High-seas adventure meets rich fantasy worldbuilding and strong character development.
Dickson crafts a rich fantasy world, deeply infused with the seafaring spirit of a pirate yarn.
Ensign Bluemage Honor Renn of the Oversea Navy desperately clings to a plank of wood following a brutal battle with the Rhi’Ahr ship Endorathil that reduced her ship to charred splinters, sinking beneath the waves. Her hands—her tools as a magic-wielding mage—are horribly injured, leaving her helpless: “With a cry, I pulled them from the waves and froze in horror at what I saw….The flesh was torn away like ribbons, revealing glimpses of thin white bones and long yellow tendons.” Just as she’s about to give up, the legendary and mysterious Ship of Spells arrives to rescue her; she’s shocked and horrified to learn that the craft is helmed by Capt. Thanavar, a Rhi’Ahr whose people hail from the mysterious southern hemisphere known as the Nethersea. The Rhi’Ahr possess the secret of “chimeric,” a dangerous alchemical powder that enhances their munitions with caustic magical runes. Although Renn initially hates and mistrusts Thanavar, she comes to learn that he’s the key to her learning how the mysteriously healing of her wounds has left her with a deep connection to the chimeric—one that the Ship of Spells puts to use in an attempt to end the ongoing war. Dickson delivers an inventive riff on familiar fantasy tropes within the framework of a thrilling swashbuckler. Any pirate story lives and dies on the dynamics of the crewmembers, and in this, the author does not disappoint. Each character satisfies familiar tropes of fantasy and seafaring adventures while also thriving as fully realized individuals—whether it’s the telepathic faun, Echo; the jovial minotaur, Buck; or the stoic harpy, Kit. The relationships among the players develop in rewarding ways, and none more so than that between Renn and Thanavar. The narrative, rendered in clear, straightforward prose, also sketches out its fictional world in detail and drives readers relentlessly forward toward a satisfying conclusion, which will leave them wanting more.
High-seas adventure meets rich fantasy worldbuilding and strong character development.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781649379139
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.
Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250899651
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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