Liberator's Ruin

In Liberator's Ruin Johns has written a damned good debut novel. The novel starts off with multiple story lines that seem unrelated. The first story line is about the adventures of airship captain Nathaniel An'Rieyr and his crew. Then we have Anna, a deposed princess who is obsessed with driving out the invaders of her country and regaining her throne. She is the leader of the Illum resistance. And finally there is Thomas Ras'Kar High Inquisitor of the Rhivellian Empire, who has the job of ending the resistance in Illum. As these story lines develop, with quite a bit of violence and more than a little skulduggery, we learn more about the world they live in. In the end the story lines all come together nicely in an exciting and action filled finish.
At first – because of the use of some standard tropes, especially airships – I thought Liberator's Ruin was an alternate history steampunk novel. However, as the story developed, it became apparent that it is something else entirely (cannot say more without giving spoilers). And, that brings me to the subject of P. J. Johns writing style. Johns doesn't do infodumps. Instead the back story of the planet and the people is slowly revealed by the dialog and action. This is a style which I quite like. (It reminds me somewhat of Vonda Mcintyre.)
All in all, I can strongly recommend this book to SF&F fans.

Unfortunately I do have a few negative comments.
(Please note that none of these hurt the readability of the novel. But they were slightly irritating and kept me from giving the book five stars.)
- Liberator's Ruin needs just a little more work. I think the right professional editing could have tightened up and improved an already good story.
- The whole book most certainly needs a pass by a good proofreader. I noticed a cut-and-paste error, some misuse of homonyms, and a few grammar/punctuation errors. Also, at one point a revolver transformed into a single-shot pistol within the space of a single paragraph!
- Finally, the cover is rather ugly, and I can't see that it has any relationship to the story.
I cannot help but think that a few hundred dollars invested in professional editing and a cool cover would really help this book.