Review: Pulpy, imaginative, really enjoyable science-fiction fun
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 15, 2012
Tritium Gambit feels like a total throwback to an era when sci-fi could be fun and pulpy and not always obsessed with proving itself to be a "worthy" genre that could hold its own against "literary" works. That's not to say that there's anything wrong with science-fiction that has complex themes or ideas, but there's something genuinely winning about a story that's as much fun as Tritium Gambit is. Feeling like a fusion of the original Star Trek and Men in Black, Tritium Gambit revolves around a pair of agents who work for the Intergalactic Secret Service, which works to protect Earth from intergalactic threats, as well as keeping Earth from being aware of all those things that could be landing on the planet. There's Max, an agent with an extremely high healing rate, but he's not the brightest crayon in the box. Then there's Miranda, who's already gotten one of the best agents in the agency crippled on her first mission. And now the two misfits of the agency have been asked to follow up on a series of missing people in Minnesota. What follows has its tongue pretty firmly planted in its cheek - there are a lot of cheesy one-liners, a few easy gags and a few more creative ones - but at the same time, Hyrkas treats his plot seriously enough, giving the characters interesting motivations, piling on the developments and twists, and generally creating something that's pretty rich and inventive. Tritium Gambit isn't going to revolutionize the genre, and it's not going to change the way you look at the world. What it is going to do is tell you a really fun story, and do it in a way that's going to keep you really entertained and enthralled, all while reminding you how much fun science-fiction can be. If you miss the days of pulpy science-fiction, make the effort to get out here and read Tritium Gambit. It's a lot of fun, it's well-crafted, and it's creative and clever as anything. Check it out.