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Review: How to Steal a Galaxy, by Beth Revis

How to Steal a Galaxy is a far-future science fiction caper short novel (maybe a novella?) and the sequel to Full Speed to a Crash Landing. You don't have to remember the details of the previous book to enjoy this one. There's an excellent inline summary at the start of this installment.

After an annoying negotiation with people who keep trying to preach at her about causes, Ada Lamarr has a new contract. She is going undercover, after a fashion, at a charity gala and auction on Rigel-Earth. While she's there, she's going to steal something. What, precisely, she keeps a mystery from both the other characters and from the reader until the end of the story.

Government agent Rian White is working security at this charity gala. Due to its link with the plot of Full Speed to a Crash Landing, he was fairly certain Ada would be there, as indeed she is. What she is planning, however, is maddeningly unclear. Also maddening is how good Ada looks in a dress.

As with the previous book, How to Steal a Galaxy is told by Ada in the first person using the same teasing tone and constant misdirection that she uses when verbally fencing with Rian and the other characters. I found this novella even more entertaining and satisfying than the previous one. The charity gala is supposedly intended to benefit the poor people of Earth, and is run with exactly the sort of condescension and disguised capitalist looting typical of such exercises in elite charity. Ada's narration is scathing in a deeply relatable way.

Also, there is a trillionaire tech-bro fake philanthropist who is smug and condescending and accustomed to getting exactly what he wants.

"I don't think anyone should have enough personal wealth to decimate a large country's income just because he's going through a midlife crisis."

Ada's interactions with Strom Fetor are an absolute delight. He is so sure of himself that he is incapable of registering her as a threat, and she effortlessly deceives him by hiding in plain sight.

"You really shouldn't be talking about this," Rian starts.

Fetor waves aside his concerns. "We're all friends here."

"Not me," I say. "I hate you. Remember?"

Fetor laughs in a tone I'm sure he thinks is charming.

Fetor's complete inability to realize that a beautiful woman might both sincerely not like him and not be flirting with him is perfect. I was cackling through half of this book.

Like any good heist story, there are twists and turns, surprises, double agents, unexpected complications, and a delightful amount of verbal fencing. I adore the narrative tone Revis uses for these stories. Ada has just the right mix of idealism, cynicism, professionalism, and irreverence to carry off the feeling that she's a step ahead of everyone else. Underneath the bones of a delightful plot is a character who cares deeply but is very aware of her limitations, and therefore has taught herself to laugh at and be ruthless with her own emotions. I am finding it an incredibly compelling type of competence porn.

I enjoyed the first book of this series, but this one was so much better. These stories are exactly the right length to keep the reader engrossed throughout and satisfied but wanting more at the end. How to Steal a Galaxy ends on a cliffhanger of sorts, to be resolved in the next and final book. I can hardly wait to start it.

Highly recommended.

Followed by Last Chance to Save the World.

Rating: 9 out of 10

01 Aug 2026 4:23am GMT

31 Jul 2026 3:32pm GMT

Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders wrote a disturbing and informative article about the use of AI by the US government [1].

Bruce Schneier wrote an interesting blog post about corporate liability for AI decisions and the German court ruling about Google's AI summaries [2].

Cybersecurity News has an interesting article about how Pliny the Liberator succeeded in jailbreaking Anthropic's latest LLM to give instructions on writing exploits, writing exploitable code (backdoors?), and making meth [3].

Andrew Pam wrote about the number of cars with internal combustion engines in NSW decreasing for the first time since 1910, EVs are taking over [4].

Cory Doctorow wrote an informative blog post about Facebook's attempts to silence whistleblowers and what a pathetic little loser Zuckerberg is [5].

Scott Santens wrote an insightful article about how to effectively levy taxes in the future when "AI" significantly reduces the number of workers [6].

Ron Garrett wrote an insightful post about birthright citizenship in the US and his status as a US citizen who was not born there [7].

The BBC has an interesting article about the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit and how treating violence as a disease can significantly address the problem [8].

The LA Times has an interesting article about Covid19 causing cancer that had been in remission to return, sparking some new research into the effects of viruses on mammals [9].

CMU has an interesting video about ways to physically modify QR codes and how they could be used in real life [10].

Tim Retout wrote an informative post about the pervasive forms of advertising on the Internet, even on the BBC's site and how some of it can be blocked [11].

The Intercept Fund is a project to address respiratory illnesses and the long term mostly unnoticed costs they cause to society, we need governments and corporations to get on board with this [12].

The German news site DW has an interesting article about activists registering neo-nazi slang as trademarks to prevent the sale of nazi merchanise which funds racism [13].

The Conversation has an insightful article about how in South Sudan and other war ravaged countries the peace process usually just allocates the spoils of war and therefore encourages more war [14].

• [1] https://tinyurl.com/26cnn3og
• [2] https://tinyurl.com/22fewyml
• [3] https://tinyurl.com/2a5t693d
• [4] https://glasswings.com.au/blog/2026-07/05-185304.html
• [5] https://tinyurl.com/26qzcadm
• [6] https://tinyurl.com/2csg4huw
• [7] https://tinyurl.com/2blnzzxg
• [8] https://tinyurl.com/25v5j7v9
• [9] https://archive.md/Gq2jB
• [10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ddTIa-AhXE
• [11] https://tinyurl.com/2xt9dgfp
• [12] https://tinyurl.com/2y5f26rj
• [13] https://tinyurl.com/29ok2qsu
• [14] https://tinyurl.com/2yxzsp7s

31 Jul 2026 10:33am GMT