Tag: SF

Robotica Destructiva

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★★
“Technically marvellous. But only technically.”

To bring out one of my go-to phrases, if I was eleven years old, and hopped up off my face on candy-floss, this would probably be one of my favorite movies. Instead, it’s the kind of film which apparently caused my brain to shut off as some kind of defense mechanism. I’m not kidding. Ten minutes into my first viewing attempt, I suddenly fell asleep. I think my mind may have experienced the cerebral equivalent of a blue screen of death and ran out of memory, forcing a shutdown. For this is just an insane overload of a movie, all the more so considering it was a labour of love, assembled over a period of multiple years.

Gaffin and pals are part of a rock band out of Florida, called The Killer Robots, whose schtick involves dressing in (undeniably impressive) robot costumes, and have also made films like The Killer Robots and the Battle for the Cosmic Potato. Maybe if I’d seen those, this might have made sense, instead of being the incomprehensible gibberish it seemed.  As far as I can determine, the plot is this. The Killer Robots steal the Arculon Destroyer from planet Radia, leaving it defenseless. To retake it, the rulers defrost a trio of android warriors: Mytra (Belko), Azalla (Martin), and Luna (Theron), known as the Destructivas. Mayhem ensues. Which is my way of saying “I’m not sure what happens thereafter.” Oh, except there’s time-travel. Definitely time-travel.

To say this is loosely-plotted, would imply there was any plotting going on at all. There’s no shortage of stuff happening, to be sure. However, very little of it makes coherent sense on more than the shallowest of levels. Characters arrive, do something or more or less relevance, and then vanish without explanation. I was somewhat amused on occasion, such as the way the Destructivas keep getting arrested, convicted and sent to space prison. Or there’s the “peacekeeper” chasing after them whose hand turns into a literal hammer. It’s just that it feels as if Gaffin simply hurled every idea he could think of into a blender, flicked the on-switch and committed the results to high-quality digital video.

Make no mistake, there’s a strong visual aesthetic here, perhaps best described as Tron, remade for fifty bucks after a hit of industrial-strength weed. The poster above is actually a fairly decent representation of the lurid delights in question, and I can’t fault this side of things. However, the lack of characterization, and performances which largely feel like having Chris Farley yelling in your face for a hour, outstay their welcome and become wearing. I would say, it’s the kind of thing which might work better as a music promo. Except, after the credits, that’s exactly what we get: a promo for The Killer Robots. And it’s kinda dull, with the band just wandering round in their admittedly impressive costumes. I still might buy a ticket for a live show. Their movies? Not so much. 

Dir: Sam Gaffin
Star: Amber Belko, Torie Martin, Kristal Theron, Sam Gaffin

The Alien Corps, by P.J. McDermott

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Literary rating: ★★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆½

If you’re even slightly familiar with the Star Trek universe, you’ll be aware of the Prime Directive. While never explicitly stated, it’s the rule which prohibits interfering with the development of less technologically advanced civilization, in particular those that are not capable of space travel, or are unaware of the existence of life beyond their own planet. It’s a key concept in this book too, though is meshed together with a religious theme – not something often found in this kind of science fiction.

The central character is Commander Hickory Lace, part of the Alien Corps. This is a group created by the Vatican to investigate extraterrestrial “messiahs” as they are reported, to see if they are potentially also the Son of God like Jesus. After a century, they’ve had no success: perhaps the latest candidate, Kar-sèr-Sephiryth of the planet Prosperine, might be “the one”. The Corps are working with Earth’s Intragalactic Agency, in which Hickory’s father is an admiral, as Prosperine has the rare material Crynidium, essential to faster-than-light travel. The IA has their version of the Prime Directive, so Hickory and her crew have to disguise themselves as the local population. Not everyone abides by the same rules. The Bikashi, an outlaw race thrown out of the Galactic Alliance, are present on Properine, seeking to control the Crynidium for themselves, and don’t care about manipulating the development of the natives.

I liked the concept and the world-building here, with Prosperine truly seeming like an alien planet in every regard. The scenario poses an interesting challenge for the heroine, with the strictures imposed by the Intragalactic Agency limiting her ability to counter the Bikashi, who are operating under no such constraints. Fortunately, she has some tricks up her sleeves, most notably her empathic abilities, which even work on the native wildlife. Along with her team, she has to find a way to thwart the rebellion being fomented among certain radical elements by the Bikashi, while also trying to decide whether or not Kar-sèr-Sephiryth is legitimate. This process does lean more heavily on smarts than firepower, in part because the weapons so far invented on Prosperine are relatively primitive.

It feels as if every member of the Alien Corps ends up both captured by, and then escaping from the Pharlaxians, the religious reactionaries leading the revolt, with Bikashi help. I’d have a word about their security protocols, if I were their leader. The religious elements are not overpowering, and there is a lack of resolution which is a bit unsatisfying: we never reach a conclusion as to Kar-sèr-Sephiryth’s divine status. Still it’s kinda brave even to suggest the concept that the second coming of Jesus Christ could be as an alien. The ending feels like Hickory and allies are heading off on another mission:  however, naming the series after the planet suggests they’re not going anywhere. Nor are Hickory’s Daddy issues. It may be a somewhat optimistic take on first contact, yet was thoughtful enough to make for a satisfactory read.

Author: P.J. McDermott
Publisher: ‎ Patrick McDermott Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 4 in the Prosperine series.

Daisy’s Run by Scott Baron

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Literary rating: ★★★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

By the time I reached the end of this, what stood out most is how far we had come from the initial scenario. We start way out in deep space, where the crew of the Váli are awoken from their cryo stasis after the ship suffers significant damage as a result of a hull breach. By the end, everything has changed dramatically. The situation back on Earth, the mission of the Váli, and the very nature of the heroine, 25-year-old comms and electronics specialist, Daisy Swathmore, are are all radically different from what they initially seem to be. It’s basically a dramatic arc for the entire human race.

It begins with Daisy adjusting the setting of her neuro-stim. It’s designed to allow learning while the wearer sleeps. But she disables the firewalls which are there to stop the brain being overloaded. She becomes a lot more knowledgeable and skilled – but also incredibly paranoid, believing the cyborgs and enhanced human colleagues are plotting… something. Daisy is already prejudiced against those who are not entirely human, but are her concerns the result of mental illness, or is there something genuinely going on? She eventually decides to go AWOL, hiding out in the bowels of the ship as she digs for the truth, becoming a one-woman human resistance, before leaving in a shuttle and making her own way back to Earth. Where things are certainly not as she expected to find them.

Baron does an excellent job of engaging the viewer from the very first page. The opening line is, “Should we wake them? I mean, the ship is on fire, after all,” and if that doesn’t get you interested in reading on, I don’t know what to say. It’s an interesting exercise in reverse world-building, in that it starts out at the small and personal level, only gradually opening up to reveal what’s going on in the universe at large. Getting there involves going along on the heroine’s paranoid journey, and in the middle I was increasingly convinced that her fears were justified. They are. And they aren’t. That’s a tricky task to pull off, but the author manages it.

The neuro-stim is a nice Macguffin, which allows Daisy to have the necessary talents for the plot, but Baron doesn’t just rely on that as a crutch. For example, this allows her to build a scanner that will tell her which crew-mates are human and which are cyborg. However, just as tricky is then having to get them to pass through it. The book occasionally feels like the text of a space-based adventure game, with a cycle of problem > solution > progress > problem. Yet this keeps the narrative moving forward, and we learn alongside Daisy the truth about the situation. While ut comes as much of a shock to this reader as it does to her, the facts seems to fit the preceding elements. Well done, Mr. Baron. I think we’ll be revisiting Daisy down the road.

Author: Scott Baron
Publisher: Self-published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 6 in the Clockwork Chimera series.

Rebel Moon: A Child of Fire – Part One

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★★★
“Don’t call it Star Wars…”

Despite critical derision, this is actually perfectly serviceable pulp SF. Sure, it’s derivative as hell. But the critics getting all huffy about the similarities to Star Wars seem to have forgotten George Lucas only made his film, after failing to acquire the rights to Flash Gordon. This is Snyder’s equivalent to The Fifth Element, in that it’s a long-gestating SF idea, originally conceived well before he became a director. “The Dirty Dozen in space” was the high concept, although there is no denying the SW similarities, especially in the early going. I mean, young orphan on a backwater farming planet gets sucked in to galaxy-hopping adventures, joining a rebellion against an evil empire? Yeah, a little more originality would be welcome. 

It is a bit more “adult”, though the PG-13 certificate holds it back. I still want to see a hard-R take on the concept. Here, it’s limited to stiffer violence and a sprinkling of sexual assault. [An R-rated cut will follow: presumably with more blackjack and hookers.] The heroine is Kota (Boutella), rescued from a crashed spaceship and now living a quiet life on Veldt. That ends when Admiral Atticus Noble (Skrein) and his forces arrive, hunting rebels against the Motherworld. We know they’re the bad guys, because they shop for clothes at some kind of Nazi Outlet Mall. Soon, Kota and fellow farmer Gunnar (Huisman) are on galactic tour, seeking warriors who help defend Veldt, and joining up with the rebels.

If all fairly basic, that’s not a bad thing. I got significant Chronicles of Riddick vibes, though it had a stronger central character. This isn’t necessarily Boutella’s fault, more a result of there being so many to handle here. Editing would have helped: for example, there’s one lengthy animal training scene which feels like it wandered in from Avatar. As you would expect from Snyder, it looks very nice, certainly an improvement in this area over Army of the Dead. There is a similar theme – you could call it’s predecessor “The Dirty Dozen in Vegas, with zombies”. But outside of Kota, not many of the characters here make much impression. Save perhaps the regrettable Oirish accent sported by mercenary pilot Kai (Hunnam).

It does suffer from part-one-itis – the inevitable lack of any conclusion, with nothing of significance being decided. Even the apparent death of a major character ends up being a fake out. But it does rather better than, say, Dune, in terms of narrative division. The action is generally nifty too: Boutella has had her moments before, and gets to build on that experience here, especially in her final battle against Admiral Noble. Doona Bae makes a good impression as cyborg swordmistress Nemesis, not least in a hellacious fight against – and this is a phrase I did not expect 2023 to bring me – an arachnid Jena Malone. Bottom line is, I was entertained for two hours, and have enough interest in seeing part two in April. Good enough for me.

Dir: Zack Snyder
Star: Sofia Boutella, Ed Skrein,  Charlie Hunnam, Michiel Huisman

[This review originally appeared on Film Blitz]

Rise of the Machine Girls

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★★★
“Rage against the Machine Girls.”

A decade after the splattery joy which was The Machine Girl, we get this – not quite a sequel, not quite a reboot. Creator Noboru Iguchi helped on the script, but hands the directorial reins over to another, and… Well, it’s amusing and moderately entertaining, rather than the jaw-dropping and ground-breaking spectacle which was the original. Part of this is simply the passage of time: what was fresh and original at the time, has now become much more familiar. There is still no shortage of invention here, but it does seem  haphazard. It’s less a story, than a series of skits, albeit ones heavily drenched in gore – unfortunately, a lot from blood group CGI-minus.

It takes place in a futuristic dystopia, where the poor are left to sell whatever they can to make ends meet, including their children, limbs and internal organs. Sisters Ami (Nagimiya) and Yoshie (Kanon)  are both a bit short in the body-part department, but make a living as idol performers. Less the singing kind, more as combat performers, though they yearn to be one of the more kawaii (cute) variety. Yoshie moonlights as a vigilante, taking out the organ traffickers she feels responsible for her plight. This brings her the wrath of Aoyama Dharma (Negishi), leader of the local ring, who captures Yoshie. Fortunately, help for Ami is available, in the form of wandering assassin, Matsukata (Sakaguchi) , ranked the #5 hitman by his company.

There are certainly some cool moments here. The pregnant killer… though pregnant with what, I can’t even begin to describe. Or the Battle Bust Sisters, who are exactly what you think they would be from their name, e.g. one sibling’s bosom is capable of inflating into a pair of large, bullet-proof airbags as a defensive mechanism. But it never manages to gel cohesively, and I occasionally even got the feeling that new director Kobayashi was frankly bored of the whole endeavour. For instance, there’s what should have been a glorious, extended one-shot when Matsukata and Ami storm the Dharma HQ, dispatching minions with fists, swords and head-shots. But half of it is played out in fast-forward, entirely negating the point of the whole exercise.

There are some dry jabs at things like idol culture, fans being admonished pre-performance, “If you must jack off, please do so in your pocket.” [This is somewhat ironic, given the copious number of panty shots present!] It seems to lack a forceful personality at its heart, with neither of the sisters having the same presence of Ami v1.0 from the original. Negishi does deliver an enjoyably villainous performance, chewing scenery in a way that’s fun to watch. I certainly wish they had gone with a more practical approach to the effects; while some things obviously need CGI (those airbags mentioned earlier), there’s really no excuse for ever using it to fake arterial spray. It’s fun, but forgettable, and probably won’t stray across my screen again.

Dir: Yûki Kobayashi
Star: Hina Nagimiya, Hanakage Kanon, Tak Sakaguchi, Kimono Negishi

The Blind Spot, by Michael Robertson

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Literary rating: ★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

On the surface, Scala City is an idyllic, hi-tech world of prosperity, peace and morality, albeit at the cost of omnipresent surveillance of its residents. But there’s a dirty little secret. The Blind Spot is an area where surveillance is barred, and where the citizens of Scala City go to blow off their sordid steam. Its residents have cybernetically enhanced bodies, something rejected by Scala City, and a zero-tolerance policy for any kind of monitoring. It’s run by Wrench, who has kept his daughter Marcie Hugo under strict control since the death of her mother. However, like all teenagers, the 16-year-old Marcie is seeking to spread her wings, and has been making covert excursions into Scala City, with the aim of moving there some day soon.

The problem is, an escalating series of terrorist attacks have been occurring in the city, which it appears someone is trying to blame on the Blind Spot, in order to trigger a war between them and the city. After one of Marcie’s trips is caught on camera, the heat gets turned up, and she – along with the Blind Spot’s most infamous computer hacker – becomes the only person who can prevent a conflict that could lead to the destruction (at least in a digital sense) of both sides. She believes the perpetrators may have help from inside the Blind Spot, suspecting in particular a close accomplice of Wrench, who also happens to be the father of her best friend.

The world-building here is solid enough. As well as Marcie, events unfold through the sad eyes of Nick, an overweight and largely unloved Scala City resident. He’s addicted to the Wellbeing App, which records only the positive things people say about each other, sharing it with them. This is…scarily plausible, to be honest, though the split focus is a little unwieldy. No connection between this pair of story lines is established until about two-thirds of the way through the book, although they work well enough on their own terms. The idea of a city with a Jekyll and Hyde personality is also well-executed.

A bigger problem, for me, was the sudden reticence on Marcie’s end. Initially, we experience things through her eyes, knowing everything she knows. Then, at a certain point, we get cut out of the loop, from a narrative point of view, as she and her hacker pal begin their plot to track down and expose the real terrorists. We’re left on the outside, not knowing what’s going on – and when we do find out, there naturally being a grand reveal, it’s not very satisfying. It relies too much on the “all-powerful hacker” trope, and the identity of the traitor in their midst is also unconvincing. The story ends up being a swing and a miss, though with the book being free on Amazon, I probably can’t complain. Though it’d have to be at the same price point to get me to go any further into the series.

Author: Michael Robertson
Publisher: Self-published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 6 in the Neon Horizon series.

Vesper

  By

★★★½
“Battle Angel Nausicaa”

As the above suggests, I was getting a strong manga influence, in particular from the works of Hayao Miyazaki: it feels like the script could have been something he’d have written on a gloomy Wednesday in January. Feisty teenage heroine? Check? Ecological message? Check. For this takes place after some kind of change in the world, which has left the bulk of the population clinging on to existence by their grubby fingernails, in a world now owned by bizarre flora. Vesper (Chapman) is one such, tending to her paralyzed father (Brake) whose consciousness has been transferred into a drone. She trades with her uncle, Jonas (Marsan), swapping blood for the seeds they need to survive.

Yet there’s also elements of Battle Angel Alita, with a sharp delineation between the haves and the have-nots. The latter live privileged lives in Citadels, served by artificial lifeforms called “jugs”, and as suppliers of the seeds, hold everyone else in their control. One day, a Citadel craft crashes near Vesper’s home, and she rescues Camelia (McEwen) from the wreckage. She promises to take Vesper and her father back to her home. Yet it eventually becomes clear that Camelia is not being 100% honest about her own situation either. On the other hand, she is potentially the key to liberating everyone from under the thumb of the Citadels, and ending their monopoly on the resources necessary for survival. It’s not something the rulers will give up easily, however.

This is rather ponderous in its progress, running close to two hours, and is clearly content to take its time getting to any of its points. If you’re willing to accept that, there’s a lot to appreciate here, not least some great visual style and world-building. This has to be one of the most fully convincing post-apocalyptic landscapes I’ve seen, a remarkable achievement considering its budget was a mere five million Euros. Vesper is a heroine right out of the Nausicaa playbook: someone who is smart and brave, rather than physically strong, devoted to her family, and who has an inherent affinity for the natural world. Her mother left the family, under circumstances best described as murky, and Camelia is a surrogate, to some extent.

It does feel as if the makers fell in love with their creation a little more than I did, and wanted to wallow in the imagination, at the expense of developing the plot. No-one seems in a particular hurry here, and for every scene which moves the story forward, there’s another that seems to exist purely as a visual showcase. I think it might work better at 90 minutes than 120 – or alternatively, expanded beyond the confines of a feature film. This is the kind of thing I could certainly imagine HBO developing into a series. The ending came close to toppling into “Eh?” territory, before a final shot where it made sense, and wrapped things up on easily the most optimistic note we’d heard. Miyazaki would likely approve.

Dir: Kristina Buozyte, Bruno Samper
Star: Raffiella Chapman, Rosy McEwen, Eddie Marsan, Richard Brake

Pride & Prejudice & Airships, by Caylen McQueen

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Literary rating: ★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆½

As the title suggests, this is one of those literary mash-ups, similar to Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. However, beyond the steampunk influence apparent from the title, this adds another major twist, with the universe here being a gender-swapped one. For in this world, women run everything, with men being largely reduced to waiting for the opposite sex to woo them. Specifically to the novel, meet the Bennet family, who have five sons, whom their parents are increasingly keen to see married off. However, that’s going to be easier said than done in some cases. Elisander, for example, has some newfangled notions about the place of men in contemporary society: that they should be allowed to pilot airships, for one. Another brother is gay, a needless conceit which feels shoehorned into proceedings, in a particularly clunky fashion. 

While Elisander represents the main protagonist of the book, it’s the unusual setting which qualifies it for inclusion on this site. Of particular interest is Darcy Fitzwilliam, a female military captain who initially enters the plot as the best friend of a landowner to whom the Bennett parents are keen to wed a son. More or less any son. She takes an instant dislike to the family in general, and Elisander in particular – the antipathy is largely mutual. But you likely won’t be surprised to hear, that over the course of the book, the relationship between the two thaws out.

Also of interest is Darcy’s foster sister, Georgette Wickham, a pirate in the high skies. She owns an airship, which Georgette and her female crew use to carry out robberies. The Bennet family are one such victim, though Georgette turns out to be a bit more complex than she initially appears, particularly in her relationship with Darcy, and her half-cyborg sister. I’d like to have read more about them, and indeed the gynocentric society as a whole. I have… questions. How did it become this way? How does the issue of having and rearing children get handled? Despite an enticing cover, the book is annoyingly uninterested in things outside the Bennett clan and their marriage plans. The tech is also vague, being whatever is needed for the plot. For instance, there’s a throwaway reference to a “chip”. But just the one.

I will confess to not having read Jane Austen’s 1813 original, so that aspect of this mash-up is completely lost on me. As a steampunk story on its own terms, this is okay, though I’d liked to have seen more action from the women. In particular, it feels like it’s setting up a confrontation between Darcy and Georgette. While this does eventually take place, it’s over, almost before it has started. Perhaps there is more of note in the follow-up volume, Pride & Prejudice & Pirates? But there’s not enough here to make me more than marginally interested in finding out whether or not that is the case.

Author: Caylen McQueen
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book.
Book 1 of 2 in the Steampunk Pride & Prejudice series.

The Witch: Part 2. The Other One

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★★½
“Which witch is which?”

This showed up as a bit of a surprise. Obviously, even the title suggested that the makers were looking for a sequel to The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion. However, I had no idea whether or not it had been successful enough to merit a follow-up. Clearly the answer is yes, though I would certainly recommend you either re-watch, or at the very least read up on, the preceding entry. Even at a rather bloated 137-minute running time, it does not provide any “Previously, on The Witch…” recap. You’re entirely on your own, and after a brief prologue, you will be dropped right into things, though any connection to the previous film only becomes apparent at the very end.

It begins with the escape of “Ark 1” (Shin) from the research facility where she has been undergoing experiments. Stumbling onto a road, she’s picked up by a car containing Kyung-hee (Park), a young woman who is in serious trouble with the gangsters also present in the car. Ark 1 handily defeats them after they get a bit too friendly, quickly earning Kyung-Hee’s gratitude. She takes Ark 1 back to live with her and her brother, Dae-gil (Sung), introducing Ark 1 to the delights of food. The gangsters are none too happy with getting their butts kicked, and regroup for another attempt. They’re not the only ones after Ark 1 either, as her former “owners” sent out an agent, Jo-hyeon (Seo), with talents of her own, to retrieve their property.

As the rather clunky sub-title implies, this is mostly about an entirely different character to the preceding movie. This feels like a bit of a cheat, as if you’d carefully studied for a pop quiz, only for it to be for another subject entirely. Instead, you get a plot which, even at the extended running time, feels rather too over-stuffed. The remarkable coincidence of Ark 1 stumbling into a car containing the very person who can help her, and that simultaneously needs her help, is just the first in quite a few moments where people happen to be in the right place at the right time. I suspect there’s also a plot thread or two more than is beneficial to overall coherence.

This is especially true at the end, where the various factions converge and have a massive battle in poorly-lit conditions. Going by what I saw earlier, this may have been the makers’ way of disguising the CGI. It’s an area with scope for improvement, especially when Ark 1 is demonstrating her remarkable super strength, by hurling people. cars, etc. around with enthusiasm. I suspect this is a victim of second movie syndrome, being the entry in a trilogy that has neither a start nor an ending. I do have to cut it some slack on that basis, and presuming the series is finished (and this was a top 10 film in Korea for 2022), I’ll still be tuning in for the finale. There’s just enough potential, even if my expectations are quire restrained.

Dir: Park Hoon-jung
Star: Shin Si-ah, Park Eun-bin, Seo Eun-soo, Sung Yoo-bin 

No Honor in Death, by Eric Thomson

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Literary rating: ★★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

This SF novel takes place in the future where the human Commonwealth is engaged in a brutal space war against the militaristic Shrehari Empire – imagine Klingons on krack, perhaps. They have superior technology, but humanity’s ability to think outside the box and improvise has helped level the playing field. Siobhan Dunmoore has just survived  – emphasis on “just” – a battle against the Imperial cruiser Tol Vakash of Captain Brakal, forcing him to retreat by attempting a kamikaze crash of her badly-damaged craft into his. As a “reward”, she is assigned command of the Stingray, a craft with a bad reputation. Its previous captain is now facing a Disciplinary Board, and the crew are barely even trying. It seems Dunmoore has been set up to fail, and she’ll need to overcome resistance from enemies both domestic and alien, as well as overt and covert, before she can even think about going another round with Captain Brakal.

I felt the most interesting section of this was following Dunmoore as she attempted to lick her crew and the Stingray back into a shape, where they could survive an encounter with the Shrehari. Both of them are in need of a lot of work. The former are utterly demoralized after events under the previous captain (including a number of suspicious deaths), and the latter has been short-changed on supplies and resources, to the point it’s largely held together with sticks and wire. Fixing them require their new captain to use a lot of psychology, both in order to get the crew to trust her, and extract the necessary materials from the Commonwealth and its bureaucracy. It works almost as a “how-to” manual for aspiring leaders, and even if that’s not exactly me, still makes for an engaging read. I also liked the very final face-off between Dunmoore and Brakal, their two ships edging round the perilous environment of an asteroid field, where Stingray‘s manoeuvrability gives it an edge. 

However, in between the Stingray taking off and the last battle, the book struggles with its descriptive passages. There is a large chunk taking place in hyperspace, and Thomson never manages to make clear the rules which apply here, resulting in the discussion of “jumps” and “bubbles” failing to make sense. Worse, this brings the pace of the book to a halt, with entire pages you find yourself barely skim-reading. There’s also rather too extended of a coda after the battle, as the book tries to tie up a lot of loose ends – mostly ones we never particularly cared about to begin with. On the other hand, I did appreciate the effort put into making Brakal an interesting adversary, with his own set of motivations. He and Dunmoore represent the book’s greatest strengths, and it’s at its best when concentrating on them. If subsequent volumes do that, I’d be tempted to try them.

Author: Eric Thomson
Publisher: Sanddiver Books, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 7 in the Siobhan Dunmoore series.