Hell Ship by Philip Palmer [Book Review]

Jul 192011

Alien Cultures Clash

Philip Palmer is new to me but he comes highly recommended so I had high expectations. Hell ship lived up to my expectations for the most part.

A mysterious vessel travels the universes and destroys all life in them. One survivor from each race is taken to the observation deck to watch their world destroyed before being made a slave forever. The slaves live in an artificial world inside the ship. This is the story of Sharrock who just saw his home world explode. He swears vengeance like all the survivors. Trouble is that Sai-Sai the ruler among the slaves is all for happiness and live the day. So she tries to convert him to acceptance and her way of life. Their struggles are the heart in the story. This is where Palmer does a good job of characterization.

The third point of view character is Jak an Explorer and former trader. He sees the ship from outside as he strives to destroy it. The social life of Jak and his fellow aliens are amusing and might hold a few pointers for real life.

You know characters are important to me so another part that I liked was the flashbacks into the pasts of the main characters which made them make sense. Sai-Sai’s makes one of those inner journeys that are at the center of good tales. Jak does too but to a lesser extent. For him it is more about equality.

The hard sciences are not important here. Palmer writes about the characters and the story they create. He does a great job at it. This makes it so sad in the end when he jumps over major resolutions in bylines and implications. The whole book was well written up until the ending and would have been five out of five if it wasn’t for a rushed ending.

Bottom line I liked Hell Ship. It was an engaging read about aliens, clashing cultures, secrets revealed and the fight for freedom. But it has, in my opinion, a weak ending, though not a catastrophic one. Hell Ship has a lot of things going for it so I would recommend you to read it but don’t expect too much.

Book Information

Hell Ship by Philip Palmer (Orbit 2011) – Amazon US | UK

The Hell Ship hurtles through space. Inside the ship are thousands of slaves, each the last of their race. The Hell Ship and its infernal crew destroyed their homes, slaughtered their families and imprisoned them forever. One champion refuses to succumb. Sharrock, reduced from hero to captive in one blow, has sworn vengeance. Although Sai-as, head of the alien slave horde, will ruthlessly enforce the status quo. But help is close. Jak has followed the Ship for years and their battles have left Jak broken, a mind in a starship’s body, focussed only on destroying the Ship. Together, can hunter and slave end this interstellar nightmare?

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Boneshaker (Clockwork Century 1) by Cherie Priest [Review]

Books 3 Responses »

Aug 072010

Title: Boneshaker
Series: Clockwork Century book 1
Author: Cherie Priest
Genre: Steampunk
Cover art: Jon Foster
Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Tor 2009

Order from: Amazon US | UK | B&N | sfbok

In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.

His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.

Information

Everything about this book is beautiful the cover, the design and the story in itself. There is a even a beautiful map of Seattle 1879 inside by Jenifer Hanover. I think that the popularity of Steampunk has something to do with a wish for more beautiful soulful things. I am not saying that modern design can’t be beautiful but they seldom have soul.

This is the story about a strong persistent mother who would do anything for her son. Briar is a hardworking single mom that just manages to get by on what she brings in while she tries to live under the radar of the stigma of her former husband’s alleged crime. Her son Ezekiel convinced of his father’s innocence sets out to find proof inside the walled city.

The Author

Cherie comes quite well recommended from reviewers and nominations and she lives up to my expectations. She writes very accessible and with her own style that reminds me of pulp fiction writers like Sax Rohmer’s (Dr. Fu-Manchu) and old classic writers like Jules Verne. This is the first book I read by her but not the last; I have Clementine on its way here and Dreadnought (the next book set in the Clockwork Century) on pre order.

World Building

I like the Steampunk version of Seattle even if I was a bit skeptical about the Zombie part at first. I am not really into horror that much. I enjoy the whole ‘what if’ with Steampunk. It makes you think and fantasize all by yourself.

Cherie uses a journalist that pesters Briar for an interview to give the back story in an excerpt from his unfinished works and the rest comes natural as the story develops with Briar doing most of the remembering. It feels like we just opened the door to the Clockwork Century and had a tiny peek, I want to know more and explore the different parts of this alternate universe. So I guess the world building worked great, I am hooked.

Plot

Zeke goes into the Blight to clear his father’s good name and Briar goes after to save his skin. The story focuses on Briar finding a way into the walled city, surviving the zombies, the blight, locating her son and getting him out of there. But it is not easy. She encounters the airship Clementine whose story I assume is covered in the novella by the same name. The walled city in itself holds more than one secret and she uncovers them one by one. The twists and turns reminded somewhat of pulp fiction but more coherent. Some of what happens seems to happen out of the blue when they do but they get their explanation later on much like they would in real life.

Characterization

I like the characters as much as I am in love with the settings. Briar is really set on saving her son from himself while she spare noting in scolding herself for her own short comings. The people she meets and form bonds with step out of the text lifelike and interesting in themselves. There are more than a couple of them I wouldn’t mind reading a short story or two about. Alastair, Cly, Fang and Angeline Princess to mention a few.

My View

I love Boneshaker, it is an easy read you will have trouble putting down and the storyline is compelling and you will want to read more of Cherie’s books afterwards. What is it that is so charming and compelling with goggles, gas masks, zombies, airships and 19th century technology? I don’t know but it got me under its spell too.

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Absorption (Ragnarok book 1) by John Meaney (Gollancz)

Books 4 Responses »

Aug 042010

Title: Absorption
Series: Ragnarok book 1
Author: John Meaney
Genre: Science Fantasy | Space Opera
Hardback: 416 pages
Publisher: Gollancz May 2010

Order from: Amazon US | UK | sfbok

600 years from now on the world of Fulgor Roger Blackstone, son of two Pilots (long-time alien spies, masquerading as ordinary humans) aches to see the mythical Pilot’s city of Labyrinth, in the fractal ur-continuum of mu-space. In 8th century Norseland, a young carl called Wulf kills a man, watched by a mysterious warrior who bears the mark of Loki the Trickster God. In 1920s Zurich, Gavriela Silberstein enters the long, baroque central hallway of the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule where Einstein so recently studied. And on a nameless world, not knowing his human heritage, a silver-skinned youth tries to snatch back an Idea – but it floats away on gentle magnetic currents. There are others across the ages, all with three things in common: they glimpse shards of darkness moving at the edge of their vision; they hear echoes of a dark, disturbing musical chord; and they will dream of joining a group called the Ragnarok Council. ABSORPTION is the first novel of RAGNAROK, a new space opera trilogy of high-tech space warfare, unitary intelligences made up of millions of minds, the bizarre physics of dark energy, quantum mechanics and a mindblowing rationale for Norse mythology.

This is one of the best books I have read this year but I almost put it away. The story is complex and follows multiple main characters along multiple time lines but all the characters are compelling and the world John has created is pretty awesome. It took about 70 pages before I could sort out the plot enough for some kind of grip. Some of the plot lines get some kind of resolution or a rest stop while others are wide open before this book is over which is good since it is the first book in a series you really want to read the next book.

It is hard to describe what this is. It is a new take on Norse mythology with both science fiction and fantasy content. Fantasy readers will probably feel at home in the viking era while hard core science fiction fans will do the same in the 22 or 26th hundreds. This book has things for almost every genre buff. One timeline is early 19 hundreds and involve celebrities such as Freud and Einstein. And they all come together in a distant but parallel future where some kind of fight or score keeping takes place. It is definitely a matter of Light against Shadows but it is a bit more complicated than that and I have a feeling some of the dark creatures might be fighting for light and vice versa, we will see further on in the series.

I had most wow moments in the futuristic world of normal humans and uplifted ones. There you got to see what Internet wants to become when it grows up and that future city was awesome with lots of spiffy tech. There is a tie in to John’s previous books with the plot around vampiric code. If i guess right (I haven’t read it, but I will) To Hold Infinity takes place somewhere between the two future timelines. It is probably not a bad idea to read his previous science fiction books concerning the Pilots before this one, though it works fine as a stand alone series.

All the characters make me want to come back and know how it goes for them. The aliens are lovely or mysterious and we have only started to scratch on the main plot, it is still much of a bloody mystery to me but it is so compelling to follow. The sequel will be high on my most anticipated books next year.

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Stealing Light (Shaol sequence 1) by Gary Gibson

Books 7 Responses »

Jul 222010

Title: Stealing Light
Series: Shaol Sequence book 1
Author: Gary Gibson
Genre: Space Opera
Cover Art: Lee Gibbons
Paperback: 601 pages
Publisher: Tor UK 2007

Order from: Amazon Tor UK | US | UK | B&N | sfbok

In the 25th century, only the Shaol possess the secret of faster-than-light travel (FTL), thus exerting an economic stranglehold on all interstellar travel. For a century and a half, mankind has operated within their influence, till now there are at least a dozen human colony worlds scattered along Shaol trade routes.

Dakota Merrick, while serving as a military pilot, has witnessed atrocities for which this alien race is responsible. Now piloting a civilian cargo ship, she is currently ferrying an exploration team to a star system containing a derelict starship. From its wreckage, her passengers hope to salvage a functioning FTL drive of mysteriously non-Shaol origin. But the Shaol are not yet ready to relinquish their monopoly of a technology they acquired through ancient genocide.

Information

The online description of this paperback lists 400 pages but my book has 601 (Tor UK has 592), but I believe my own eyes the first page with story is page 3 and last page is 603.

This is a story about taking responsibility. The main character is Dakota and followed by Corso and the main antagonists are the Shaol Trader-In-Faecal-Matter-Of-Animals and the human crime boss Bourdain.

Dakota is a machine head, her brain is wired with enhancements once used by the military but outlawed since the Port Gabriel Massacre where enemies took control over the enhanced soldiers and killed off a whole town of Freeholders. Her dark secret is that she was victim to that mind control.

Corso is a Freeholder expert in ancient protocols blackmailed to hack into the ship they found while Dakota is the designated pilot.

The Author

Gary Gibson is a new acquaintance. According to Tor UK he is a graphic designer, previously magazine editor, in his home city of Glasgow. He has been writing since the age of fourteen.

World building

Humanity is forbidden knowledge of FTL travel or even attempting to get it or face boycott by the Shaol but the Shaol themselves hides a secret that starts to come to light when light from multiple Nova’s in the Magellanic Clouds reach our part of the galaxy.

Humanity is not united; it consists of different fractions that often fight each other. The Consortium dominates but wars are still fought on some worlds. Principal in this story is Freehold who fights a war against the Uchidan but are losing ground so in a desperate attempt to turn the tides they go after FTL travel.

The world building is quite extensive and includes some surprising twists. The underlying threat is intriguing and it is with anticipation I read the next books in the trilogy.

Plot

Trader is always there when something happens, he tries to steer events to the most favorable outcome for the Shaol.

Dakota is hired to bring a secret cargo to Boudain’s asteroid but she is betrayed and in that confusion the astroid is destroyed making her even more a fugitive than before. Boudain and his scary bodyguard go after her bent on revenge. That is about the time she gets an offer to pilot a Freehold frigate to the derelict starship. She doesn’t have much choice in the matter; she got to take the job.

Here is where the real action starts with the hardcore Freehold investors on one side and Dakota and Corso on the other side. But the thing is that they find so much more than an FTL drive and someone has to take responsibility to what is going to happen with that new knowledge.

Characterization

Again a story with wonderful characters. I am on a roll when it comes to new authors. Dakota is a complex character with lots of luggage and she makes many mistakes and she is not always in full control of events but she is still endearing. Corso grew up in a society where might is right, where the only way to become a full citizen is to kill but yet he manages to keep his humanity and grows as the story unfolds. I especially like Dakota’s ship. I have a thing for sentient ships with an attitude since Mutineers’ Moon.

My view

Stealing Light is a fast paced space opera about ancient alien secrets and a great start of a series. I read it in two days; it was pretty exciting to read. It’s the kind of story I like with strong characters and a mysterious past to decipher. The only thing missing is a love story. I sincerely recommend the whole series as a good example of modern science fiction.

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