The Salvagers

4.5 stars! This was such a cool ride! Star Wars meets a world of magic and conjuring. It was energetic, refreshing, new and familiar all at the same time. The writing was detailed and the action scenes and space battles felt very immersive. Boots, Nilah, Orna, I loved the characters as their personalities were very flushed out and relatable. The glyphs and the different ‘specialites' of sigils pulled in a tiny bit of the D&D, we know there are Mechanists, Shieldmasters, and an Influencer. I can't wait to see what new magic and characters pop up in the rest of the series. I'm excited to dive into Book 2!

??It is fantasy in a sci-fi setting which I found unusual and refreshing. I liked the diverse group of characters in a “found-family” kind of setting. I missed having more information about the villains, they seemed undeveloped. Some action scenes where magic, space battles, or spacewalking were being described seemed a bit confusing to me, it was hard to understand exactly what was going on. It is a light read, with lots of action scenes and I tried not to overthink the magic to enjoy it. I don't think I will continue the series, but the book builds nicely for the sequel without ending in a cliffhanger.??

This book was recommended in a Facebook group of fans of Space Opera. GIven the review in the recommendation, the ad copy in iBooks, and the low price, I grabbed a copy without reading the “sample” I could have downloaded. I was unprepared that the story would involve significant amounts of magic right from the start. And the first chapter was all about drivers of magic-fueled racing cars, which are not a stale of the space opera I thought I had purchased. I almost put the book down at that point, but the first main character we meet, Nilah, is thrust into a tantalizing mystery that compelled me to keep reading. In the second chapter, the character of “Boots” is introduced, a garrulous and embittered veteran of a war in which she fought for the losing side, she now is making her living selling treasure maps to gullible treasure seekers. She too gets thrust into the same mystery. The story spirals nearly out of control at that point, with both of them being captured by the crew of a pirate ship (that Boots once served on and sold a bogus map to), and still being pursued by an overwhelmingly powerful and relentless foe. It certainly turns into a grand space opera yarn at that point, with lots of action, perilous conflict, personal sacrifice, and yes, magical feats. I especially enjoyed the fact that the good guys employ heaping amounts of intelligence and ingenuity rather than simply blowing through their opponents with superior firepower. They are smart, capable people facing down formidable odds. The book has a thoroughly (to me) satisfactory ending while leaving some major threads open for the follow-up books. I enjoyed it a lot more than I had expected after the first chapter.

I was especially excited when it came to the comparisons this book was made to Firefly. So of course I was ecstatic to buddy read with my fellow book addict, Holly! Head over to her account to see her review. Seriously, folks, they really hit the nail on the head with this one! It has crazy Firefly vibes and I love it. Now I'm going to keep it spoiler free, so don't worry. Now I'm not the most avid lover of mixing fantasy and sci-fi (except for my beloved Star Wars. The Wars are life!), but this is the type of book to convert me. They kept reasonable limitations on the magic system, which by the way is maddeningly awesome! Between that and the space battles, the one on one fights, the Indiana-Jones-style treasure hunting, and the characters that had me legitimately caring for what happened, I can not praise this book enough!!!

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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“If we separate, our odds of survival go down, and make no mistake, I know odds better than anyone you ll ever meet.”

She tongued the inside of her cheek as she thought it over. ‘Interesting ...1 figured you'd be happier with me dead.”

“Oh, I might. But I should also point out that your presence seduces the chance I'll be shot first. So do we have a deal?”

He snatched up her whiskey bottle and tipped the neck slightly toward her. She clinked her tumbler against it.

“All right. Until we salvage the Harrow, consider me part of the crew.”

A BIG SHIP AT THE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE

Harrow

Harrow

Capricious

Harrow

The Expanse

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

The Codex Alera

Alex Verus

Kings of the Wyld

* Not really, but it's the best I can come up with at the moment.

“...Hunter One and Two, standing by for orders.”

Those were the code names they'd been given. A few months ago, basking in the luxury of a PGRE hospitality suite, Nilah would've thought a code name was cool. Now, it just meant she was doing something stupid. Worse still, she was Hunter Two, and she had a pathological hatred of being second.

A BIG SHIP AT THE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE

is

I would expect that I'd have enjoyed this more than I did. It was fun enough and relatively novel, magic and sci-fi in an interesting blend, but I found myself regularly losing interest.

The audiobook is frustrating because at least one character is clearly written as British (or whatever fantasy world equates to British here), with obvious Britishism regularly injected into the dialog—at one point they even pointedly express confusion about “the can” before realizing it means “the loo”—and yet the reader read every character with the same bland and indistinguishable American accent. For such a dynamic and colorful world, the reading was pretty blah. It may have contributed to my disinterest. It wasn't outright BAD reading but it wasn't very good either and ignoring obvious speech pattern cues is annoying.

The drama! 
Alex White is proficient in telling a sci fi action story, and bringing it back to a human level, but where as I enjoyed the characters and the interplay between them seen in August Kitko and the Mechas from Space, the level of interpersonal tension and exterior agitators in this book was a bit too much for me. 
I get acquainting the reader with the galactic high stakes by the loss of life, but killing off my faves (Didier and Ranger), didn't endear me to the story, either. 
I did appreciate the mix of magic into the sci fi world, especially mechanists that can communicate/control tech with magic. That being said, it meant a steady level of world building, on top of the history and mystery the book was relaying. 
I ended up needing to do a tandem read of physical book with double speed audio book to keep focused on the story, and I have to say the narrator didn't work too well for me, either. 🤷🏼‍♂️
It's evident this crew will have future adventures, but I don't think I'll be along for the ride. 
⚠️ Enslavement, gore, veteran trauma, body horror