Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by branch_c
Winds of Marque: Blackwood & Virtue by Bennett R. Coles
3.0
Have to admit that while this book is fairly enjoyable, it doesn't manage to be truly exciting or compelling, at least for me. The idea is to merge the classic "age of sail" European adventure story with the science fictional aspects of space travel, and the problem for me was that there was never any great effort to make sense of this combination - it's just accepted as the way of this universe that there are nobles and commoners in a spacefaring navy who use cutlasses and four-shot pistols while at the same time traveling on vessels that have airlocks and "solar sails", not to mention antigravity technology (!), occasional laser weapons, and even missiles (which they conveniently have to avoid using in favor of traditional "cannons" in order to keep a low profile for plot-related reasons). There are also at least four occasions of the incorrect use of the word “sheet” in the nautical sense (pp. 10, 23, 89, 96) - which admittedly occurs in probably 90% of all books involving sailing vessels, but remains irritating - and one bizarre use of the word “lanyard” (p. 200).
Anyway, I understand that there's a suspension of disbelief needed when reading speculative fiction, but for me it just doesn't work in this case. The interesting thing is that in spite of the blurb from friend-of-the-author Steven Erikson, who says "Coles may well have invented a whole new subgenre... Steam Space?" it actually has been done before, with the best example, in my opinion, being David Levine's Arabella series, in which the incongruous mixture of genres managed to seem not nearly as disjointed and unbelievable as this book. Much of the emphasis here is on the interactions among the characters, and this is probably the most effectively written aspect of the book, but even here things get implausible... for example, the attitude and motivations of Highcastle are all over the map, to the extent that the use of this character to suit the author's purpose is a bit too transparent. Given Riverton's too-secretive behavior, it seems unfair to blame Highcastle for trying to do the right thing in a suspicious situation, and in fact too charitable of Blackwood and the others to automatically accept her commands. The plot is not bad, and with a different approach to the writing style I can imagine this story being a bit more of a winner for me.
Anyway, I understand that there's a suspension of disbelief needed when reading speculative fiction, but for me it just doesn't work in this case. The interesting thing is that in spite of the blurb from friend-of-the-author Steven Erikson, who says "Coles may well have invented a whole new subgenre... Steam Space?" it actually has been done before, with the best example, in my opinion, being David Levine's Arabella series, in which the incongruous mixture of genres managed to seem not nearly as disjointed and unbelievable as this book. Much of the emphasis here is on the interactions among the characters, and this is probably the most effectively written aspect of the book, but even here things get implausible... for example, the attitude and motivations of Highcastle are all over the map, to the extent that the use of this character to suit the author's purpose is a bit too transparent. Given Riverton's too-secretive behavior, it seems unfair to blame Highcastle for trying to do the right thing in a suspicious situation, and in fact too charitable of Blackwood and the others to automatically accept her commands. The plot is not bad, and with a different approach to the writing style I can imagine this story being a bit more of a winner for me.