Silversands by Gareth L. Powell is one of those delightful surprises that you run across while searching the internet for something else.
I was searching for another author and stumbled upon a link to Silversands.
The story started out slow for me but by the end of the sample I was hooked and had to download the rest.
This is the story of Avril Bradley a young woman who has been orphaned and is looking for her father. A man she only knows from a photograph and her mother's memories. To quirk up the equation, her search has taken her aboard a star ship that travels through a wormhole that has so many random destinations that it's improbable that she'll succeed.
After many jumps and a cargo full of refugees from a failed settlement on another star system they seem to have lucked into finding the ship that her father was supposed to have been aboard. In a strange turn of events something causes a malfunction in their ship, when they attempt to communicate with the other ship. Suspicious and unsure what caused their problem, they are forced to seek help from the settlers on the planet below the ships as their cargo begin to awaken from a long sleep.
This is where the story begins to weave into a convoluted set of political plots and strange events that point to Avril and her quest.
This has some excellent world building that helps drive the plot.
Though I found some of the plot to be predictable it did not interfere with my enjoyment of the story.(I can't really mention more about it without spoiling things) There were plenty of ways for the whole plot to play out and Gareth gives us plenty of surprises.
I recommend this to anyone who enjoys Science Fiction and is looking for some fresh new ideas and Characters.
There's plenty of room for more stories in this universe.
J.L.Dobias