, succeeded in creating 3D antagonists in the persons of Hammer and Renford. Guys, they’re psychos who wouldn’t hesitate to spill the first blood.

The world created by Arnett in Avalon was also beautiful albeit the lacklustre description of the space vessels. Well, if you consider “old floor…rusty pipes… messy rooms… old furniture” a fitting way to describe spaceships then Arnett must have done her job well. Kidding aside, this can be easily overlooked since the other technological advances and the new planetary system were interesting enough to take my mind off the spaceships.

The plot was definitely engaging and in my opinion, is the greatest asset of Avalon. It’s a mixture of politics, mindblowing twists and a planet-worth of mystery that would leave you panting until the very end. The action scenes were well done and would leave no room for you to breathe. The sci-fi element was thoroughly explained without resorting to dreaded info dumps or hard to understand explanations.

Avalon, however, is not without its faults. For one, it didn’t offer any back story as to what happened to the First Earth. Or what drove people to explore and live in new planets. But I guess I can ignore that since we still have books 2 and 3 to explore the said insufficiency. And lastly, Avalon’s romance, if not crap, is not something to be emulated by other books. It was instalovey and was haphazardly inserted into the story. It was dismal and awkward. While it didn’t become the focus of the book, I can’t deny that it was frustrating and easily forgettable. In fact, Arnett could have done a far better job if she just opted to exclude it from the story. Don’t get me wrong though, I am all for romance… I live for it as long as it’s done well…as long as it isn’t destructive. But if an author would just make a lousy job out of it, then nope.

All in all, Avalon has made it to my to-follow series list. Yes, there were snags along the way but the whole journey was all worth it. If you’re a sci-fi junkie who is need of a good fix, then don’t hesitate to rush to your local bookstores and get Avalon.

***An ARC for this book was provided by the publisher via Netgalley through Edelweiss. Thank you Balzer and Bray and Harper Collins!***

[jnikkir]

This review can also be found at my blog, There were books involved...

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Actual rating: 3.5 stars

Avalon was one of my most anticipated releases of 2014, thanks to the gorgeous cover and the blurb's comparisons to Firefly, which is one of my favorite TV shows of all time. Unfortunately, dear Firefly fans, you are probably going to want to dramatically lower your expectations of Avalon, because I feel like that's where my disappointment stems from. I over-hyped this book in my head, and ultimately made it impossible for the book to live up to my expectations.

But I don't want to start with the bad. I did really like a lot about this book! For one thing, the plot and pacing were fantastic. I know a lot of people have mentioned that there's a point near the middle where a lot changes, plot-wise, and a lot of people didn't like where things went, or the pacing after that point, or something... But honestly, even watching out for that, I didn't see that at all. I really loved everything about the plot - the beginning has fun heists and is a little lighter, but the stakes get higher in the second half, and there are tons of twists and turns and things that I never saw coming, so I actually really enjoyed it.

I also loved Avalon's crew and the group dynamics. Admittedly, they weren't as amazing as Firefly, but I found the larger group interactions really entertaining and realistic. I loved the banter between everyone, and all the characters' distinct personalities. The dialog especially really stood out to me in places. Though later in the book, there are some definite info-dumps, both from the good guys and from the bad guys, which did annoy me. But for the most part, I thought it was well done.

And of course, being a sci-fi fan, I am also a sucker for a good spacey setting. Avalon takes place mostly in space, with plenty of spaceships, spaceports, and even some spacewalks; so I was a very happy camper in that regard. ;)

However, there were quite a few issues that I really can't overlook, even though they are mostly results of my super high expectations.

Even though I loved the setting, I still think there could've been more description in many regards. I never really got a good feel for what Avalon (the ship, not the book) looks like, and that's kind of a huge deal. I mean, it's the title of the book -- and does it have anything to do with the (gorgeous, but inexplicable) cover? Is that actually part of the ship? or just random prettiness? Still unclear. But as a fan of Firefly, where the look of the ship is so iconic, I was definitely hoping for more details in that regard. As it is, I wouldn't even be able to draw a rough sketch of Avalon, even after keeping an eye out for clear descriptions throughout the book.

In addition to expecting a bit more from Avalon herself, I also expected a lot more heart in the characters. Especially as things were revealed about the plot, and the characters' closer-than-expected ties to it. (Sorry that was vague, but I don't want to give anything away.) I guess what was lacking, for me, was any sort of deep character attachment or ~feels~. I didn't get hugely emotionally attached to any of the characters in this book except for Cora (an adorable little girl who ends up tagging along with the crew). Usually, lack of feels is a huge turnoff for me, but my enjoyment of the rest of the book still let me continue on, thankfully. I just had to accept that most of the characters were what they appeared to be at face-value, and consciously stopped myself from getting hung up on lack of deep character development. They were enjoyable and interesting, and that was okay.

One interesting thing about the "let's take things at face-value" approach, was that I didn't see many of the twists coming (which was good) but I also feel like I should have, and probably would've, if I'd been more invested in the characters. But the story and plot didn't take much to follow along, and I didn't really invest much brain-power into trying to figure out what was happening.

There were also a few things in Avalon that I had also noticed in The Nightmare Affair, which was the first book of Mindee Arnett's that I read. The first thing I noticed was that a lot of the phrases used to describe things, strike me as a little weird. There were a bunch of sentences I highlighted in my eARC, but one of them was, "All the air vaporized from inside Jeth's lungs," to show that Jeth is surprised and possibly afraid. I'm not even sure if that use of "vaporized" technically makes any sense, but it definitely strikes me as odd. Obviously this is a quote from an eARC, and it's just one small example, but I remember thinking the same thing about a lot of the phrasing in The Nightmare Affair, too. So I think there's something about Arnett's writing that sometimes hits a little off-key for me.

Also, as with The Nightmare Affair, I felt like the subject and the overall tone of the book was more juvenile, but there are instances of harsher language and violence that otherwise didn't seem to fit with that lighter tone. It's really hard to explain, but there just seemed to be something of a disconnect there. I'd expect those things in a more thoroughly gritty novel. I might have even preferred a grittier, more mature feel to this book overall, and then those things wouldn't have seemed so out of place.

 

In conclusion...

If you're one of the many people who are just dying to get your hands on this book, and especially if that anticipation has anything to do with the Firefly comparisons, I just have one piece of advice: Lower your expectations. Like, a lot. For me, the best things about Firefly were the heart, the character development, and the absolutely perfect dialog. Okay, and also the fact that it's a freaking space western, because hello who doesn't love cowboys in space?

Anyway. I built up my expectations of Avalon to Firefly-standards, and though I enjoyed Avalon overall, I still feel like I would've liked it a heck of a lot more if it had never been compared to Firefly in the first place. There are a lot of things to like about Avalon; it's a fun and fast-paced read. But I never felt a strong connection to any of the characters, and I was never really glued to the pages for the plot alone. I'm still on the fence about how interested I am in the sequel (another familiar feeling, after reading The Nightmare Affair -- and I never did pick up TNA's sequel). But this first book was light and entertaining, and I'm definitely glad I gave it a shot. I just wish I could've gotten Firefly out of my head in the process.

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There were books involved...

[Amber]

Avalon is on a lot of people's most anticipated books for this year, and I can say that I am almost certain that most people will end up really enjoying it. Science fiction is my favourite genre, and Avalon is packed full of space-y goodness. You sci-fi fans should definitely give it a go, and even if you're hesitant towards the genre, you should know that it's not necessarily the sci-fi element that makes it fantastic. Sure, it's set in space and there are spaceships, but the most important part of the plot is the family part. The action is pretty good too.

Avalon reminds me a lot of These Broken Stars in that way that it pulled me into the story. I was sucked in right away, and I especially enjoyed the fact that there was minimal romance, and more teenage criminals. I don't know about you, but thieves/pirates will always be my downfall.

Avalon is packed full of action, and I found it to be a hard book to put down. There was so much going on without having the relationships being overridden. There were gun fights, impressive escapes, some exploring... it was all going on and I loved it. There was even a twist that I didn't see coming, even though now that I think about it it was totally obvious, in an "in plain sight" kind of way. Those are the best kinds of twists because they mess with my brain.

The romance, as I said, wasn't a huge focus. It took a back seat to the overall theme of family, and I really appreciated that Mindee Arnett did that, especially in a space adventure. I thought that the romance was a bit rushed for my liking, and I didn't feel any chemistry between the two characters. While I really liked them both individually, I didn't see any chemistry or connection there. I am a fan of slow relationships, though, so almost everything is too fast for me.

Jeth was a really good main character. I enjoyed reading about his backstory and his inner conflict when it came to making decisions for the group of teenagers that he travelled with. We also got some brief history on the other characters that he was with, and I hope to see more of them in the sequel because they all have a story to tell, I'm sure.

Avalon was a very engaging read, and it definitely made up for Arnett's less than stellar debut, The Nightmare Affair. I had a lot of fun reading it, and it's exactly what I needed when I was in search of something that was action-packed, but with the underlying theme of family and friends that I so often seek out.

[Ashley]

Nose Graze — Young Adult book reviews

3.5 Stars

Avalon is a really unique book in the world of young adult books, and is perfect for sci-fi fans! There are very few YA books out there like this.. if any!

When I first started reading, I felt like I was playing Star Wars: The Old Republic.. with the space travel, the crime bosses, and the missions. I loved it! Maybe it's stereotypical of me to associate anything space travel with Star Wars, but I can't help it. Star Wars is awesome and the whole space travel thing really made me excited about Avalon.

Avalon had a really interesting story. I liked Jeth as a character and I started to really feel for him. He lost both his parents, his uncle kind of placed him in a bad situation that now has him working for a crime boss guy, and now he has no way to get out of it. (There's no walking away from that kind of life!) I really sympathized with him! I understood his motives and the pressure he was under. I don't always connect well with male characters—and maybe I still didn't connect with Jeth perfectly—but at least I was able to understand and sympathize with him to a certain degree.

I enjoyed all the pieces that came into play. Although maybe some of the twists were predictable, I felt like everything came together quite nicely at the end. There were a few things I didn't totally expect, and I enjoyed seeing them play out!

One of the one things that caused me to lose a bit of interest was the "almost-paranormal" side of Avalon. At first I saw a book purely about science and technology.. but then an almost-paranormal element was introduced (I thought it seemed more paranormal than futuristic science), and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. It didn't make the book bad, I just wasn't crazy about the direction it took. Maybe some people will love it, but I'm just not sure I'm totally on board with it.

Also, there was a lack of history in Avalon. This book is set WAY in the future (hundreds and hundreds of years), but as a result, we're told almost nothing about how the world evolved from 2013. It throws around the term "First-Earth" a few times, but other than that, we're given zero sense of how/when the people of Earth started settling on other planets. I think the "current" (in the book) way of life was built up really well and I was easily able to start picturing it. But I always had the lingering questions about how it actually came to be and how things progressed. I guess that kind of comes with the territory of a space travel book though.

I'd classify Avalon as more of a hardcore sci-fi book. So I can't recommend it to everyone but if sci-fi and space travel are your thing, then definitely give it a whirl!