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A review by kaje_harper
Liberty by Alexis Hall
4.0
3.5 stars, rounded up because there were some really good moments, and glimpses of characters I care a lot about.
This is the story of England's military attack on the "pirate" town of Liberty, which was home to some of our favorite aethershipmen and friends. It's the tale of a good man led to wrongdoing under the heading of "patriotism" and "threat to our nation" and, as such, has a lot of resonance. Captain George England is taken from conventional soldiery and changed and shaped into a weapon for the British Empire's aetheric Skyfleet.
The problem I had with it is that, unlike the rest of the series, the format is that of trial transcripts, seen from a historical distance. There are pieces of witness-questioning, bits of letters, sections of first-person testimony. A fascinating jigsaw, but not an emotionally engaging one. We meet Captain George England through his letters to his mother, but what a man reveals on the page to his mother is not a match for what he might have told us from his heart, and I never really fell for him, or felt his pain. The best sections are the first-person testimony from Piccadilly, which pulled me into the story, only to be pushed away by the next drier section.
Worth a read, if you love the series; clever, fascinating, but for me, unlike the rest, not engaging to my heart. Which hurt, in a way, because serious things happen to characters I really care about, and I wish I had felt them.
This is the story of England's military attack on the "pirate" town of Liberty, which was home to some of our favorite aethershipmen and friends. It's the tale of a good man led to wrongdoing under the heading of "patriotism" and "threat to our nation" and, as such, has a lot of resonance. Captain George England is taken from conventional soldiery and changed and shaped into a weapon for the British Empire's aetheric Skyfleet.
The problem I had with it is that, unlike the rest of the series, the format is that of trial transcripts, seen from a historical distance. There are pieces of witness-questioning, bits of letters, sections of first-person testimony. A fascinating jigsaw, but not an emotionally engaging one. We meet Captain George England through his letters to his mother, but what a man reveals on the page to his mother is not a match for what he might have told us from his heart, and I never really fell for him, or felt his pain. The best sections are the first-person testimony from Piccadilly, which pulled me into the story, only to be pushed away by the next drier section.
Worth a read, if you love the series; clever, fascinating, but for me, unlike the rest, not engaging to my heart. Which hurt, in a way, because serious things happen to characters I really care about, and I wish I had felt them.