Peter Keith, Wine Dark Deep (2020).
Good Reads Meta-data is 149 pages rated 3.80 by 390 litizens.
Genre: ScFI; Species: Hard.
Verdict: Oh Hum.
Tagline: Slam, wham, and bam. Repeat.
Earth’s first human mission to Jupiter gets caught in the crossfire of a labour dispute between the corporations on Earth that own the asteroid Ceres and the mineral riches it contains and the indentured colonists who work it. The Jupiter bound spacecraft is called Odyssey and it becomes a hostage of sorts in the negotiations.
Not on my watch, declares Captain McGiver of Odyssey and he makes it so with some mumble-jumbo, low-gravity athletics, and the help of A.I.
There are pages and pages describing the Odyssey, the asteroid, and the mining equipment on it, and how Captain makes use of it to foil the rebels’ hold on Odyssey. He has no interest either way in their cause; he just wants to complete the Jovian jaunt.
Chose it because the title reminded me of Homer’s wine dark sea and the name Odyssey appeared to confirm the reference. There the parallels ended.
The conclusion is a reference to the further perils in the series. Odyssey will have further adventures before returning to Ithaca.
Hard Science Fiction seems to mean a lot of pointless (as to plot or character) technical details. This is the Geordie-speak of Star Trek Voyager. Filler.