In the novel “Galaxy Blues” by Allen Steele published for the first time in 2007 Jules Truffaut is a former Union Astronautica officer who was kicked out for having helped his brother to cheat the academy final exams. Left with no prospect he decides to travel to the planet Coyote (it’s actually a satellite of a gas giant planet that has three times the mass of Jupiter) as a stowaway on a spaceship, but he’s discovered during the journey and ends in prison.
Billionaire Morgan Goldstein makes Truffaut a proposal he can’t refuse: he’ll use his influence on the Coyote authorities to get him out of trouble and in return he’ll take part to an expedition to the space controlled by the aliens coalition called the Talus to tighten their diplomatic contacts and even more to close a trading deal.
Truffaut is to travel with an alien who belongs to a species called hjadd and other humans, not all friendly to aliens and not necessarily prepared for a diplomatic mission.
Events soon take an unexpected turn that will influence the future of relations between human beings and the Talus coalition, that is if Truffaut and his teammates can survive long enough to complete their mission.
The novel “Galaxy Blues” is connected to the cycle of the planet Coyote where Allen Steele tells in various novels the story of colonization of this world in the 47 Ursae Majoris system. Reading these novels can help you understand some aspects of the story however “Galaxy Blues” is a stand-alone novel that can be read independently.
Allen Steele has tried to write a series of novels containing elements of space opera with an eye to future technology and aliens who have at least some really inhuman features. Unfortunately in “Galaxy Blues” the development of at least some of the human characters isn’t exactly extraordinary. The novel is narrated in first person from the perspective of Jules Truffaut, who essentially becomes a hero despite himself, but the story suffers from the character flatness.
Among the other characters for example Morgan Goldstein is the stereotype of the greedy billionaire but one wonders how he can successfully make business because in the novel his handling of the trade mission among the aliens seem amateurish, without adequate preparation of the crew concerning the right ways to deal with the aliens.
Unfortunately even the love story that developes during of the novel is superficial with the characters acting like teenagers.
The narration of the story is however fluid and with a brighter style it would be even captivating. Overall it’s a novel good for a few hours of light reading, not many because the length is limited but this can be a good thing because the story hasn’t been overextended.
