A quirky and fun sci-fi, for fans of Becky Chambers and Stark Holborn. Definitely slow to start, but once it gets into the swing of things it’s a pretty enjoyable read.

3.5 STARS
This book just didn't quite grip me the way I wanted it to, I didn't quite connect with our MC and I found the structure to be bit mid for the story it was trying to tell. :(

I liked Frontier but didn’t love it. It took me a long time to get into it, and I found myself losing interest.

However the overall premise was great and I enjoyed the writing style. I would recommend this book, it just wasn’t for me

Please note that this book is not for me - I have read the book, However I had to DNF and because i do not like to give negative reviews I will not review this book fully - there is no specific reason for not liking this book. I found it a struggle to read and did not enjoy trying to force myself to read this book.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused and thank you for the opportunity to read this book

This is a lovely story following a mysterious character whose name changes throughout the story (The Stranger, The Guest etc) on a quest to find their missing girlfriend. Part of the joy of the story is the slow reveal of information and background which we gradually discover. The world building was great and I would enjoy reading more stories set in this world.

I enjoyed the book so much I've gone and bought a copy of it to support the author even further.

Thanks to and Netgalley for this review copy.

Ok, if Love, Loss, and Laser guns hasn't already got you on board: let me explain further. A sapphic sci-fi novel in a desolate, climate change-ravaged Earth. People are as diverse and divided as they've ever been - except in their shared suspicions when a stranger comes to town. Until one day - a new person arrives: scared and looking for someone.
This book was wonderous: funny and hit an emotional punch all in one swoop. I loved it :)

Honestly I just thought this was okay. I had really high hopes but it was just a little lacklustre for me.

The world building was absolutely fantastic, it made me feel like I was really there in the story and immersed and I loved the characters.

However, I found the plot to be a little meh. It was imaginative but I feel like the delivery wasn’t great and I was confused quite a lot and it just didn’t quite get there for me.

Overall, immaculate vibes, poor delivery

Personally, Grace Curtis writing style isn't for me, but I know this book is going to be LOVED by many

Quirky, fast paced and entertaining. A recommended purchase for collections where offbeat SF is popular.

I think the concept was a lot more promising than what the book delivered. I found it hard to stay interested even though it should have been something i found really cool (queer, western vibes, mystery). it swtiched up too much, and got through complications too quickly.

i also didn't feel attached to anyone and therefore and no skin in the game as it were.

when the earth finally reaches the end this books plot begins as some of its inhabitants travel to the moon and beyond to find another life.
The plot of this book was an easy one to follow and had a natural flow to it was i was happy with. the characters are nicely written and as the story moves forwards you see they growth and this make the book one of those rare finds which keep hold of you even after you have finished it

This was more of a Dystopian western.

The characters were varied and well developed.

Each chapter was an individual short story, which made the story a bit disjointed at times.

Overall though a good read.

The world building in this was very good, but the story structure was not for me. I didn't find that I was able to connect with the MC at all.

This story follows a traveller, a soldier that has landed on a hostile Earth, looking for the woman she loves. The Earth has been ravaged by climate change, and it has hardened not just the planet, but its people, who have grown distrusting of strangers. As the story unfolds we learn more about this stranger, her history, feelings and motivations, as well as what has befallen the planet. It's a wonderful mix of SF, love story and western.
I felt that the story slowed down and meandered a little in the middle, but otherwise the pacing was good and it certainly picked up again as it moved towards a satisfying ending. I'm grateful to have been given a copy of this by the publisher and NetGalley, and I look forward to seeing what Grace Curtis has in store for us in the future.

I'd heard a lot about this book and was keen to dive in and see what the fuss was about. A sci-fi western with an intriguing heroine - just my thing!

Sadly, I couldn't get on with it.

Said heroine was interesting, but seemed confused and lost more than she perhaps should have. The setting wasn't well realised, and characters appeared and disappeared (by leaving or dying) so quickly, I wasn't sure who I was supposed to remember!

Sadly this was a DNF for me. Perhaps it was the style of writing, but I was sorry I couldn't see it through.

I loved the world building in this book. It captured exactly the vibe and energy of a frontier town and there was a wild range of characters. However, I found the story confusing, rambling- rally hard to see what was going on. It was an imaginative and original story but the delivery failed. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

I don’t read many Sci-Fi novels but really enjoyed Becky Chambers Wayfarer novels and having read reviews of Frontier thought it might appeal. I wasn’t disappointed Frontier is a fast moving humorous novel with some great quirky characters. It was fast paced, quickly moving between locations and characters which meant there were occasions where I felt momentarily lost but it all comes together in the end.
Thoroughly enjoyed this novel and looking forward to the next Grace Curtis novel.

Great premise, a Sci Fi western cross country adventure with a sapphic romance. Brilliant cast of characters that we meet along the way.

The writing style was a little confusing at times, we don’t learn the main character’s name until the end of the book, for no real reason.

I enjoyed this, would like to read something different by this writer.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for allowing me to have an e-arc copy of this book!
This is my first time reading anything by Grace Curtis, and as this was described to me as a sapphic sci-fi western you know I wanted to read this!

I’ll be honest though, I did not finish this book. It so long for me to get into this and when I kept trying to pick this book back up, I would literally pick everything else up instead. Eventually I just had to give up and could not get through the rest of it.

It was not what I thought it would be, and unfortunately does not seem to be the kind of book that I usually read.

I did love the beginning of this book, but I just felt so lost as to what the point was and it felt like it was taking too long to get there that I have DNF’d at around 20% in.

Previously reviewed on <a href="http://goodbadandunread.com/2023/05/12/review-frontier-by-grace-curtis/">The Good, The Bad, and The Unread</a>:

I’m still a great fan of <i>Firefly</i> and would love for there to have been more of it, current issues around its creator notwithstanding. Alternatively, I’ll accept stories that follow a similar premise in any media, particularly if the queer subplot is more main-plotlike. This story is definitely a Space Western, for all it mostly takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and the main plot is very much driven by a queer love story, so very much my kind of thing. Hundreds of years in our future, a lifepod from a spacefaring vessel falls, lands in a desert wasteland, and is tracked down by a pair of scavengers and their hastily co-opted driver. The pod’s sole occupant has a search mission of her own, however, and no time to interact with those who have no intention of helping her.

For much of this book, we don’t learn our protagonist’s name. She is merely described according to her actions or how others see her: the Stranger, the Courier, the Tramp, and so on. Since she has little knowledge of Earth as it is in her time, we learn about how things work alongside her from the thoughts, words, and deeds of those she meets on her journey and also from snippets of writings by those from our protagonist’s contemporaries. Our protagonist’s lost love was on a mission to rediscover Earth and to see whether those left behind, when the planet was abandoned due to climate change, left descendants who would now benefit from her civilisation’s advanced weather technologies.

The people our protagonist encounters are mostly followers of a religion that sprang up in the times leading up to the evacuation of Earth, who worship Gaia and believe that those who left are sinners doomed to suffer in the hell beyond the sky. I like this reversal of Heaven Above and Hell Below, and how it altered the everyday language of ordinary people. On the other hand, I was less taken by the idea of a single planetary religion that had hardly fragmented in the many years that had passed since its founding, and by the apparent lack of any belief systems among those who had left (I remember <i>Babylon 5</i> handling this trope well, and even <i>Firefly</i> was pretty good on it).

On the other hand, I like how the seemingly unrelated excerpts from various works related to our protagonist eventually all made sense in the context of what had happened prior to the start of the story. This is a debut novel, of course, and I’d like to see how the author’s writing develops.