Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Ship of Smoke and Steel by Django Wexler

4 reviews

typedtruths's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

A fun romp! A little slow to start but once I was invested in the romance, there was no stopping me. I had no idea this was sapphic!

I'd highly recommend it to fans of The Maze Runner who wanted less dystopia nonsense and more magic. 

▷ Representation : Isoka (mc) is bisexual/mga & sapphic; brown lesbian love interest; deaf & mute sc; f/f side couple.

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cmbohn's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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vivavia's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I’ve been in a string of okay and terrible books the past few weeks, with very few that I fully enjoyed. One particular morning, I had DNF’d four audiobooks before noon. I picked Ship of Smoke and Steel basically at random, not even remembering what it was about and fully expecting it to be book number five on the DNF pile. 

And then I watched a teenage mob boss slaughter six people with magic she isn’t supposed to have, and I was hooked. 

Isoka is heartless because she has to be. Her job is violent and brutal, but her combat magic makes her good at it, and she does it so her little sister can have a better life than what the streets could offer. She is not a good person, but she is taking on the risk and suffering so her sister doesn’t have to, and she’s complicated and I love her. 

There is another version of the Absurdly Powerful Protagonist trope where the protagonist isn’t necessarily the most powerful, but either doesn’t know the thing is impossible or has to do the thing to survive, so they do the thing and everyone is astonished. That’s Isoka. There’s no indication that’s she’s any more powerful than the other high-level magic users she encounters (judging by the amount of time she spends unconscious, I’d say she definitely isn’t), but she is clever and determined and keeps doing things everyone else says it’s impossible. I love the Absurdly Powerful Protagonist trope, but apparently I like Casually Does the Impossible just as much. 

(Someday I’m going to write a post on all the different variations of the Absurdly Powerful Protagonist trope and why they’re just so much fun.) 

I was surprised and delighted by the setting of most of this book. Everything on the back cover is just setup. The majority of the story takes place on the ship, which is a unique and fantastic place. The ship is massive, so big that it takes about three days to walk from one end to the other. The only people on it are the magic users it collects as sacrifices every year, none of which ever return. They’ve carved out their own society in the ship, eating crabs and the weird mushrooms that grow below deck and fighting a variety of clawed and tentacled monsters for every bit of space. It’s hard, violent, and ruled by the Council – the only ones to have access to the mysterious captain. Isoka is already determined to rise to the top – and she already did it once, clawing her way from orphan street kid to ward boss in her home city – but this ship is exactly the kind of place where determined people with a talent for violence and a propensity for doing impossible things can get a reputation within days. 

The ship is also full of other details I very much enjoyed. There’s the angels – terrifying massive beings that seem like statues until you try to do something they don’t like – the strange magic powering the ship, the mystery of what exactly its purpose is in collecting all the magical people, and some really awesome spaces to explore. I love the awe-inspiring terror of big, dark, ancient, empty spaces (think the Mines of Moria right before the balrog shows up in the Fellowship of the Ring movie), and this ship has those in spades. Plot aside, I just want to explore the place – or I would if it wasn’t crawling with horrific and fantastical flesh-eating creatures. 

I knew starting this book that it was first in a series, and after finishing it I’m so glad that there’s more. I want to unravel all the mysteries of the ship, explore all its ancient and unnerving corners, and watch Isoka do more impossible things. I am absolutely reading book two, preferably soon. 
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