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!

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe was a quick and easy read that started off really capturing my attention but in the end fell a bit short of a four-star review. First the positives. I found the idea of magic in a sci-fi fresh and interesting. The magic powered racing, the tattoos and the way people used their abilities and the technology that resulted was unique. I loved the ragtag crew of the Capricious and their quest to find a legendary spaceship. The characters were interesting and diverse. Lots of great female characters too. The negatives are few, but I felt like the second half of the novel became a bit too action-packed. It was battle after battle, and while I do like a good space battle, there wasn't a whole lot of down time in between to develop the characters a bit more. I came away at the end thinking that the story had spread itself a bit thin. Like it had a lot of great ideas that I would have loved to learn more about, but as the battles took up a large chunk of the story these ideas were not really explored much. At the end of the day though, I would recommend giving this story a shot. I hope that in future novels we get to explore this interesting universe that Alex White has created in a little more depth.

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.