CLUBHOUSE: Guest Review: “The Infinite Heist” by Stephen Graham King

OBIR: Occasional Biased and Ignorant Reviews reflecting this reader’s opinion.

CLUBHOUSE GUEST REVIEW – by Lisa Timpf.

THE INFINITE HEIST – by Stephen Graham King

Publisher: Renaissance Press, Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. Published November 2024.

Edited by: Alex Cuvelier, Alec Cimesa, and Max Emberley

Interior Design: Cassandra Pegg and Taylor Ash

Cover Art and Design: Nathan Fréchette

When prospective readers see the title of The Infinite Heist, it may sound like an Ocean’s Eleven type of deal following the members of robbery crew in their attempts to pull off an audacious crime. But in Stephen Graham King’s space opera The Infinite Heist, we’re not cheering for the would-be thieves, but rather for those who oppose them.

The Infinite Heist is set in a far future in which space travel is a fact of life and “Gates” at wormholes provide a quick way of traversing space. Holographic technology is used in artwork, communication, advertising, and other applications. Brain-nodes enable direct linkage with the knowledge web, Know-It-All.

The novel begins innocently enough, as the Maverick Heart crew is preparing to deliver a load of cargo before enjoying some downtime. Keene, a self-proclaimed tech junkie, is looking forward to attending a conference on Scholas. His enthusiasm for the event prompts teasing from his crewmates Ember and Lexa-Blue. Vrick, the ship’s sentient AI, playfully chides Ember and Lexa-Blue for giving Keene the gears.

Elsewhere, talented tech Sindel Kestra, Lexa-Blue’s on-again, off-again girlfriend, is completing final checks on a new Gate that is about to be commissioned, pleased to note that everything looks good.

Things don’t stay calm for long. Sindel goes missing, followed by Keene. Ember, Lexa-Blue, and Vrick embark on a mission to get them back. But first, they need to figure out what exactly happened, and that proves to be no easy job.

King tells the story from multiple third-person viewpoints, and the reader discovers that someone has kidnapped Sindel to help them with a technical problem they’re having. The kidnappers brought Keene along to provide motivation for Sindel to help them rather than resisting. Their threats to physically harm Keene keep Sindel in line, although once she discovers their captors’ master plan, she is horrified by their ultimate goal.

High stakes are a feature of many good stories, and you can’t get much higher than those in The Infinite Heist. Sindel’s captors are messing around with dangerous tech whose use could threaten the stability of the universe.

King builds suspense as the Maverick Heart crew tries to track down the elusive villains. Meanwhile, as the heist crew gets closer to their goal, the side effects of their activity start to show closer to home.

A threat to the universe is heady stuff, but King counters the weightiness with repartee between the characters. Even Vrick gets in on the action, referring to human passengers as “meat,” and grousing about the coddling and extra work that’s required to keep organic life forms safe and healthy.

King provides entertaining world-building that grounds the reader in the situation. For example, Lexa-Blue’s visit to beloved bookstore Textual Healing begins like this:

The bookstore’s facade was three storeys tall, bevelled like an inverted pyramid, each storey larger than the one below it. Along the street-facing exterior walls, holos danced across the emitter panes, projecting book covers that came to life, characters springing forth into the air above the street.

As Lexa-Blue approached, she saw the Irian Queen leap from the back of her horse into the air above the sidewalk to battle the Knave of Fire, their lances clashing in a thunderous roar.

The Infinite Heist also depicts ways in which futuristic technology might reduce barriers for characters with physical challenges. Hetri li Ffiann, Sindel’s second-in-command in the Gate project, uses a power-chair for mobility and manipulator arms on the chair allow him to grasp items when needed. Like other characters, he can link with systems and access data through nodes implanted in his brain, facilitating thinking-related work. Lexa-Blue has a sensor gem where one of her eyes should be. Ember has some prosthetic flesh and body parts.

We get a sense of the discomfort Ember experiences when he overdoes things. Pain at the linkages between his own body and the prosthetic portions flares up when he overextends himself, and while these sensations can be mitigated, they can’t be completely overridden. At the same time, Ember’s prosthetics don’t impair his ability to get the job done. They’re just part of who he is, and something he has to deal with. In Ember’s case, as in others, King portrays a balanced image. Sometimes Lexa-Blue’s sensor eye is helpful in picking up information, but other times it’s a reminder of what she has lost, both physically and figuratively.

The Infinite Heist is the fifth book in the Maverick Heart cycle, and one can sense that the characters have shared experiences that have taken place prior to this particular novel’s events. The Infinite Heist was my first experience with the Maverick Heart books, but King provides the right amount of back-story to allow someone unfamiliar with the previous novels to follow this one.

Space opera fans seeking a compelling plot, suspenseful action, and a classic good-versus-evil confrontation in a futuristic setting should find much to enjoy in The Infinite Heist.

 Find it at:  < The Infinite Heist >

About the Guest Reviewer: Lisa Timpf is a retired HR and communications professional who lives in Simcoe, Ontario. When not writing, she enjoys bird watching, vegetable gardening, and walking her cocker spaniel/Jack Russel mix Chet. Her speculative poetry has appeared in New Myths, Polar Starlight, Polar Borealis, Star*Line, Triangulation: Seven-Day Weekend, Eye to the Telescope, and other venues. Her collection of speculative haibun poetry, In Days to Come, is available from Hiraeth Publishing. You can find out more about Lisa’s writing projects at http://lisatimpf.blogspot.com/.

 

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