Hello everyone!
I'm returning this week with another one of the ARCs I was lucky enough to get from BookSirens, a site where authors and readers come together for a mutual exchange.
I've talked about it a little bit in one of my previous posts, but I feel like I should mention it again because it's honestly SO amazing.
You have this online library, right, which is COMPLETELY FREE, and you can sign up, then start picking out the copies you'd like to read. The only thing you have to keep in mind are the deadlines, because you do get a to-read date with each of the books you choose, but in most cases the average for this is about 90 days.
That's a full three months to read between 200 to 400 pages, which is a pretty fair deal.
You can find anything on there, from contemporary to paranormal, and I've honestly been pretty lucky in my choices so far. Out of the lot I chose, I've only been on the fence about one, and tonight's book isn't that unfortunate soul.
No, tonight, we head out to sea ... or better, air.
Guns of Liberty by Jamie Mauchline is up next.
The only thing even remotely close to what this book is about has got to be Pirates of the Caribbean, but even they don't really align perfectly with the story in this book.
See, this book doesn't take place on the seven seas.
Oh no, they sail around in the air.
There's a fascinating story behind this reasoning: long ago, or at least, an indeterminate time ago, a new deity waged war on all the Old Gods who were apparently keeping the world in their thrall. Talon took them to task, using a powerful sword, and caused what would later be called the Calamity. This was a cataclysmic event which drained all the seas of the world, leaving behind nothing but a layer of mist and lone puddles where the depths of the oceans used to be, and the world far above these dangerous mists.
Then he considered his task done, put the sword away, and sailed off to Paradise.
So much for the legend of how things came to be the way they are at the moment - aka, there are STILL ships sailing about.
They just aren't sailing along the sea, but on air.
In an interesting combination of zeppelins and ships, the transports are equipped with balloons and generally seem as flexible, or even more so, in their movements without the constraints of water.
And of course, where there are ships, there are pirates.
Our story begins with one of them, a captain Genevieve Jones, who is currently targeting a Liberty ship (Liberty being the empire that rose out of the ashes of the Calamity) headed to the Duchy of Albany. This Duchy seems to be outside the Empire proper, but it has strong ties to the behemoth, and their current Duchess is on this ship returning home.
She also happens to be Gin's target.
The unforeseen event that Gin wasn't counting on, however, is the presence of a Liberty Inquisitor also on the ship with the Duchess, also on her way to Albany. Rachel is under orders from the admiral currently in charge of the Inquisition to acquire an artifact from the Albany vault, turning it over to the Church and the security there, since they believe it's one of those left behind by the Old Gods.
Rachel's goals get slightly skewered once Gin attacks their ship and successfully flies off with the Duchess, intending to ransom her off to Albany.
For what, you ask?
For the very same artifact that Rachel is after.
And it just so happens to be Talon's sword.
These old relics. They just can't stay hidden for long!
Anyway, Rachel and her crew continue on to Albany where they realize that one of the pirates concealed himself among the Liberty men, though unfortunately he dies after a gunshot wound from Rachel herself. He does, however, shake her beliefs that all pirates are heathens, because this one apparently prays to Talon, their One God.
Unfortunately, Rachel has bigger issues, aka the Commodore, coincidentally fiancé to our Duchess, is furious that his lady-love was taken, and wants the pirates hunted down. He also heartily dislikes Rachel and blocks her at every turn, even though the archbishop of the Church seems to be on her side.
I say 'seems to be' because it turns out that these two men are in cahoots with each other, and also after the Sword in the vault - the vault which only opens for weddings in the ruling family of Albany.
So much for true love, huh?
Gin arranges a swap, but the archbishop never intended to actually give her the sword, and in the chaos of Rachel attempting to control a situation she wasn't invited to, the Duchess gets shot, and the archbishop unleashes the power of the Sword, calling down a storm controlled by magic.
With both Rachel and the wounded Duchess on board, Gin flees, enlists Rachel's help as her acting first mate, and tells her a little bit more about the Sword of Talon which Rachel didn't know before:
the Sword wasn't originally Talon's, and has another name - the Seventh Sea. It was made by the Old Gods after a plea from the Sea Maiden (one of their own) who fell in love with the most fearsome pirate to ever sail the Meridian (the sea prior to the Calamity). But, as bad guys are vont to do, this pirate spurned her love and turned the sword against her, so she placed a curse on the weapon: each time the bearer uses it, he loses a part of his soul. The pirate used it until there wasn't anything of himself left, after which the Sword somehow ended with Talon for the Calamity event.
Gin's task in all of this is to retrieve the Sword and prevent anyone from using it - and we learn through little bits and pieces that she used to be a part of an elite military group, led by a man called Elijah, who were called the Guns of Liberty, and the best equivalent I can find is modern-day SEALs. But things went south, the group either got discharged or killed, and Gin herself should have been killed by Elijah, who seemed to have been close to the archbishop and an inside man in Liberty, Mortimer, but she killed him first instead.
Through that, she also took on his burdens, something that no one really knows, not even the old comrade who comes to kill her - but ends up dead himself instead.
Anyway, back to the main storyline: the three women decide to head back to Albany to get the Sword, which has at that point switched owners, because the Commodore has taken it, and is currently drunk on its power. And what's the point of the Sword anyway? Well, the archbishop and the Commodore want to use it to reverse the Calamity, and bring back the seas, which would give Albany primary rule since they'd been building an actual navy in secret.
The Duchess, Rachel and Gin throw themselves head-first into battle against this magical conjuring and a Commodore who is being sapped of his life and soul by the Sword, completely consumed by its power. Out of the lot, only Gin seems to be immune to the Sword's powers, because Rachel could easily succumb, and gets pinned to the deck by it while she's at it.
There are also implications that she dies, but Gin somehow brings her back to life, though that isn't quite explained; in any event, they defeat the Commodore, the Duchess is returned to her Duchy, Rachel must returned to Liberty for questioning (there's bound to be trouble THERE), and Gin sails off into the skies again to meet up with an old friend ... or contact, depending how you look at it.
And down just at the touch of the mists, the archbishop (originally taken prisoner on the Heart of Gold, Gin's ship, but who managed to escape) meets up with a person all cloaked and hooded. Being one of Talon's disciples (something that isn't really explained much), he had some control over the sword, but the thing he's meeting says eh, who cares if the Sword was broken and lost during this last battle. There's displeasure there, because apparently it was this creature who first gave the Sword to the archbishop to begin with, but no matter, they'll find another way. And the Others are waiting.
Then it slithers off into the mists again, leaving us all wondering WHAT THE HECK JUST HAPPENED?
An intriguing story with lots of swashbuckling adventure, daring fights up in the sky, and a lot of nautical jargon with the ships in question, Guns of Liberty present us with an interesting twist on a what could have been, and a bunch of questions while we're at it. Let me see if I can go through the most pertinent ones.
- The Sword, its original owner, Talon, and the archbishop:
We learn that the archbishop was one of Talon's disciples, which gives him power to control the sword (or that's the theory). However, we also know the sword drains everyone because of its curse - so who's to say it didn't actually drain Talon, too, while it was at it? Is Paradise a port, which just can't be found easily (like Valinor in Tolkien's writings), or is it the afterlife in actuality? And who, specifically, is the archbishop working for? I'm assuming it's the original owner, the pirate, whose soul was eaten away and he's now some sort of apocalyptic being - it's also implied that others still dwell in the mists below civilisation, waiting to rise again. The Old Gods? Why would the archbishop be helping him? Does he think it's Talon? Would that make sense for a man of the Church? And what's with these disciples?
- The Inquisition, the Admiral, and Rachel
The Inquisition in this book seems to be less like what the word evokes when you think of the Spanish Inquisition, and more just busy-bodies gathering old artifacts and locking them away, but it does seem to be corrupt from within with this Mortimer character. How does an admiral land at its head, then? And once you overlook the annoying factor of Rachel stomping about and being mad at everything (trust me, that's all she does), how did she survive at the end of the book? Did Gin make her somehow immortal, or one of these disciples, who also seem to be able to live pretty long, or seemingly forever? Does the Admiral know Gin, and is he an ally? It might be, since she's sailing off to meet someone.
- Samael and the pirates, or Renegades
Samael seems to be the pirate king, or overlord, but the name itself, if you think about it, denotes the archangel who would eventually fall from Paradise to reign in Hell (as Lucifer). He seems to be a real person, but no one's seen him - is it actually Talon in disguise? What's his connection to Gin?
- Genevieve Jones
And finally, Gin. Very obviously, there's more to Gin than meets the eye - throughout the book, she keeps on responding with 'Who do you think I am?' when someone challenges her, and when one actually asks her that question, she answers with her name, as if it's important. Rachel discovers that her file is basically missing from the archives, and also that, by her own words, she was there when the archbishop tried to take the Sword of Talon the first time. This would imply she's at least in her thirties, if not forties even, and seems as though she might be blessed with the long-lived life, too. She's also carrying 'Elijah's will', which in this world seems to be a physical thing of some sort. We know she was part of an elite group within the Navy, the Titans, and she seems to be immune to the powers the Sword of Talon holds, so there IS something special about her (considering she also saves Rachel somehow), but we never get any more answers than that. In essence, she's as much a mystery at the end of the book as she is at the start of it.
So there you go. Obviously, this is intended to be a series, or at least a trilogy, so more information is bound to come, but the thing is, it would have been good if at least some of the questions would have gotten answered by the end of the first book. As it happens, the amount of mystery is almost frustrating, because things still don't really make sense, and readers can only make conjectures based on what they've read, and who knows how long we'll be waiting for the sequel? It would have been nice if at least one thing or other got explained, I think.
All in all, this is, in my opinion, a well-thought out book, there's an overarching plotline that'll expand into further novels, but the amount of side-questions could have been trimmed down a little bit, and some things explained a little bit better. I'll eagerly await the sequel, however!
We learn that the archbishop was one of Talon's disciples, which gives him power to control the sword (or that's the theory). However, we also know the sword drains everyone because of its curse - so who's to say it didn't actually drain Talon, too, while it was at it? Is Paradise a port, which just can't be found easily (like Valinor in Tolkien's writings), or is it the afterlife in actuality? And who, specifically, is the archbishop working for? I'm assuming it's the original owner, the pirate, whose soul was eaten away and he's now some sort of apocalyptic being - it's also implied that others still dwell in the mists below civilisation, waiting to rise again. The Old Gods? Why would the archbishop be helping him? Does he think it's Talon? Would that make sense for a man of the Church? And what's with these disciples?
- The Inquisition, the Admiral, and Rachel
The Inquisition in this book seems to be less like what the word evokes when you think of the Spanish Inquisition, and more just busy-bodies gathering old artifacts and locking them away, but it does seem to be corrupt from within with this Mortimer character. How does an admiral land at its head, then? And once you overlook the annoying factor of Rachel stomping about and being mad at everything (trust me, that's all she does), how did she survive at the end of the book? Did Gin make her somehow immortal, or one of these disciples, who also seem to be able to live pretty long, or seemingly forever? Does the Admiral know Gin, and is he an ally? It might be, since she's sailing off to meet someone.
- Samael and the pirates, or Renegades
Samael seems to be the pirate king, or overlord, but the name itself, if you think about it, denotes the archangel who would eventually fall from Paradise to reign in Hell (as Lucifer). He seems to be a real person, but no one's seen him - is it actually Talon in disguise? What's his connection to Gin?
- Genevieve Jones
And finally, Gin. Very obviously, there's more to Gin than meets the eye - throughout the book, she keeps on responding with 'Who do you think I am?' when someone challenges her, and when one actually asks her that question, she answers with her name, as if it's important. Rachel discovers that her file is basically missing from the archives, and also that, by her own words, she was there when the archbishop tried to take the Sword of Talon the first time. This would imply she's at least in her thirties, if not forties even, and seems as though she might be blessed with the long-lived life, too. She's also carrying 'Elijah's will', which in this world seems to be a physical thing of some sort. We know she was part of an elite group within the Navy, the Titans, and she seems to be immune to the powers the Sword of Talon holds, so there IS something special about her (considering she also saves Rachel somehow), but we never get any more answers than that. In essence, she's as much a mystery at the end of the book as she is at the start of it.
So there you go. Obviously, this is intended to be a series, or at least a trilogy, so more information is bound to come, but the thing is, it would have been good if at least some of the questions would have gotten answered by the end of the first book. As it happens, the amount of mystery is almost frustrating, because things still don't really make sense, and readers can only make conjectures based on what they've read, and who knows how long we'll be waiting for the sequel? It would have been nice if at least one thing or other got explained, I think.
All in all, this is, in my opinion, a well-thought out book, there's an overarching plotline that'll expand into further novels, but the amount of side-questions could have been trimmed down a little bit, and some things explained a little bit better. I'll eagerly await the sequel, however!
So if you feel like sailing the skies with Gin and the rest - what're you waiting for? Check out Guns of Liberty, and I'm sure you won't be disappointed!
xx
*image not mine
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