Adrift by Rob Boffard Review

I like books set in space. Adrift is, as you can instantly tell from the cover, a space survival book which has you placed onto the Red Panda – a small space tour ship which is the sole survivor of a mystery attack on the main space resort nearby. You’re then left with a small run-down and poorly maintained ship and its passengers and pilot, a mix of characters from a wide range of situations and backgrounds. That sounds like it’s a cheesy all-inclusive politically friendly book, but there’s no hint of that being the case throughout – it just makes for an interesting mix of personalities.

And these personalities get stretched as the chances of survival curve up and down repeatedly throughout the book. There are some great moments that really get the reading speed up, and as the character count in the book changes (for reasons I won’t give away here) everything just gets more and more exciting in the build up to the final encounter. The ending was both infuriatingly vague and satisfying at the same time, and while it didn’t lend itself to any kind of follow-up book there were enough cliff hangers in there to make you think.

one thing to note – I found it pretty hard getting into this book, even after the initial attack happened, but I’m glad I stuck with it. This ended up being a really good read and one I’d recommend to anyone who likes space survival as a genre.