On the isolated planet of Erin, young Jay Hara has grown up on dreams of space and legends of the fabled Godspeed drive, which once allowed humans to travel at translight speeds.
After meeting Paddy Enderton, a seedy old spacer, Jay is drawn into a chase which carries him off the planet, into the asteroid belt and its tiny worldlets, and finally to the remnants of an ancient space station where the Godspeed drive may still exist.
Along the way, Jay is at once awed and terrified of the piratical spacers who crew the ship, particularly the smooth-talking, ruthless captain, Daniel Shaker.
"[1] David Brin of Science Fiction Age wrote that it is not the novel's "many routine competencies" that stand out but rather the "unexpected and the untraditional in its resolution of what happened back in Erin’s misty past".
[2] Kirkus Reviews called it "passably diverting and involving—if you don't mind precarious plots and chirpy 16-year-old narrators.