Military Fantasy—Review of Winds of Marque

Winds of Marque Bennett R. Coles (HarperCollins Publishers 9780062820358, $16.99 pb. 368 pp) April 2019.

Bennett R. Coles is known for his brutally realistic military science fiction. In his Virtues of War trilogy and a short story in the same universe in the Infinite Stars anthology, he describes not only hurtling through atmospheric entry and small group tactics, but also needless intragroup conflict and questionable civilian casualties.

In Winds of Marque Cole throws all that aside and just has fun. The ship use sails whose masts are often in danger of breaking. They use the solar winds to travel—faster than the speed of light? The main weapons are cannons that use gunpowder in the vacuum of space. How does the physics of all this work? It doesn’t. This is a fantasy world in space.

Subcommander Liam Blackwood is a fearless officer. One might even say he is dashing. He accepts a commission from the Lords of his empire to be the executive officer on a ship sent without any support to a distant sector of space. Their mission is to clear out the pirates who are cutting off supply lines. If they fail, they will be denounced as mad rogues. But if they succeed, they will be granted prize money from the cargo they seize from the pirates—enough to make each crew member rich. He is aided by the hyper-efficient Quartermaster Amelia Virtue. She happens to fall into his arms when a ship is shaken in an early adventure. We definitely see where this is going.

Their society is highly structured. Pampered royals often wreak havoc when in command of ships in the Imperial Navy. Fortunately Blackwood and Virtue have a competent captain for their pirate raids, though she is enigmatic and never explains her perplexing orders to Blackwood. That is her prerogative, but eventually the crew loses confidence in her. They’re also saddled with a spoiled brat of a royal cadet, whose sheer obstinacy almost ruins the mission.

The battles are savage when they board pirate ships. Many of the crew on both sides get cut down by swordplay. (Blackwood has the only pistol, which only fires four shots.) Virtue, although a quartermaster, is right there in the swordfights. An interesting alien race are reptiles that can wield swords with their prehensile tales, which ends up being a problem for Blackwood.

Fantasy aside, Coles includes enough pragmatic elements to give the story a realistic feel. Bottlenecks in the loading of cargo threatens the ship’s ability to leave incognito, so even Blackwood and the ship’s doctor lend a hand. When asked if the boarding party is ready, Virtue delays answering while doing a calculation in her head for rigging the boats for assault and equipping fifteen sailors in armor and weapons. She says it will take over an hour. With only enough water left for a one-way trip to a pirate base, the captain gambles that they will win and find the water to return home. (They don't recycle water. Fantasy, y'know?) 

Although Blackwood is a royal himself, he does not fully understand his society’s unwritten rules. He and Virtue have a growing affection for each other. Then he gets furious when he sees her and the royal cadet kissing. Later, Virtue explains angrily that she had to play along. A royal could rape her and not be punished for it. This does make their society less likable, but it is somewhat akin to preferring the British Empire to the pirates they fight.

Fraternization is frowned on, so Blackwood’s inner conflict is to not let his growing love for Virtue adversely influence his decisions concerning her and the rest of the ship. Virtue really doesn’t have much inner turmoil to work through—she mainly reacts to what happens.

Overall, Winds of Marque has good tension and intense fight scenes. If one can accept old-style ship action set in space, the story flows nicely.

Book Review: Star Splitter

Star Splitter. Matthew J. Kirby (Penguin Young Readers Group 9780735231665, $18.99, hc. 320pp) April 2023.

 

Seventeen-year-old Jessica Mathers wakes up in a body printer. This is the fastest way to travel from Earth—to have her data transmitted and assembled. But something has gone horribly wrong. No one is there on the spaceship in orbit of a distant planet to help her recover. She finds blood on a console and a bloody handprint in a corridor. Then she realizes she is not on the spaceship, but in one of its landers that crash-landed on the planet. Outside, she finds the graves of the crew members. Then she meets herself—a Jessica who was printed earlier, but whose explanations of what happened seem a little too pat.

The structure of Star Splitter is deceptively simple: The chapters alternate between the viewpoints of the before Jessica, whose narrative begins days earlier, and the after Jessica, whose narrative begins after the crash. The before Jessica woke up on the spaceship, and her parents were printed two days later. This is where we discover she is lying to the after Jessica, since she tells her their parents never printed.

#

“And Mom and Dad are …?”

“Like I said, they never arrived.”

“Can we pull up their data? What if we just establish them here?”

“I thought about that … I checked the printer … It’s dead.”

#

The time difference between the two viewpoints is meant to build tension as the before Jessica reconnects with her parents, the reader knowing the entire time that some disaster will happen. It can be a little tedious, but the after Jessica goes through harrowing adventures, from being swept away by a river to making her way through endless underground tunnels.

Although they are the same person, the before Jessica is rather sulky—she hasn’t seen her parents in six years, since they decided to explore space without her. She spirals into an odd love/hate relationship with them. The after Jessica grows by overcoming obstacles. She is rather plucky and does not quit, no matter what. Kirby aptly explores both teenage paths.

Ultimately the reader will be satisfied or dissatisfied with Star Splitter based on the explanation of what happened, and the fates of the two Jessicas. I found the disaster not explained convincingly. As for the Jessicas, it is ambiguous as to whether it is a happy ending or not.

As a side note, the first chapter is more of a prologue. It is somewhat gross and unnecessary, so it is best to skip it.