REVIEW: Catapult: A Sci-Fi Heist with a Grumpy Sunshine Romance (Cat Ship Book 2) by Jody Wallace
Lincoln doesn’t want trouble. Briar is trouble personified.
Lincoln Caster owes everything he has to the Trash Planet recycling plant that hired him, allowing him to lead an uneventful life for a change. When he’s asked to plan a heist from a less than savory rival factory, he wonders if his checkered past is the only reason he got the job.
That is, until he realizes the priceless item he’s been asked to steal will save a top-secret generation ship full of cryopreserved humans…and freakishly intelligent cats.
But first Lincoln has to seduce—or at least fool—the rival factory’s sales agent, cool, competent Briar Pandora, who may or may not be leading a double life as a corporate mole. He’ll have to trust her with the truth…unless her own agenda results in them becoming targets of a vicious intergalactic corporation that will stop at nothing in its quest to hijack generation ships and sell off their parts—and their passengers, be they human or feline.
Tropes: grumpy sunshine, animal main characters, big secrets, blue collar hero, friend groups, found family
Warning – there will be SPOILERS for book one in this review
Dear Ms. Wallace,
After the wild ride that is “Catalyst,”the first book in the Cat Ship series, of course I had to come back to see What Would Happen Next to the sentient cats trying to save their people and the other cats. There is enough information about the first book sprinkled through this one that readers could start here but then they’d miss so much of the awesomeness that is Pumpkin.
“Catalyst” ended with some of the people of Trash Planet now aware that cryopods in an old gen ship, from before a cataclysmic war, which has been drifting through old wrecks around the planet, are coming awake. Or partly. Two years ago some of the cryopods activated and those who awakened are now desperate to get the system working enough to release the others. A ship they’ve had their eye on which might have the part they need is suddenly hauled down to the planet as salvage and it’s all hands and paws on deck to get what they need without tipping off anyone else about who and what they are.
This is definitely a book for cat lovers as we love the little furry despots in spite of their demanding ways. The sentient cats here are no felines to coo “Awwwwww, wook at kittums. He so cute!” at. These cats can think, talk, teleport, read your mind, push thoughts into your brain, and make you do what they want.
What they want is to get what sounds like a ship of cat ladies and their cats awake again. 3000 years ago, they were promised a new Earth-like planet all their own and by damn they’re going to get it. Or else.
Sadly, a villain – who, much like the villain of the first book, is fairly bog-standard one dimensional slime – has his eye on the needed part to sell for $$$$$$$$$$$ and the clock is ticking before word gets out – oops, it already has. Slavers need the part as well and are willing to pay handsomely.
Many of the characters from “Catalyst” are back along with some new ones. Lincoln has a troubled history of trusting too much and it’s cost him dearly. Briar has been working undercover for one of the Unions that handles salvage and fighting the SlimeBall who has taken the promotion she wanted. But once she realizes what’s actually going on – saving cats! – she’s all in. One of the tropes the book lists is grumpy-sunshine but I think it’s more quiet-bubbly. I adore the scene where Mighty (the cat on the cover) plays matchmaker. There is a romance thread between Lincoln and Briar that starts with sexual attraction and moves towards something deeper.
The last third of the book is emotionally exhausting because curveball after curveball gets thrown at the characters and the reader. The humans and the cats are madly improvising and trying to stay one step ahead of the villains, get the part, all while not revealing to a wider world exactly what is at stake or that cats are now sentient. I had to put the book down once or twice as I was getting stressed, myself.
This brought Su off the couch to stand beside Briar. “You’re gonna be fascist shitheads now?”
There’s some interesting scenes when humans try to explain to the cats that the cats can’t just read minds and spill secrets or push actions on humans. Basically we’re all sentient here and there must be mutual respect. Something we now ought to be doing more of. The cats remain superior at all times though also frantic to save their People with whom they have a bond of love.
The people in the know on Trash Planet meanwhile are learning that petting elicit purrs, cats will paw humans to indicate when they want something done, and cats still enjoy a good cardboard box.
“No one has seen the red dot since we woke,” offered the hairless cat in a raspy voice. She perched on a side table next to Javier, Su’s elderly medic. Briar was assuming the cat was a female based on…well, nothing except the cat’s demeanor. It would have been rude to ask or to check her backside, and it was unimportant. “It is believed to have expired during the Obsidian War.”
As with the first book, the action in this is resolved by the end but there’s still more to come, much more, in book three. B
~Jayne
“You are so soft. And you’re so big,” she murmured. “You are courageous and smart. You learned to pilot a ship, had to teach yourself, and that’s probably something a human couldn’t do. I am honored to collaborate with you.”
She praised the cat, stroking his body and his ego, yet she was simply telling the truth. Boson Higgs had risen to the occasion, like all of the Originals, and deserved her respect.
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Now I remember why CATALYST is in my wish list: Pumpkin! I promise to read them in order when I get them. Thanks for the reminder.
@Darlynne: Pumpkin, Mighty Mighty, and Boson Higgs – among others – are waiting for you.