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Feral Space #1
The Scalpel
A fantasy, space opera epic that unleashes a mind-warping tale of galactic intrigue, explosive action, incandescent dialogue and smouldering passions.
Swirl Savard’s life is not going to plan. Exiled by her alien masters to the scuzziest part of the galaxy for crimes she can’t be sure she was complicit in, the once promising combat agent has been reduced to peddling strange drugs aboard a mile-long space slum. If there is an upside, Swirl’s can be sure her sister isn’t part of it.
Sparkle Savard is louche, frivolous and- worst of all- shares the same brain and body as Swirl. But when mysterious killers attack, the two-head-sisters must learn to stop bickering and flee for their lives.
Hargie Stukes’ life never really had a plan. He prefers it that way. One of the bubblefolk, a race of faster-than-light addicted lowlifes, Hargie jumps from star to star, bar to bar, forever outrunning a past best forgotten. When a woman with a fluctuating persona buys a ride in his ship, Hargie tries to see it as just another job. But some jobs you can’t walk away from, not if you want to stay alive.
Melid of Silvercloud’s life is but a tiny component in one immense organisation. Empathically bonded to her own kind, she feels absolutely nothing for the rest of humanity. Melid is ordered to hunt down a mysterious woman before she can return to her even more mysterious home world. Mercy won’t come into it.
Journey across the known galaxy, through broken worlds and the palaces of psychotic warlords, to the very edge of sanity and into the heart of the universe’s greatest enigma: those silent beasts of the void, the Scalpels
Swirl Savard’s life is not going to plan. Exiled by her alien masters to the scuzziest part of the galaxy for crimes she can’t be sure she was complicit in, the once promising combat agent has been reduced to peddling strange drugs aboard a mile-long space slum. If there is an upside, Swirl’s can be sure her sister isn’t part of it.
Sparkle Savard is louche, frivolous and- worst of all- shares the same brain and body as Swirl. But when mysterious killers attack, the two-head-sisters must learn to stop bickering and flee for their lives.
Hargie Stukes’ life never really had a plan. He prefers it that way. One of the bubblefolk, a race of faster-than-light addicted lowlifes, Hargie jumps from star to star, bar to bar, forever outrunning a past best forgotten. When a woman with a fluctuating persona buys a ride in his ship, Hargie tries to see it as just another job. But some jobs you can’t walk away from, not if you want to stay alive.
Melid of Silvercloud’s life is but a tiny component in one immense organisation. Empathically bonded to her own kind, she feels absolutely nothing for the rest of humanity. Melid is ordered to hunt down a mysterious woman before she can return to her even more mysterious home world. Mercy won’t come into it.
Journey across the known galaxy, through broken worlds and the palaces of psychotic warlords, to the very edge of sanity and into the heart of the universe’s greatest enigma: those silent beasts of the void, the Scalpels
- GenresScience Fiction
319 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 23, 2018
3 people are currently reading
26 people want to read
About the author
James Worrad
8 books24 followersJames Worrad lives in Leicester, England, and has for almost all his life. Currently he shares a house with a cat and another writer. He works for a well-known brand of hotel, an occupation that never leaves him short of writing material. He has a degree in classical studies from Lampeter University, Wales. He has found this invaluable to his growth as a science fiction and fantasy writer in that he soon discovered how varied and peculiar human cultures can be. In 2011 James attended Clarion, the prestigious six-week SF workshop held at the University of California, San Diego. There, he studied under some of the genre's leading professionals and also got to see a lot of wild hummingbirds. He's had short stories published by Daily Science Fiction, Flurb, Newcon Press and Obverse Books. He also writes screen plays for short films, one of which- Flawless- won the Seven/Five Film Festival Award and was selected for both the Cannes and NYC Independent film festivals. (It was also screened at CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider). He's a regular face on the science fiction convention scene. Should you see him at one feel free to say hello.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 7, 2018
Astonishingly good. Some readers may be unable to connect with Worrad's voice - which is channelling a phantasmagoric madman's space opera whims - but those who find themselves compatible with it should not miss out on this.
It does end on a cliffhanger. This is the only part that makes me sad.
It does end on a cliffhanger. This is the only part that makes me sad.
February 11, 2018
Really enjoyable - looking forward to the next one!
March 31, 2018
Sparkle (bubbly, a little naive) and Swirl (grim, pragmatic) are sisters who share a body. This is completely normal, at least for her people, who hail from the Harmonies and worship (and augment their bodies with) the power of the the god-alien-dimension-bending Hoidrac. It would certainly be odd to chain-smoking Hargie Stukes, an "empathic rationalist" bubbleman pilot with no home except his beloved ship, Princess Floofy. Due to bad timing and worse luck, they all manage to get in trouble with the Kollective, a secretive, communal, millennia-old, zero-g experiment. I'd call the plot a "rollercoaster ride" if rollercoasters could violate the laws of physics in their twists and machinations.
Worrad's universe is populated with beautifully described, trippy worlds, intricately-detailed cultures, and characters that are achingly, hilariously human. I'm not sure how he's done it. How do you create a story that effortlessly flips from horror to humor, tossing out one-liners while exploring the darkness of human nature? The reader looking for self-aware, dark genre fiction with a taste for the peculiar will be enormously pleased.
I hate that it ends on a cliffhanger. Even now, I'm contemplating re-starting it. It's goddamn brilliant space opera. I eagerly await more.
Worrad's universe is populated with beautifully described, trippy worlds, intricately-detailed cultures, and characters that are achingly, hilariously human. I'm not sure how he's done it. How do you create a story that effortlessly flips from horror to humor, tossing out one-liners while exploring the darkness of human nature? The reader looking for self-aware, dark genre fiction with a taste for the peculiar will be enormously pleased.
I hate that it ends on a cliffhanger. Even now, I'm contemplating re-starting it. It's goddamn brilliant space opera. I eagerly await more.
February 27, 2021
Worrad does fascinating things with the notions of consciousness, creating multiple point of view characters who are at once totally alien but thoroughly human. It's imaginative, evocative, and memorable. I've been reading books a long time, and I've never come across a pair of characters like Sparkle and Swirl Savard.
Approach this book with an open mind. You may have to go back and reread a section here and there, because Worrad is doing some things that may make you think in new ways. However, the prose is clean and fluid, so occasionally complicated content aside, you'll fly right through. It's a good read and worth checking out.
Approach this book with an open mind. You may have to go back and reread a section here and there, because Worrad is doing some things that may make you think in new ways. However, the prose is clean and fluid, so occasionally complicated content aside, you'll fly right through. It's a good read and worth checking out.
May 6, 2019
Humanity is spread out amongst the stars, and splintered into mutually-unrecognisable fragments. Collective intelligences adapted for zero gravity. Multiple identities sharing the same brain. Add to that pilots addicted to the process of jumping from star to star, vast conspiracies where the secrets are kept even from the conspirators themselves, and the advent of alien gods, and you've got all the makings of a rip-roaring space opera, and Worrad doesn't disappoint.
Populated with brilliant characters (jump-addicted Hargie and dual-identity Swirl/Sparkle make a dynamic if unlikely pairing), the plot races along, throwing cosmic and personal revelations with abandon, mixed in with plenty of starship chases and gunfights.
The only problem is that it ends on a particularly abrupt cliffhanger!
Populated with brilliant characters (jump-addicted Hargie and dual-identity Swirl/Sparkle make a dynamic if unlikely pairing), the plot races along, throwing cosmic and personal revelations with abandon, mixed in with plenty of starship chases and gunfights.
The only problem is that it ends on a particularly abrupt cliffhanger!
September 8, 2018
The Scalpel is first rate Space Opera, set in a universe that is both majestic and unsettling (who leaves a box of desiccated faces in a shopping mall I ask you?). It's tightly plotted, full of subtly drawn characters that can take the reader from farce to high emotion and back again. Swirl and Sparkle are an eye-opening creation and Hargie Stukes, well... he steals the show --nand everything not nailed down, tune? A cracking debut with a new volume on the way that I'm sure I'll be DELIGHTED with.
May 27, 2020
Delightfully dirty and quite effortlessly grimy, Jim Worrad's far-flung future blends hive-mind societies, time-share bodies, ineffable aliens, and all manner of very human foibles before throwing them all into a blizzard of trouble and revolution. Make no bones, this is the anti-Culture, and more brassy in its relative brevity than any of Peter F Hamilton's big-boned space operas.
The only issue I have is that The Scalpel ends very much on a series of cliffhangers, without any kind of warning. If I didn't already have the second book shelved and ready to go, I might be frustrated enough to go and loom unpleasantly in the author's vicinity...
The only issue I have is that The Scalpel ends very much on a series of cliffhangers, without any kind of warning. If I didn't already have the second book shelved and ready to go, I might be frustrated enough to go and loom unpleasantly in the author's vicinity...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews