When I was offered a copy of this book for review, all it took was one skim of the blurb and one look at that amazing cover before I was totally on board.
So thanks to the author, as well as Angry Robot for the review copy!
Caught up in a space station turf war between gangs and corrupt law, a lone asteroid miner decides to take them all down.
When an asteroid miner comes to Station 35 looking to sell her cargo and get back to the solitude she craves, she gets swept up in a three-way standoff with gangs and crooked cops. Faced with either taking sides or cleaning out the Augean Stables, she breaks out the flamethrower.
This story follows a character only known as the Miner. She mines asteroids for a living (at least, she does now) and has stopped at Station 35 looking to unload her ore and take on some more fuel. What she doesn’t realize is that Station 35 is more or less abandoned, with the exception of 2 street gangs with a security force in the middle keeping them (unsuccessfully) from killing each other. In the midst of a space station gang war, The Miner decides that she’s going to take them all down.
Despite seeing this story from her point of view a lot, we don’t know anything about the Miner going in. Not even her name. This sort of narrative is difficult to get right for me, and indeed a lot of people will likely bounce off this main character, but it worked alright for me this time. She’s clearly got a hell of a past, with quite a bit of combat experience, to say the least. We get some of the details as the book goes on, mostly from the point of view of other people on the station from either gang. But, nonetheless, she remains mostly a mystery wrapped in an enigma.
This book can easily be described as a space western. It brought Borderlands to mind a lot (which is absolutely not a bad thing – Steam can attest to my putting literal months of time into that series, lol). I had visualized most of it in the same style too, just because.
So, all told, this was an entertaining read, and though I didn’t ever end up falling in love with it, I definitely had a pretty enjoyable time. I think I might have enjoyed this one more as an audiobook. Either way, if you enjoyed Borderlands, you may enjoy Red Noise. 3.5/5 stars!~
superstardrifter 
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