Kate Russell (1) (1968–)

Written under licence, Kate Russell’s ‘Mostly Harmless’ is a great romp through the space-trader/pirate locales of the ‘Elite: Dangerous’ computer game – but if, like me, you’ve never been sucked into the game, there’s no need to fret. The novel reads as any novel should – this one with laughs and added ironies.

Distanced from her wealthy parents, Angel is trying to make it on her own as an inter-planetary trader, except she’s doing badly in commerce and has far more show more success obliterating herself by necking mind-numbing draughts among questionable acquaintances. Which is how she finds herself too late to join an armed convoy with her cargo of gold and is electronically tagged to a supervisory computer, DORIS, to ensure she and her single escort don’t consider changing from the designated flight plan. She would have been in less trouble if she had.

I loved Mental Eddie, and Dreads’ “jewellery” is just up my street. The description of life in the pirate enclave was an interesting dark reflection of that on the space station Slough, the name a neat irony in itself. The story runs at a cracking pace, for the reader and for Rose, so that it is a mite late that we both began to look at DORIS and wonder who it is reporting to. A neat ending. If this is a taste of the computer game, I can understand why it has so many fans. show less