I’m now halfway through Wraith by M.R. Forbes, and even at 50% through, this is everything I want in a science fiction book—high-octane action, tension, thrills, and obviously spaceships, because you gotta have spaceships.

Something that has always kind of bothered me about science fiction—at least for me, anyway—is that there’s just not enough of it. I want more.

And believe me, I love science fiction. It’s probably my favorite genre of fiction, specifically anything that’s a space opera. I know there are a lot of folks who like their science fiction to be realistic. I get that, kind of. But for myself, I prefer the fantasy of humanity exploring the stars—something I don’t think will ever happen during my lifetime. If it does, maybe we’ll make it to the Moon. I don’t even think man is going to set foot on Mars while I’m alive. And knowing how we are right now, I doubt there’s the political wherewithal to leave Earth whatsoever.

But man, Wraith is just a lot—and in all the best ways. Again, I’m only halfway through the book, but I had to stop, catch my breath, and take stock of where we’re at. I’m not going to reveal any spoilers, but if I had to define what this book is, it’s somewhere between Star Trek and Mass Effect. In fact, I got this book after contemplating whether or not I wanted to pick up the first Mass Effect novel. I thought about it, but then I told myself: You haven’t even finished the first Mass Effect game—why are you thinking about getting the novel? And I felt kind of guilty, because I never finish the games I buy. I should be all over Mass Effect. I’ve played more than one of the games, but I haven’t finished a single one. So why the hell was I thinking about buying a novel?

After perusing that and deciding it wasn’t for me, Amazon went ahead and recommended Wraith.

The conceit of Wraith is that a ship goes to investigate a distress signal, finds a big-ass accident, and this leads to the ship’s disappearance—causing a whole lot of fallout. Like I said, I don’t know exactly where this is going, which is a good thing. You can feel the screws beginning to turn. You can feel that things are getting big, and I like that. The book takes the perspective of multiple characters, not just one, so you get a bigger picture of what’s going on.

One thing I’ve always kind of wanted to do is adapt a sci-fi series to the screen. I think this book would make a killer movie.

One other thing I should mention—this has been a very novel experience for me because I was in too much pain to read the book lying down. So I used Amazon’s assistive reader to help me out. I’m not going to buy the Audible version. If I did, I’d probably need a bloody membership just to get it. And I’m not getting a membership on Audible—I already tried that. It’s ten bucks, and I think I’d rather just read the book and use the assistive reader when I can’t.

Surprisingly, the assistive reader helps a lot. I’m not necessarily one for audiobooks—it’s harder for me to follow audio than just reading—but my sciatica has been rough, so I’ve been using the assistive reader for all it’s worth. And honestly? It’s a good experience. Pro tip: if you’re going to use the assistive reader, go with the American voice. It just does a better job.

I can’t wait to see where this goes next. I’m incredibly excited.