In many ways, this feels very much like a throwback to 1970s sci fi - complete with all the 'hippie' ideals where you get to stick it to 'the man' (greedy corporate types), save the poor, strive for peace, be liberal and relaxed, live communally, experience many sexual partners of both genders, get wasted frequently, and play some music at the same time.  But that is tempered with the 2019 themes of inclusiveness, refugee crises, gender equality, etc.  As such, it feels very manufactured and with an agenda so strong as to make this a social piece rather than an exciting sci fi adventure. The first half of the book is as listless as the main characters and then we finally get action near the end that is too abrupt to be organic.

Story:  In an era of relativity travel, the Hajj (a family owned trader ship) will spend a year traveling while 24+ years will pass on the planets they visit each time.  It means that staying on the ship is the only way to grow up with your family; if anyone leaves, they will be elderly or already dead by the time you get back to them.  When the current captain of the Hajj makes a contract with a young poor couple to wed their children (one unborn daughter and the captain's son), a year will pass for Adem Sadiq but 24 for Hisako before they actually meet.  A smart captain is always planning for the future and her actions in the present will bear fruit in surprising ways in the future as we follow Adem and Hisako life until the event happens.

The world building here is your typical "people fled Earth and established colonies based around their cultures."  Of course, in this book, the Americans and the Middle Easterns got into a war and blew each other up, leaving a lot of refugees.  The refugee 'problem' is becoming an issue and the author suggests that governments are sending out squads pretending to be refugee terrorists in order to blow up or kill off refugee camps blamelessly.  At the same time, people want to get their hands on the technology that the Americans had - planet killers and light speed travel that for some reason, was completely destroyed in the 2-day war that saw both sides eliminated and never found again.  If the Hajj had lightspeed travel, they could become very profitable instead of always running on the margins (since they refuse high profit runs such as slaver ships and instead do low profit runs helping refugees, natch).

Into this world, we follow alternating POVs of Hisako and Adem - the betrothed.  Adem is a carefree guy who is the son of the captain/matriarch, a musician whose videos go out on the web, and who is a jack-of-all-trades keeping the ship running.  He spends most of the book ruminating on his approaching nuptials (he is to be married only a year after the contract is made, and to a woman that wasn't even born yet).  He is dealing with an uncle who wants to eject the family's liberal views, run high profit missions, and take over the ship from the captain, Adem's mother.

Hisako, meanwhile, has her story told through short snippets of her life, starting from her early years and going through her life until 24, when she is to be married.  She resents the situation and refuses to accept that a) she'd be an 'illicite' and have to live on the streets otherwise; b) it meant she had her high education paid for and would have a future; c) she only had to stay married to Adem for 2 years to fulfill the contract; and d) her parents would have continued to live in abject poverty without it.  Because of the above, it's hard to appreciate her rebelliousness and churlishness toward the situation.  We learn of her parents' tribulations, her father's drinking and getting involved with the wrong people, and her mother having to suffer through it all. 

Both of Aden's and Hisako's lives are pretty mundane:  playing music, enjoying various partners, dealing with home life and situations.  It doesn't really make for much sci fi, the premise of which comes in at the last 20% or so. As well, because we are beaten over the head with the 'live and let live' themes, save the people, etc., it felt more like a manifesto wrapped in sci fi trappings.  Adem was bland and unremarkable for a lead character and Hisako spends most of the time rebelling or wasting time.  It was hard to see them as "the guy who knows the ship so well, he can fix anything" or the girl who was "gene spliced to be a near genius and can play 8 instruments."  Instead, it was "I got screwed over because 2 years of my future were contracted" and "I probably should stop having sexual partners because I'm guilty about my upcoming marriage."  Meanwhile, both spend most of the book playing instruments or talking about their life in a band or putting music vids up on the web.  Not very sci fi.

The book is not poorly written but yes, the agenda is so thick as to make this feel either like a statement piece or a Marty Stu.  Wikipedia says that the hippie movement was about " harmony with nature, communal living, artistic experimentation particularly in music, and the widespread use of recreational drugs" and this pretty much sums of the book (just exchange drugs for alcohol here).  As such, the book can feel very inert and very one-dimensional.  Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

The Light Years premise really intrigued me. Told in alternative chapters and timelines set way into the future, you’d be forgiven for getting a bit confused. I enjoyed The Light Years, but some of the space tech stuff was hard to follow. Definitely an interesting, speculative read.

The premise of this book as promising, and the story, albeit a bit more gritty than I prefer, was relatively well told. The challenge I have is that I don't necessarily believe the transformation of the characters. It is intriguing that both the male and female characters are liberated in their relationships. The problem is that the payout isn't enough of a payout for me. They give up (mostly) their free-loving lifestyles to be with each other and yet they're with each other in a post-nihilistic "let's sorta, kinda like each other but maybe fool around with other people". I sorta feel blasé about the unresolved nature of the conclusion of the tale. If this makes me sounds like an out-of-sync curmudgeon, then ignore everything I just said. This book is completely for you.

58 points. 3 stars

This is not a romance.

Perhaps most of my disappointment in The Light Years was wrapped up in that simple sentence. This is not a romance, and the blurb made it sound that at least some of the book would be devoted to romance. In reality, maybe only 5% was devoted to that concept.

There are two characters that share screen time. Adem Sadiq is a a technician aboard the trade ship, Hajj,and the son of the ship's captain, Maneera Sadiq. He cares for the others he meets, and has a heart of gold. Just incredibly kind and good natured, and is more willing to help others than help himself. For fun, he likes recording old Earth songs and releasing them into space for others to find, though he would never even think of advertising it. He likes his life, he is very content.

Hisako Saski is the woman that Adem's mother bought him as a wife before she was even born. Yes, you read that correctly. Hisako starts off a child, and we learn about her world, Gaul, through her. She learns from an early age she is destined to become married to an spaceman and that she will one day have to go away and leave her parents behind and they will grow old and die while she stays the nearly same. Due to this, Hisako grows up to be combative and standoffish. She doesn't really like authority. And she really, really does not like that some outsiders paid for everything and she still suffers on a world full of people going hungry and dying in poor labor conditions while she is going to a rich school and never has to worry about food.

Gaul is not a thriving place. It is a hard world to live on, and only some of the people live well. Due to the failing of other planets, Gaul and many other planets are full of refugees. Hisako's parents were refugees and the only reason they were allowed to have her was to sell her in marriage. Refugees camps, not enough food, hard labour, and terrorists. All things Hisako grow up with knowing about, but not really seeing too much of. Her parents protected her as best as they could.

All things the Traders aboard the trading ship and Adem don't really know anything about. Due to near light speed, while over 20 years pass for Hisako, only a year or so passes for Adem. The Traders feel almost above planetary problems because by the next time they roll around, everything will have changed again. They act like everything is one big game.

And the trade ship the Hajj, and her captain, Maneera Sadiq, have lofty goals above planetary problems. They're after a lost spaceship full of technology they have long since forgotten how to produce themselves. Even their trade ships are beyond them to make, and repairing it is proving more difficult and getting impossible. Maneera is looking to get ahead of the rest of the other Traders and make a profit. This is why she paid for a wife for Adem and specifically required Hisako to study a branch of math and science that is all but useless.

Until now, that it isn't useless anymore.

If these bits to the story in my review sound disjointed and that they don't really come together in the end, well... neither did they in the book, either. There was a lot of setup, and the book never really settled into the story. I wasn't just disappointed in the lack of romance, or the fact that Adem and Hisako don't really meet up at all until halfway through the book (really). And that I have no idea what this blurb means by "Sparks fly", since they mostly ignore each other.

I was disappointed because while there were some cool concepts, especially when it came to the sci-fi, they just never really amounted to anything. Gaul's problems are never really addressed, except in a possibility. The science fiction and spaceship experiments mostly accomplish the initial goal of warp drive, but none of any of the other implications amount to anything after they were introduced in the story. There was more time spent on the crooked uncle of Adem than there was on exploring the implications of what it would mean for the ship to have warp drive when others wouldn't, which amounted to about a paragraph worth of material.

Just.. A lot of setup, not a whole lot of story. I have no idea if The Light Years was planned as part one of a series. In a lot of ways it feels like it was. There is just so much left unaccounted for that so much time was spent building up. I liked the concept,the execution just fell flat.

This was a good read.  

Merchants ply their trades throughout the galaxy and when they come back to their planet, they have only aged the length of their voyage but planet side, people age in years or decades.  

Traders are referred to as immortals and make long range plans including contracting for marriages to assist their businesses - here a marriage contract requires the future bride to study specific topics that will benefit the owners of a merchant ship.  Ancient technology is scattered throughout the universe (a warp drive built by the Americas) and obtaining this technology can lead to nefarious plots.  

Great and very interesting world building - I can't wait to see more.  The characters are well written and  relationships between characters are also very strong.

However, there was not much plot to the story and it seems like this book is laying the groundwork for things to come, which appears to be promising.

A really interesting premise that is well crafted, well told and a pleasure to read, I admit the story was not one I would have initially been drawn to but I am very grateful for being given the opportunity to read this book, highly recommended