SPACE TRUCKER JESS
SKU:
$20.95
$17.99
$17.99
On Sale
per item
MATTHEW KRESSEL
Jessian Urania Darger is a kick-ass take-no-shit foul-mouthed too-smart-for-her-own-good sixteen-year-old girl with a chip on her shoulder. She and her daddy have been grifting their way across the verse for years. But when her daddy gets arrested for running crypto-credit scams, Jess is forced to get a job on Chadeisson Station as a roachrunner, fixing starships to survive.
She dreams of a better life, away from her corrupt daddy, so she's been saving up to buy a Spark Megahauler, a huge cargo ship, ever since she saw one in a printer catalog. She wants to run the long hauls, to sail alone into the black and never look back.
But when her daddy goes missing from prison, Jess realizes she just can't let him go, and she makes it her life's mission to find out where he's gone. In an odyssey that takes her across the galaxy, Jess encounters vanished planets, strange societies, inscrutable alien gods, and mind-bending secrets that may change humanity's path forever.
[cover not final]
- June, 2025 978-1-958880-27-2
- trade paperback, 6 x 9
- Preorder copies below, or order ebook and trade paper print copies from these dealers.
- Artwork by Paul Chadeisson
Jessian Urania Darger is a kick-ass take-no-shit foul-mouthed too-smart-for-her-own-good sixteen-year-old girl with a chip on her shoulder. She and her daddy have been grifting their way across the verse for years. But when her daddy gets arrested for running crypto-credit scams, Jess is forced to get a job on Chadeisson Station as a roachrunner, fixing starships to survive.
She dreams of a better life, away from her corrupt daddy, so she's been saving up to buy a Spark Megahauler, a huge cargo ship, ever since she saw one in a printer catalog. She wants to run the long hauls, to sail alone into the black and never look back.
But when her daddy goes missing from prison, Jess realizes she just can't let him go, and she makes it her life's mission to find out where he's gone. In an odyssey that takes her across the galaxy, Jess encounters vanished planets, strange societies, inscrutable alien gods, and mind-bending secrets that may change humanity's path forever.
[cover not final]
"This action-packed outing from Kressel (the Worldmender series) introduces readers to feisty, profane, and resourceful teenager Jess Darger. Her grifter father, Ignatius, taught Jess from a young age how to con people, but she intends to turn over a new leaf. . . . She learns that Ignatius has been shipped off-station to parts unknown. Despite his mistreatment of her, Jess still cares for Ignatius and gathers all her resources to find him, a mission made more complex by careful efforts to conceal the route his transport had taken. Jess’s scrappy narrative voice will put readers in mind of the television show Firefly, and Kressel skillfully balances suspense and humor in the service of a page-turning adventure set in an inventive universe. A sequel would be welcome news to space opera fans."
— Publishers Weekly
"Space Trucker Jess is Space Opera in the grand style, with starships, alien gods, and a heroine in way over her head. The tension keeps ratcheting up page by page, until the whole universe is at stake."
— Dennis E. Taylor, author of Heaven's River
“If Philip K. Dick had a vision of a protagonist as gutsy Katniss Everdeen hyperdriving her way through a Gibsonesque cyberpunk galaxy, he might have imagined Space Trucker Jess—minus the humor and voice that are singularly Matt Kressel’s. Wild, philosophical, inventive and totally unpredictable, Space Trucker Jess is a recklessly paced slow burn that will take you on a journey through a warts-and-all universe where the stakes couldn’t be higher, nor nearer to the human heart.
— Carlos Hernandez, author of Sal & Gabi Break the Universe
"Space Trucker Jess rides the slipstream of a crunchy, satisfyingly articulated human diaspora across the 'Milk,' coding language and technology into an adventure into the outer and inner depths of the universe and a single being. It's a stellar ride with a tough and determined young hero in Jessian Urania Darger."
— Jessica Reisman, author of Substrate Phantoms
"Like its titular protagonist, Space Trucker Jess is foul-mouthed, funny, hungry, lonely, and tripping balls. It’s poetry and philosophy and science and religion and friendship, streaking by at light speed, a radioactive burn in the black. Matthew Kressel’s slangy prose sucks you in like a black hole, and like a black hole, is singular in the ‘verse."
— C. S. E. Cooney, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Saint Death’s Daughter
More Praise for Matthew Kressel
“This is gorgeous, melancholy, and heartbreaking. I highly rec it (I cried through most of it).”
— Ellen Datlow
“[‘The Sounds of Old Earth’] is a powerful story that is both tragic & hopeful — unexpectedly. And beautifully written. Thank you for sharing it.”
— Joyce Carol Oates
“A surreal and exotic adventure in a unique mythological setting. Scary, exhilarating fun!”
— N.K. Jemisin, award-winning author of The Fifth Season [on King of Shards]
"Matthew Kressel’s King of Shards is an imaginative, intelligent, and soaring debut that mixes Jewish folklore/mysticism and modern-day social politics. The result is a unique spin on epic fantasy that is both timeless and timely, and a hell of lot of fun."
— Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts [on King of Shards]
— Publishers Weekly
"Space Trucker Jess is Space Opera in the grand style, with starships, alien gods, and a heroine in way over her head. The tension keeps ratcheting up page by page, until the whole universe is at stake."
— Dennis E. Taylor, author of Heaven's River
“If Philip K. Dick had a vision of a protagonist as gutsy Katniss Everdeen hyperdriving her way through a Gibsonesque cyberpunk galaxy, he might have imagined Space Trucker Jess—minus the humor and voice that are singularly Matt Kressel’s. Wild, philosophical, inventive and totally unpredictable, Space Trucker Jess is a recklessly paced slow burn that will take you on a journey through a warts-and-all universe where the stakes couldn’t be higher, nor nearer to the human heart.
— Carlos Hernandez, author of Sal & Gabi Break the Universe
"Space Trucker Jess rides the slipstream of a crunchy, satisfyingly articulated human diaspora across the 'Milk,' coding language and technology into an adventure into the outer and inner depths of the universe and a single being. It's a stellar ride with a tough and determined young hero in Jessian Urania Darger."
— Jessica Reisman, author of Substrate Phantoms
"Like its titular protagonist, Space Trucker Jess is foul-mouthed, funny, hungry, lonely, and tripping balls. It’s poetry and philosophy and science and religion and friendship, streaking by at light speed, a radioactive burn in the black. Matthew Kressel’s slangy prose sucks you in like a black hole, and like a black hole, is singular in the ‘verse."
— C. S. E. Cooney, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Saint Death’s Daughter
More Praise for Matthew Kressel
“This is gorgeous, melancholy, and heartbreaking. I highly rec it (I cried through most of it).”
— Ellen Datlow
“[‘The Sounds of Old Earth’] is a powerful story that is both tragic & hopeful — unexpectedly. And beautifully written. Thank you for sharing it.”
— Joyce Carol Oates
“A surreal and exotic adventure in a unique mythological setting. Scary, exhilarating fun!”
— N.K. Jemisin, award-winning author of The Fifth Season [on King of Shards]
"Matthew Kressel’s King of Shards is an imaginative, intelligent, and soaring debut that mixes Jewish folklore/mysticism and modern-day social politics. The result is a unique spin on epic fantasy that is both timeless and timely, and a hell of lot of fun."
— Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts [on King of Shards]
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR