Jitterbug

In this twisty and action-packed adventure from the BSFA award-winning author of Descendant Machine and Future’s Edge, a crew of bounty hunters find themselves ensnared in a conspiracy on the very fringes of the devastated solar system. Perfect for fans of James S. A. Corey and Adrian Tchaikovsky.

“On Earth, they depicted justice as blindfolded and impartial, but out here on the frontier, she was red in tooth and claw.”

Jupiter and Saturn are gone, and a mysterious force has built a huge habitable sphere from their ashes. When criminals try to lose themselves on this new frontier, bounty hunters like Copernicus Brown and the crew of his sentient ship Jitterbug get paid to hunt them down. But when Brown rescues Amber Roth, sole survivor of a pirate attack, the Jitterbug and her crew find themselves the target of powerful political factions who want control of the data chip hidden in Roth’s stomach.

And all the while, something vast and ancient creeps towards them from the depths of space....

©2026 Gareth L. Powell (P)2026 W. F. Howes Ltd

Imaginative

Jitterbug is the newest science fiction novel by award-winning author Gareth L. Powell. He explores how our world would change (and not change) if an outside force adapted our solar system to create viable living space out of the planets we cannot inhabit. With big ideas and charismatic characters, it's a story of possibilities.

The Jitterbug is a hundred-year old ship that had been handed down to Copernicus Brown when his father, the previous captain, was murdered. Instead of hauling cargo, though, he becomes a bounty hunter.

After catching a bounty, the captain tricks him into giving up information about a secret pirate cache in the debris trailing Mars. On their way to verify the information, they receive a distress call. When they arrive there are two damaged ships - the cargo freighter that sent the distress call, and the ship that attacked it. A third ship disabled the pirate ship, searched it, and left empty handed. The person they'd been looking for was on the freighter, with a military-encrypted data crystal in her stomach.

Rescuing her sets the Jitterbug on a path to save humanity. It's an imaginative book, with a lot to love. There are several POVs throughout the novel, and I'm not sure any of the other perspectives were necessary. It's also a bit emotionless - despite a thread of a romance, I didn't feel anything from the characters or for them. The story is engaging and amusing enough to keep my attention, though, and I could overlook dialogue that was occasionally stilted and forced. Jitterbug is a book about possibilities, and I enjoyed it.

I wasn't a fan of one of the female voices only because it didn't fit the character. Otherwise a solid audiobook.

Enjoyable listen

It's getting harder and harder to find decent sci fi lately so I'm happy when I find a book that's good and isn't overly long (which usually feels padded). Powell is becoming one of my go-to sci fi authors whose books I buy as they come out..

I wanted to love this!

I have loved every other Garreth Powell book I’ve ever read except this one. I can’t really explain why, other than this story is thin, the build up is slow and disappointing. It’s just not engaging or interesting. The worst part is the narration. The voices don’t match the characters and the “acting” is terrible. There’s no depth to the way the characters are voiced and it always sounds like a high school play, the accents are ridiculous. It’s just flat. In all fairness, there are one or two slightly interesting aspects to the plot but they all seem like I’ve heard them elsewhere, notably Firefly. I wanted to love this but I just don’t.