Voidhawk
By Jason Halstead
There is a series of books out in the Science Fiction world by Peter Hamilton that have starships that are organic creations with transferred souls. That was what came to mind when I grabbed this work and I must say that at first I felt a bit betrayed to find that was not the case here.
Voidhawk in this context refers to a hawk shaped wooden ship that can sail between planets, stars, oceans and alight on land using magic, special sail cloth that catches solar winds and a crew working the lines for the sails. Weapons in this world include magic, ballistae, swords or bludgeoning objects and the occasional flintlock.
Where are their spacesuits you ask? Okay then. The assortment of humans, giants, golems, dwarves and elves rely on magically stable air bubbles and a gravity plane tuned by the ship ballast. Did I mention there are were-beasts? No. Okay then, forget that last bit.
Here’s the deal. I enjoyed the storyline even though fantasy is not really my bag. Things I didn’t enjoy included: misused, misspelled words; sentence jumbles that had to be read a couple times because that’s how long it took to get their meaning {no, they were not in dialogue}; and finally the overcrowding of plot and characters. There are some, I admit, who like that last peeve I listed. They are not here at the moment.
I’m giving this a three out of five because I liked things about the plot and the character interactions. Take note, if I want to read about vessels that ‘Sail’ the stars I’m going to be put off by use of the word ‘sale’. Please use global search and fix that.
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