Monday, February 25, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Ship of Smoke and Steel by Django Wexler



Ship of Smoke and Steel is the first of a new YA fantasy trilogy by Django Wexler, and the first dip of Wexler into the world of YA - his prior books have been considered either middle-grade or "adult" SF/F.  I haven't read Wexler's earlier works, so this is my first experience with his writing.  But based upon this book, I'll probably be checking out his other stuff eventually.

Ship of Smoke and Steel is a rather dark-ish young adult fantasy, with a heroine who wracks up quite a body count - and is more pragmatic than good about her killing.  Despite her seemingly cold ruthlessness, Wexler manages to make her very likable, and the world he creates around her is extremely well done.  To top it off, while the book is the start of a trilogy, it is a totally satisfying story on its own, which I always appreciate.  The book isn't perfect and hardly unique, but it works fairly well and is worth a read.


---------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------
18 year old Isoka has lived her life as an enforcer for some underworld thugs in the Empire's city of Kahnzoka, using the power from her Well - the magical resource she can tap - to deal with threats.  Isoka uses the money she makes from this job to support her younger sister in a more noble life in the better parts of the city, but if anyone was to find out about her magical power - she's a Melos "Adept" able to materialize energy blades and armor from her body - she would be turned in to the authorities and killed....and her sister left without support.

So when she's caught by the Empire's head enforcer, she assumes she's met her end.  Instead she's given an impossible mission: infiltrate the mythological ghost ship known as Soliton and find a way to gain control of it for the Empire.  If she succeeds at this within a year, her sister will continue to live in ignorance - but fail, and her sister's life is forfeit.

But the myths can't even describe how dangerous that task is - for every individual onboard Soliton has the ability to draw magical power from some Well, and the ship contains monsters and so-called "Angels" which seek to kill all those who get in their way.  And there are two things on Soliton that puzzle Isoka more than any other: the voice, of a companion she killed telling her cryptic warnings only she can hear and the former princess with seemingly no magical ability that Isoka just can't bring herself to leave alone.  But if she can't figure everything out soon in this dog eat dog ship, her combat ability won't be able to help Isoka save her own life, nevertheless her sister's....
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Ship of Smoke and Steel features Isoka as its first person narrator, and she's a very enjoyable heroine that makes the whole thing work.  Isoka seems incredibly cold and ruthless at first, but mainly she's pragmatic more than anything - having grown up on the streets with a deadly magical power, she knows what needs to be done to survive may not be pretty or peaceful, and is okay with that.  But that pragmatism is in part born from having to hide away her abilities while on the street for fear of discovery - a fear that prevents her from making any true companions which - while it doesn't disappear - no longer applies in a world where everyone else has magical abilities as well.  And Wexler does a great job describing and showing how her views change to make her just a little bit more soft than she was at the beginning of this book, and it makes her very easy to root for and care about.

The world of this book is also incredibly well done, from the outside city of Kahnzoka - which we only see for a few chapters - to the insides of Soliton, to the magic system.  It's a pretty well done magic system, with some characters having the power of fire, others the power of holding things telekinetically, others with the power of speed, etc.  Then there's the forbidden power of healing/life-giving (Ghul, the Well of Life) and of course Isoka's ability - Melos, the Well of Combat, which enables her to wield energy blades/projections (in a clear shoutout, she ignites her weapons with a snap-hiss, which is the sound effect used for lightsabers in Star Wars books, which cracked me up).  And the insides of Soliton are appropriately creepy, and the cliques and groups that make up its denizens make so much sense are described really well.

The plot is a bit hit or miss.  I predicted several plot twists well in advance - gee, the Captain is a mysterious figure no one ever sees - I wonder what that could mean (yep, exactly what you'd think).  Our heroine inexplicably - even to herself - keeps saving another teenage girl, a former princess named Meroe?  I wonder where that's going (yep) or why she seemingly doesn't show her magical ability she has to have (yep).  On the other hand, it still moved in several directions I didn't expect and even the obvious plot twists are executed fairly well, and the ending is very satisfying.  And Wexler is excellent at describing action scenes.

Really the biggest negative is the lack of development of side characters - outside of Isoka and Meroe, and Isoka's attraction to Meroe is so obvious from the start and just seems off at the beginning that it kind of doesn't work.  Their relationship reminded me of another YA book from last year, Jacqueline Carey's "Starless," which also had a young princess as the LGBTQ love interest for the book's pragmatist warrior protagonist, except the relationship there made more sense from the get-go and the love interest was a lot more developed independently of its main hero.  Here, Meroe's development is largely in relation to Isoka, which makes her feel more like a plot point.

Still, I will be looking forward to the next book in this series quite a bit, as this book moved very well and I really enjoyed both the action, the setting, and the heroine.  And the plot hooks for the sequel promise interesting directions that I look forward to seeing.
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