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Endless Blue
The appearance of the warp drive from the long lost spaceship, Fenrir, triggers an epic quest for Captain Mikhail Volkov. According to the drive’s computers, Fenrir had been lost to hypothetical ‘nowhere’ of subspace, but with the drive’s housing covered with coral and sea life, obviously Fenrir has gone somewhere. Faced with genocide at the hands of the alien Nefrim, humans need a miracle to survive. On the chance that Fenrir’s mysterious location holds such a miracle, Mikhail jumps into the unknown and crashes into the endless blue of the Sargasso Sea. Every ship that misjumped from any race that discovered travel through subspace has crashed into its waters, creating a graveyard of rusting spaceships. On the Sargasso’s great oceans, humans live alongside aliens. His ship damaged, his younger foster brother lost, and his sanity rattled, Mikhail discovers a secret that might save the human race if he can repair his ship and return home.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2007
34 people are currently reading
718 people want to read
About the author
Wen Spencer
41 books892 followersJohn W. Campbell Award Winner Wen Spencer resides in paradise in Hilo, Hawaii with two volcanoes overlooking her home. Spencer says that she often wakes up and exclaims "Oh my god, I live on an island in the middle of the Pacific!" This, says Spencer, is a far cry from her twenty years of living in land-locked Pittsburgh.
The Elfhome series opener, Tinker, won the 2003 Sapphire Award for Best Science Fiction Romance and was a finalist for the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award for Fantasy Novel. Wolf Who Rules, the sequel to Tinker, was chosen as a Top Pick by Romantic Times and given their top rating of four and a half stars. Other Baen books include space opera thriller Endless Blue and Eight Million Gods.
The Elfhome series opener, Tinker, won the 2003 Sapphire Award for Best Science Fiction Romance and was a finalist for the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award for Fantasy Novel. Wolf Who Rules, the sequel to Tinker, was chosen as a Top Pick by Romantic Times and given their top rating of four and a half stars. Other Baen books include space opera thriller Endless Blue and Eight Million Gods.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
July 12, 2016
What an interesting concept for a story. Wen creates, and delivers, some of the most amazing "worlds". Every new series is an imagination opener! 07/11/16 re-read: Wen is an author who can't be boxed in by a single, or even a few, genre, her stories are varied and very good.
June 13, 2015
For all most of it isn't set in space, this is very much a space-opera-y kind of book from a favourite author. As usual, Spencer drops you straight into the action and leaves you wondering what the heck the world is like and what is going on. As these things began to straighten themselves out I found myself really enjoying the story. By the time I got to the end, my reaction was to yell, "So, what happens next?" While the story is finished, I want to know how it will impact on the future. Not as detailed as some of her other books, but still a thoroughly enjoyable read.
January 13, 2017
Good tale of the outer space equivalent of the Sargasso Sea, with an unfortunately rushed feeling ending.
December 31, 2015
Great book, but like most books with complex world-building, I find it hard to describe.
Maybe it's because I've been watching a lot of re-runs lately, but I think the initial universe we visit has a "Star Trek: The Next Generation" feel. Although humans have only met one alien species, and we are at war with them.
Not very far into the book, we traverse into another reality/universe (a pocket universe?), the Saragossa, where technology is slowly devolving, but humans interact with other alien species. Everyone who has ever traveled to the Saragossa is trapped there, or are they?
But, strangely enough, the chief "alien" species that humans are dealing with are the genetically manipulated humans they call Reds. Reds are cat-like, warrior-like, and are stronger than normal humans. To most, they are nothing but possessions or pets.
Reds are somewhat like lycanthropes in behavior/feel. They don't shift, but they can "fur over" and then "shed" that fur.
The Saragossa itself is a largely water-based world, existing on the inside of a sphere. (I can't think of the technical term for that. I know there is a name, at least sf originated one.) Above the oceans float these islands in the air.
That description was a pale comparison to the imagery given in the book. This is one of those books with rich vibrant world-building, but in the end it's about the characters and their stories.
If you like anything by Wen Spencer, this will probably be a hit. I think I've finished her back catalog now. She needs to write faster. *g*
Maybe it's because I've been watching a lot of re-runs lately, but I think the initial universe we visit has a "Star Trek: The Next Generation" feel. Although humans have only met one alien species, and we are at war with them.
Not very far into the book, we traverse into another reality/universe (a pocket universe?), the Saragossa, where technology is slowly devolving, but humans interact with other alien species. Everyone who has ever traveled to the Saragossa is trapped there, or are they?
But, strangely enough, the chief "alien" species that humans are dealing with are the genetically manipulated humans they call Reds. Reds are cat-like, warrior-like, and are stronger than normal humans. To most, they are nothing but possessions or pets.
Reds are somewhat like lycanthropes in behavior/feel. They don't shift, but they can "fur over" and then "shed" that fur.
The Saragossa itself is a largely water-based world, existing on the inside of a sphere. (I can't think of the technical term for that. I know there is a name, at least sf originated one.) Above the oceans float these islands in the air.
That description was a pale comparison to the imagery given in the book. This is one of those books with rich vibrant world-building, but in the end it's about the characters and their stories.
If you like anything by Wen Spencer, this will probably be a hit. I think I've finished her back catalog now. She needs to write faster. *g*
March 9, 2015
Fantastic book! The cover, although excellent, is inaccurate though. There was no fight with the Minotaur and the size of the Minotaur in comparison to the description of the book should be about 1-1/2 sizes bigger. One of my pet peeves.
The book itself was so good. I loved this world within an egg where people not only had to survive but to get along, or at least try to. I loved Paige and Turk - for Turk to finally find someone who just loves him for him, was fantastic.
I was hoping this was series but it doesn't look like it :(
The book itself was so good. I loved this world within an egg where people not only had to survive but to get along, or at least try to. I loved Paige and Turk - for Turk to finally find someone who just loves him for him, was fantastic.
I was hoping this was series but it doesn't look like it :(
July 5, 2012
I was ready to quit after about twenty pages as the sex scenes irritated me, but I stuck it out and finished the book. It got better, though. I wonder if in several hundred years the f-word will evolve to something else, though?
September 3, 2010
I'd seen this book mentioned a few times on various Best Of SFR lists, especially on The Galaxy Express, so when I decided to embark on my little summer adventure, I was very happy to find my local library had a copy of this book.
I'm even happier now that they had a copy, because this was a thoroughly enjoyable read for me. :)
The story begins when the warp drive--and only the warp drive--from a long lost space ship reappears in the United Colonies. The engine is accompanied by three dead bodies and a row boat, and its outer compartment is crusted over with barnacles. The United Colonies decide to send Mikhail Volkov, cloned son of the ruler of the Novaya Rus empire, and his foster brother, Turk, to follow the coordinates from the mysterious warp drive. They must find out what happened with the warp drive, where the missing ship landed and whether solving those mysteries can help save the human race from being wiped out by a hostile race of aliens called the Nefrim.
The mission starts off badly as Mikhail's ship follows the coordinates and immediately ends up crashing into the "Endless Blue" of the water planet Sargasso. Turk is separated from the rest of the crew and presumed dead, which causes Mikhail to teeter on the brink of emotional collapse. Turk manages to survive when he is rescued by Paige Bailey, the captain of a cobbled together ship on its way to a sweet salvage spot in neutral waters.
A big strength of this book are the characters. The three main characters of this book were all well-drawn and complex, and the supporting characters are well-fleshed out as well. Mikhail has the Great Man's Son complex except, being a clone, he IS in some ways the great man, which only serves to further mess with his head. His psyche and mental health are also very fragile and he does, to a large extent, lean on his foster brother, Turk, as his rock and emotional center. There's a poignant scene after he thinks Turk has died where Mikhail locks his gun in his safe and: "Using a marker, he wrote 'Bad Misha Bad' and drew Turk's cat face scowling at him" to stop himself from committing suicide. Even when Mikhail thinks Turk is dead he still depends on his brother to save him from himself.
Turk, for his part, has an inferiority complex and a healthy amount of self-loathing because he was genetically engineered in a breeding creche to be a super-soldier. Turk is a "Red" and in his world the genetically modified Reds, even though they were engineered from human genes, are viewed as lower class and expendable to their fully human commanders. There is even a sexual fetish for Red males from a group called "cat-fanciers". Reds have the ability to "fur over" in times of stress, which contributes to the conception of them as animals. So, even though Turk was raised alongside Mikhail as his foster brother, that does not stop Turk from internalizing all the vitriol and bigotry running rampant in his world with regards to Reds.
The blurb for this book mentions nothing about the romantic subplot, so when I started the book I didn't know who would end up in the romance together. The logical, the cliche, pairing would have been Mikhail and Paige, so I was pleasantly surprised when Turk and Paige ended up falling for each other. Turk is adorable and heart-breaking as he tries to navigate romantic love with someone who sees him as a human and not a really fancy sex toy.
"...he continued upward until she was totally under him....Even the kinkiest of cat fanciers would be afraid of being under him, helpless, but she continued to gaze up at him as if she trusted him completely....
He wasn't sure what to do next. She hadn't pushed him off her, or told him to stop, but she was paying more attention to her reader than to him....She didn't move her foot, and the tips of her toes remained a hairsbreadth from his leg. It made him aware that a moment before, they had been casually intimate, like old lovers. The loss of that closeness ached inside, and slowly turned to anger. Was she just playing him?
'Why are you reading those books?' he growled lowly.
'They're in Russian. I thought if you ended up stuck with us, you should have someone that could speak your language...'"
The romance takes a bit of a backseat towards the end of the book, but the middle section is very romance heavy, and that romance is remarkably sweet and poignant. The moment where Turk and Mikhail are reunited and Turk realizes he will probably have to choose between his brother and the woman he loves was well-written and affecting.
This book is very complex with all kinds of twisty turns so I won't go into the plot too much at the risk of spoilers. I will say I loved the complexity of the world. The concept of the crashed space ships all becoming sort of sovereign nations on the wide Sargasso sea was brilliant, and I loved the complex kin network of the Baileys. I also appreciated that the biggest power on Sargasso was actually the Japanese with their twin crashed ships at Ya-ya port. The alien species of the Sargasso were also very well-drawn, distinct and believable.
I also liked that Paige was as well developed and capable as the male characters. She has an aptitude for languages and watching her translate and interact with the alien species littering the Sargasso was one of my favorite parts of the book. I appreciated how each alien species had a different body language and mindset, and Paige really immersed herself in them when she was translating. This part of the book was very well done indeed.
One small nitpick I had about the world-building was it came a bit too fast for me in the beginning, especially the first chapter where the reader is introduced to the Sargasso, which is not your average planet. I felt like I had no idea what was going on, and it was not until several chapters later in the book that I really understood how the structure of the Sargasso works. Another problem I had was we never really got a clear description of the Reds in the beginning, so I was actually picturing Turk and the others as much more animal-like until we were in Paige's POV and we see Turk through her eyes, which is several chapters in. (Just as an aside, I really loved the revelation of Turk's full name. It was cute, affectionate and somehow sad, all at once).
On the whole, though, this book was really excellent. The characters were original and engaging, the romance sweet, the plot complex and enjoyable, the writing amusing and well-done, and the world-building superb overall. I will definitely be checking out more books by Wen Spencer in the future, and I definitely recommend this to any SFR fans who haven't read it yet.
Grade: A
I'm even happier now that they had a copy, because this was a thoroughly enjoyable read for me. :)
The story begins when the warp drive--and only the warp drive--from a long lost space ship reappears in the United Colonies. The engine is accompanied by three dead bodies and a row boat, and its outer compartment is crusted over with barnacles. The United Colonies decide to send Mikhail Volkov, cloned son of the ruler of the Novaya Rus empire, and his foster brother, Turk, to follow the coordinates from the mysterious warp drive. They must find out what happened with the warp drive, where the missing ship landed and whether solving those mysteries can help save the human race from being wiped out by a hostile race of aliens called the Nefrim.
The mission starts off badly as Mikhail's ship follows the coordinates and immediately ends up crashing into the "Endless Blue" of the water planet Sargasso. Turk is separated from the rest of the crew and presumed dead, which causes Mikhail to teeter on the brink of emotional collapse. Turk manages to survive when he is rescued by Paige Bailey, the captain of a cobbled together ship on its way to a sweet salvage spot in neutral waters.
A big strength of this book are the characters. The three main characters of this book were all well-drawn and complex, and the supporting characters are well-fleshed out as well. Mikhail has the Great Man's Son complex except, being a clone, he IS in some ways the great man, which only serves to further mess with his head. His psyche and mental health are also very fragile and he does, to a large extent, lean on his foster brother, Turk, as his rock and emotional center. There's a poignant scene after he thinks Turk has died where Mikhail locks his gun in his safe and: "Using a marker, he wrote 'Bad Misha Bad' and drew Turk's cat face scowling at him" to stop himself from committing suicide. Even when Mikhail thinks Turk is dead he still depends on his brother to save him from himself.
Turk, for his part, has an inferiority complex and a healthy amount of self-loathing because he was genetically engineered in a breeding creche to be a super-soldier. Turk is a "Red" and in his world the genetically modified Reds, even though they were engineered from human genes, are viewed as lower class and expendable to their fully human commanders. There is even a sexual fetish for Red males from a group called "cat-fanciers". Reds have the ability to "fur over" in times of stress, which contributes to the conception of them as animals. So, even though Turk was raised alongside Mikhail as his foster brother, that does not stop Turk from internalizing all the vitriol and bigotry running rampant in his world with regards to Reds.
The blurb for this book mentions nothing about the romantic subplot, so when I started the book I didn't know who would end up in the romance together. The logical, the cliche, pairing would have been Mikhail and Paige, so I was pleasantly surprised when Turk and Paige ended up falling for each other. Turk is adorable and heart-breaking as he tries to navigate romantic love with someone who sees him as a human and not a really fancy sex toy.
"...he continued upward until she was totally under him....Even the kinkiest of cat fanciers would be afraid of being under him, helpless, but she continued to gaze up at him as if she trusted him completely....
He wasn't sure what to do next. She hadn't pushed him off her, or told him to stop, but she was paying more attention to her reader than to him....She didn't move her foot, and the tips of her toes remained a hairsbreadth from his leg. It made him aware that a moment before, they had been casually intimate, like old lovers. The loss of that closeness ached inside, and slowly turned to anger. Was she just playing him?
'Why are you reading those books?' he growled lowly.
'They're in Russian. I thought if you ended up stuck with us, you should have someone that could speak your language...'"
The romance takes a bit of a backseat towards the end of the book, but the middle section is very romance heavy, and that romance is remarkably sweet and poignant. The moment where Turk and Mikhail are reunited and Turk realizes he will probably have to choose between his brother and the woman he loves was well-written and affecting.
This book is very complex with all kinds of twisty turns so I won't go into the plot too much at the risk of spoilers. I will say I loved the complexity of the world. The concept of the crashed space ships all becoming sort of sovereign nations on the wide Sargasso sea was brilliant, and I loved the complex kin network of the Baileys. I also appreciated that the biggest power on Sargasso was actually the Japanese with their twin crashed ships at Ya-ya port. The alien species of the Sargasso were also very well-drawn, distinct and believable.
I also liked that Paige was as well developed and capable as the male characters. She has an aptitude for languages and watching her translate and interact with the alien species littering the Sargasso was one of my favorite parts of the book. I appreciated how each alien species had a different body language and mindset, and Paige really immersed herself in them when she was translating. This part of the book was very well done indeed.
One small nitpick I had about the world-building was it came a bit too fast for me in the beginning, especially the first chapter where the reader is introduced to the Sargasso, which is not your average planet. I felt like I had no idea what was going on, and it was not until several chapters later in the book that I really understood how the structure of the Sargasso works. Another problem I had was we never really got a clear description of the Reds in the beginning, so I was actually picturing Turk and the others as much more animal-like until we were in Paige's POV and we see Turk through her eyes, which is several chapters in. (Just as an aside, I really loved the revelation of Turk's full name. It was cute, affectionate and somehow sad, all at once).
On the whole, though, this book was really excellent. The characters were original and engaging, the romance sweet, the plot complex and enjoyable, the writing amusing and well-done, and the world-building superb overall. I will definitely be checking out more books by Wen Spencer in the future, and I definitely recommend this to any SFR fans who haven't read it yet.
Grade: A
October 7, 2022
Finally got around to...
This book caught my eye when I processed it through the Interlibrary Loan desk at Birmingham Public Library about ten years ago. I finally cracked it open (can you say that about an ebook?) on vacation in Aruba. Let me start by saying that this is the perfect science fiction beach read.
The milieu is a sort of "space Bermuda Triangle" highly reminiscent of that in Kay Kenyon's "Entire and the Rose," except with likeable characters. And the characters are where Wen Spencer puts her focus. What starts out with all the signifiers of a macho-military space opera quickly turns an unexpected corner with an emphasis on depression, childhood trauma, and a surprising prevalence of romance storylines.
My only complaint would be that Spencer is so focused on the character beats, she rushes through the final action set piece way too quickly. A better tack might have been to remove the action-conflict story entirely and adopt a "Becky Chambers" approach. But it is what it is - in the end, a fun read.
This book caught my eye when I processed it through the Interlibrary Loan desk at Birmingham Public Library about ten years ago. I finally cracked it open (can you say that about an ebook?) on vacation in Aruba. Let me start by saying that this is the perfect science fiction beach read.
The milieu is a sort of "space Bermuda Triangle" highly reminiscent of that in Kay Kenyon's "Entire and the Rose," except with likeable characters. And the characters are where Wen Spencer puts her focus. What starts out with all the signifiers of a macho-military space opera quickly turns an unexpected corner with an emphasis on depression, childhood trauma, and a surprising prevalence of romance storylines.
My only complaint would be that Spencer is so focused on the character beats, she rushes through the final action set piece way too quickly. A better tack might have been to remove the action-conflict story entirely and adopt a "Becky Chambers" approach. But it is what it is - in the end, a fun read.
August 25, 2009
http://janicu.livejournal.com/80055.html
Wen Spencer is among the Authors I Stalk. Yes, she is on my list. Therefore I have been eagerly anticipating Endless Blue since I knew it was coming out. Unfortunately it came out in hardcover, and I'm a paperback girl, so I waited another few months for the paperback copy to be released. Finally I bought it last week and although it's about 495 pages, I inhaled it. Ah, sweet space opera!
The Premise: Mikhail Volkov is a clone of Peter the Great and heir apparent to the great Novaya Rus Empire. He's captain of the warship the Svobada, and helping the United Colonies fight off the alien Nefarim when it's requested that he investigate the sudden appearance of a warp drive from the long lost Fenrir. With the drive being covered in coral and sea life, it's apparently come from some body of water, but according to it's data, it's last jump was a misjump to location zero. Mikhail accepts the mission, jumps to the same location and crashes. His adopted brother Turk becomes separated from him in a world where they are surrounded by aliens and humans in the same situation and who never escaped.
My Thoughts: Wen Spencer is one of those authors with sometimes really complex ideas. I find I have to read about 100 pages in before what the characters are talking about begin to make sense. It's always worth my patience, because once I get it, it's smooth reading. In this case I had a hard time first understanding the world of the Sargasso Sea which Turk and Mikhail find themselves, and I had to understand what a Red was. To help others this is what I understood:
A Red: is an "adapted" human. Basically, human genes were manipulated to create a super soldier who is faster, stronger and better at surviving harsh conditions, but they were also taught to obey and treated as second class citizens, like animals. Usually they are grown in batches and raised in a creche where they all undergo some behavioral imprinting.
The Sargasso Sea: A world where spaceships disappear into when they misjump. Most of it is covered in water, gravity follows strange rules, and no one can figure out how to get out. To me it sounded like the inside of a very large egg, but don't ask me where the sun is, I still don't know.
After I got those two concepts, I felt comfortable enough with the world and what was going on, but there are still some complex ideas going on in here about communication and behavior and faith. There's also a LOT of ideas from japanese culture (Tinker also had this). In some ways it's refreshing to be expected to be able to follow these ideas, but it meant I couldn't read this book when I was really tired, my brain just wouldn't work. Anyway, the world building was awesome - boats, floating islands, minotaurs, cannibals, the list goes on, I really can't describe it. I think if you've read Tinker maybe you'd see what I mean, it can get very out there in a good way.
Wen Spencer writes well rounded, three dimensional characters too. Turk and Mikhail are leaders and quick thinkers but they have fears and problems. Mikhail suffers from depression, and Turk has issues with being a Red. Having a clone and a super-soldier as adopted brothers was an interesting twist on common science fiction tropes, plus we get to see the family dynamics, which seems to be a Wen Spencer trademark (see A Brother's Price). There are Turk and Mikhail, and then there are the Baileys, who have a huge extended and remarkable family. Their familial bonds felt realistic - you know what the pecking order is, who is better than this than who, what they always fight over, how siblings could easily guess their siblings reactions and thoughts. It was very well done. Of course comparing the Baileys and the Volkovs, there are some big differences in upbringing which had a big part in the book. The big difference seems to be Turk's status as a Red, and being treated like an animal in normal space. He can "fur up" and there's a contingent of people who call themselves "cat fanciers" and get off on the idea of sex with Reds. This brings a whole level of effed up to his psyche.
There is a nice romance going on here between Turk and one of the Baileys. Near the beginning of the book when Turk was separated from his brother, the narrative would go back and forth between Turk and Mikhail. I just wanted to skip ahead to all the parts with Turk (and the romance), and ignore Mikhail. Thankfully the narrative stopped bouncing back and forth before I become really impatient, and by then I'd become equally interested in both their stories.
The romance had some interesting problems on the way to the couple's HEA - race is one, having to choose between love or the world you came from is another. The way these problems were resolved were interesting, though one resolution felt a little implied and off screen. In some ways a lot of the romance is also off-screen, with very key scenes shown or mentioned to the reader. Which means it felt like I had missed something because the book would sometimes fast forward between the couple's relationship milestones. This was OK, but I did crave for a little more.
Overall: I really liked this one. At almost 500 pages long, it's a clunker, but it's a standalone with well written characters, and I thought it was worth the read. Recommend this one to space opera fans and fans of science fiction romance (although I'd say the romance is a secondary plot), with the warning that there's some complex plotting and ideas going on, but if you're willing to deal with a little thinking, you'll be rewarded.
Wen Spencer is among the Authors I Stalk. Yes, she is on my list. Therefore I have been eagerly anticipating Endless Blue since I knew it was coming out. Unfortunately it came out in hardcover, and I'm a paperback girl, so I waited another few months for the paperback copy to be released. Finally I bought it last week and although it's about 495 pages, I inhaled it. Ah, sweet space opera!
The Premise: Mikhail Volkov is a clone of Peter the Great and heir apparent to the great Novaya Rus Empire. He's captain of the warship the Svobada, and helping the United Colonies fight off the alien Nefarim when it's requested that he investigate the sudden appearance of a warp drive from the long lost Fenrir. With the drive being covered in coral and sea life, it's apparently come from some body of water, but according to it's data, it's last jump was a misjump to location zero. Mikhail accepts the mission, jumps to the same location and crashes. His adopted brother Turk becomes separated from him in a world where they are surrounded by aliens and humans in the same situation and who never escaped.
My Thoughts: Wen Spencer is one of those authors with sometimes really complex ideas. I find I have to read about 100 pages in before what the characters are talking about begin to make sense. It's always worth my patience, because once I get it, it's smooth reading. In this case I had a hard time first understanding the world of the Sargasso Sea which Turk and Mikhail find themselves, and I had to understand what a Red was. To help others this is what I understood:
A Red: is an "adapted" human. Basically, human genes were manipulated to create a super soldier who is faster, stronger and better at surviving harsh conditions, but they were also taught to obey and treated as second class citizens, like animals. Usually they are grown in batches and raised in a creche where they all undergo some behavioral imprinting.
The Sargasso Sea: A world where spaceships disappear into when they misjump. Most of it is covered in water, gravity follows strange rules, and no one can figure out how to get out. To me it sounded like the inside of a very large egg, but don't ask me where the sun is, I still don't know.
After I got those two concepts, I felt comfortable enough with the world and what was going on, but there are still some complex ideas going on in here about communication and behavior and faith. There's also a LOT of ideas from japanese culture (Tinker also had this). In some ways it's refreshing to be expected to be able to follow these ideas, but it meant I couldn't read this book when I was really tired, my brain just wouldn't work. Anyway, the world building was awesome - boats, floating islands, minotaurs, cannibals, the list goes on, I really can't describe it. I think if you've read Tinker maybe you'd see what I mean, it can get very out there in a good way.
Wen Spencer writes well rounded, three dimensional characters too. Turk and Mikhail are leaders and quick thinkers but they have fears and problems. Mikhail suffers from depression, and Turk has issues with being a Red. Having a clone and a super-soldier as adopted brothers was an interesting twist on common science fiction tropes, plus we get to see the family dynamics, which seems to be a Wen Spencer trademark (see A Brother's Price). There are Turk and Mikhail, and then there are the Baileys, who have a huge extended and remarkable family. Their familial bonds felt realistic - you know what the pecking order is, who is better than this than who, what they always fight over, how siblings could easily guess their siblings reactions and thoughts. It was very well done. Of course comparing the Baileys and the Volkovs, there are some big differences in upbringing which had a big part in the book. The big difference seems to be Turk's status as a Red, and being treated like an animal in normal space. He can "fur up" and there's a contingent of people who call themselves "cat fanciers" and get off on the idea of sex with Reds. This brings a whole level of effed up to his psyche.
There is a nice romance going on here between Turk and one of the Baileys. Near the beginning of the book when Turk was separated from his brother, the narrative would go back and forth between Turk and Mikhail. I just wanted to skip ahead to all the parts with Turk (and the romance), and ignore Mikhail. Thankfully the narrative stopped bouncing back and forth before I become really impatient, and by then I'd become equally interested in both their stories.
The romance had some interesting problems on the way to the couple's HEA - race is one, having to choose between love or the world you came from is another. The way these problems were resolved were interesting, though one resolution felt a little implied and off screen. In some ways a lot of the romance is also off-screen, with very key scenes shown or mentioned to the reader. Which means it felt like I had missed something because the book would sometimes fast forward between the couple's relationship milestones. This was OK, but I did crave for a little more.
Overall: I really liked this one. At almost 500 pages long, it's a clunker, but it's a standalone with well written characters, and I thought it was worth the read. Recommend this one to space opera fans and fans of science fiction romance (although I'd say the romance is a secondary plot), with the warning that there's some complex plotting and ideas going on, but if you're willing to deal with a little thinking, you'll be rewarded.
February 19, 2022
Great story from a master storyteller. Loved the fact that it was a space opera that didn't really take place in space. Loved how the love story angle was present in the background but did not happen between who you thought it would. Clones, Aliens, Spaceships, Pocket universe/alternate universe, Angels? what more could a person ask for?
on-time-out
March 8, 2017Having trouble getting into this one. Going to set it aside for now, and come back to it later.
September 19, 2016
3.5 * Not her best, but parts are intriguing
I'm not sure how to rate this book. Wen Spencer writes some of my favorite stories, and while this isn't one of them, it still has many of the hallmarks of a Spencer book: the breadth of alien races, the intelligent compassionate MCs, the emphasis on relationships, and what it means to be a person. All those elements are present and yet the book never quite gells into Spencer's usual wonderful story.
I think what's missing is a true MC. Instead of focussing on one character, the story follows three people--Mikhail, Turk and Paige--and the divided attention makes it hard to feel completely connected to any one of the three. At first I thought Spencer started off dividing the focus because the three characters were in different places, but even after they all arrived in the same location, there still wasn't a true MC to bond with. This meant that it took most of the book for me to feel attached to the MCs, and as soon as I felt connected to them, the book was over.
The problem wasn't just that the reader got bounced around between Paige, Turk and Mikhail; rather it seemed like none of the characters were given enough time and attention to create a satisfying relationship with the reader. We saw enough of a few individuals, like Eraphie or Rabbit, to begin caring about them and then, bang! they were gone for most of the rest of the book.
Another issue forme was the disjointed nature of the plot. It couldn't seem to decide what sort of story it was, and so there were bits and pieces of several plotlines that didn't quite come together into a cohesive whole. There was the alien contact/war that came out of nowhere piece, the solve the mystery of the alien artifact piece, the find a way home piece, the fix the messy relationship between adapted and unadapted humans piece, etc. Spencer usually does a much better job at pulling it all together than she did here, and once again, I think staying with one person's viewpoint would have helped her organize the plot strands and weave them into a narrative whole.
The universe is amazing, and I wish Spencer would tell another story that took all the intriguing bits--the alien races like the hak, the minotaurs, the seraphim, the civ, etc., the floating landmasses and the built-up wrecks--where the story was purely about people living in the Sargasso, their relationships with one another and their struggles. I'd be happy to buy that book. This one, however, needs to decide what it wants to be and prune away anything else--I'm not sorry I read it, but won't reread.
I'm not sure how to rate this book. Wen Spencer writes some of my favorite stories, and while this isn't one of them, it still has many of the hallmarks of a Spencer book: the breadth of alien races, the intelligent compassionate MCs, the emphasis on relationships, and what it means to be a person. All those elements are present and yet the book never quite gells into Spencer's usual wonderful story.
I think what's missing is a true MC. Instead of focussing on one character, the story follows three people--Mikhail, Turk and Paige--and the divided attention makes it hard to feel completely connected to any one of the three. At first I thought Spencer started off dividing the focus because the three characters were in different places, but even after they all arrived in the same location, there still wasn't a true MC to bond with. This meant that it took most of the book for me to feel attached to the MCs, and as soon as I felt connected to them, the book was over.
The problem wasn't just that the reader got bounced around between Paige, Turk and Mikhail; rather it seemed like none of the characters were given enough time and attention to create a satisfying relationship with the reader. We saw enough of a few individuals, like Eraphie or Rabbit, to begin caring about them and then, bang! they were gone for most of the rest of the book.
Another issue forme was the disjointed nature of the plot. It couldn't seem to decide what sort of story it was, and so there were bits and pieces of several plotlines that didn't quite come together into a cohesive whole. There was the alien contact/war that came out of nowhere piece, the solve the mystery of the alien artifact piece, the find a way home piece, the fix the messy relationship between adapted and unadapted humans piece, etc. Spencer usually does a much better job at pulling it all together than she did here, and once again, I think staying with one person's viewpoint would have helped her organize the plot strands and weave them into a narrative whole.
The universe is amazing, and I wish Spencer would tell another story that took all the intriguing bits--the alien races like the hak, the minotaurs, the seraphim, the civ, etc., the floating landmasses and the built-up wrecks--where the story was purely about people living in the Sargasso, their relationships with one another and their struggles. I'd be happy to buy that book. This one, however, needs to decide what it wants to be and prune away anything else--I'm not sorry I read it, but won't reread.
January 15, 2010
This was a fascinating scifi novel that I couldn't put down. It's a pity that the author is on hiatus from writing (though it's for health reasons, so you can't fault her). I can't wait to read whatever she publishes next!
The premise of this story is that humans are adept at space travel and have developed a way to take space ships from point A to point B without traveling through the intervening space. Only sometimes, ships don't come out at point B - they are apparently distroyed. Not true, we discover in Endless Blue. There is actually a point C - maybe another dimension or universe, where ships with faulty navigation crash into a water-dominated megaplanet that is inverted - it's like being on the inside of an egg. No matter what the spacefaring race, they all land here if they screw up, so there at around 10 different sentient species all coexisting. Exploring this planet - the Sargossa - is half the fun of this book.
Back in normal human space, humans have long been genetically engineering and test-tube producing human babies. They've tweaked the DNA and come up with a were-cat like human breed called Reds that they indoctrinate as slaves and soldiers from birth onward. Only these are 100% human - no animal DNA is in the mix, and they are indistinguishable from us in their human form. Mikhail, the future tzar heir, was raised with one (Turk) as his foster brother and loves him dearly. He hates the slavery and wants to do away with it, but that's impossible without ending the war with the Nephrim. When he's sent on a special mission to explore the Sargossa, Mikhail finds something that could possibly end the war back home, but returning is a very tricky engineering feat.
The premise of this story is that humans are adept at space travel and have developed a way to take space ships from point A to point B without traveling through the intervening space. Only sometimes, ships don't come out at point B - they are apparently distroyed. Not true, we discover in Endless Blue. There is actually a point C - maybe another dimension or universe, where ships with faulty navigation crash into a water-dominated megaplanet that is inverted - it's like being on the inside of an egg. No matter what the spacefaring race, they all land here if they screw up, so there at around 10 different sentient species all coexisting. Exploring this planet - the Sargossa - is half the fun of this book.
Back in normal human space, humans have long been genetically engineering and test-tube producing human babies. They've tweaked the DNA and come up with a were-cat like human breed called Reds that they indoctrinate as slaves and soldiers from birth onward. Only these are 100% human - no animal DNA is in the mix, and they are indistinguishable from us in their human form. Mikhail, the future tzar heir, was raised with one (Turk) as his foster brother and loves him dearly. He hates the slavery and wants to do away with it, but that's impossible without ending the war with the Nephrim. When he's sent on a special mission to explore the Sargossa, Mikhail finds something that could possibly end the war back home, but returning is a very tricky engineering feat.
May 26, 2023
Spencer does it again--creates a world that sounds absolutely insane to describe and populates it with an interesting cast of characters including a suicidal Russian tsarevich, a genetically superior soldier who imagines himself to be massively inferior to humans, and a young woman who left a cushy job as a translator to captain a boat full of orphaned siblings and cousins.
It's not Tinker (but even Wolf Who Rules wasn't Tinker), but it was a lot of fun. Some of the sex stuff was a little weird for published fiction, but it once again enforces my theory that Spencer is From the Internet.
Reread 12/2/19: I've read reviews complaining of pacing issues, which are valid. It does go world-build, world-build, world-build, PLOT, done. And I wish more time had been spent on Paige's spirituality given how heavily it is involved in the ending.
Still, an extremely unique book and a fun read.
It's not Tinker (but even Wolf Who Rules wasn't Tinker), but it was a lot of fun. Some of the sex stuff was a little weird for published fiction, but it once again enforces my theory that Spencer is From the Internet.
Reread 12/2/19: I've read reviews complaining of pacing issues, which are valid. It does go world-build, world-build, world-build, PLOT, done. And I wish more time had been spent on Paige's spirituality given how heavily it is involved in the ending.
Still, an extremely unique book and a fun read.
March 4, 2008
it was okay. there wasn't much action. It was more of an exploratory type sci-fi book.
March 1, 2015
huh, she writes near-pure SF well, too...
June 23, 2015
Very interesting world with very different characters from her previous works. I'm looking forward to any more in the Sargasso of space!
May 12, 2017
I loved this unusual sci-fi novel. The protagonist, a Russian prince slash spaceship captain, Mikhail Volkov, accepts a puzzling assignment from the Space Fleet command. Several years ago, one of the Fleet warships vanished during a warp jump. Now, the ship’s warp drive (without its ship) suddenly appears near one of the Fleet space stations. Where did it come from? Where is its ship? What happened to the crew? The Fleet wants Mikhail to find out.
And Mikhail does find out. He discovers an entire world in an odd pocket of the universe, a world where all the spaceships which had vanished during warp jumps end up in. This world, called Sargasso by its denizens, is one endless ocean. Islands float in the sky. Minotaurs don’t allow anyone into their section of the ocean. Huge octopi roam the depth and could only be defeated with spaceship canons. And the local humans don’t really want the Space Fleet to arrive on their watery home and establish new rules and laws. They have their own regulations, thank you very much, so nobody really wants to cooperate with Mikhail and his mission.
Unfortunately for him, Mikhail’s ship is damaged during the crush landing. He needs the locals’ cooperation, so the bulk of the novel follows the convoluted adventures of Mikhail and his crew, plus a number of local humans and aliens, as their agendas clash.
There are troubles aplenty for everyone. Political squabbles erupt. Personal ambitions collide. Racial tension springs up. Technology goes haywire. Love blooms. Nobody tells Mikhail the truth, and several of his crew fall inconveniently in love. As Mikhail battles his personal self-doubts, in addition to his disintegrating ship and crew, the focus of the novel shifts between him and the other heroes: Mikhail’s foster brother Turk and a local woman Paige.
Paige is a wonderful heroine. Decisive and kind, compassionate and ruthless, loyal and smart, she is more alive in this story than the whining Mikhail, the prince. She captains her own ship, crewed with her siblings and cousins, roams the endless sea of Sargasso without fear, and wouldn’t let anyone dictate her course. Until she fishes Turk out of trouble and falls in love.
Turk is also a much more interesting character than his foster brother, the erstwhile Captain Mikhail. Turk is a Red, created like all Reds by the human geneticists to be a perfect soldier, an outstanding fighting machine. In the outside world, all Reds are property and used mercilessly to fight human wars. Turk is an exception – Mikhail had freed him long ago – but for everyone else outside Sargasso, he is just another Red, little more than an animal trained to kill. Reds don’t even warrant personal cabins on spaceships. They bunk together in ‘Red Pits’.
Turk struggles with some demons of his own. He hates himself for being non-human. He doesn’t fully understand the concept of personal freedom. He is full of worry for his foster brother Mikhail. His is torn between his duty, which lies with Mikhail, and his love, which belongs to Paige.
Between these three, the story romps along the crazy lines of the impossible, until the author brings it to a surprisingly satisfying conclusion. Almost everyone wins in the end, and I absolutely loved the happy ending.
A wonderful novel.
And Mikhail does find out. He discovers an entire world in an odd pocket of the universe, a world where all the spaceships which had vanished during warp jumps end up in. This world, called Sargasso by its denizens, is one endless ocean. Islands float in the sky. Minotaurs don’t allow anyone into their section of the ocean. Huge octopi roam the depth and could only be defeated with spaceship canons. And the local humans don’t really want the Space Fleet to arrive on their watery home and establish new rules and laws. They have their own regulations, thank you very much, so nobody really wants to cooperate with Mikhail and his mission.
Unfortunately for him, Mikhail’s ship is damaged during the crush landing. He needs the locals’ cooperation, so the bulk of the novel follows the convoluted adventures of Mikhail and his crew, plus a number of local humans and aliens, as their agendas clash.
There are troubles aplenty for everyone. Political squabbles erupt. Personal ambitions collide. Racial tension springs up. Technology goes haywire. Love blooms. Nobody tells Mikhail the truth, and several of his crew fall inconveniently in love. As Mikhail battles his personal self-doubts, in addition to his disintegrating ship and crew, the focus of the novel shifts between him and the other heroes: Mikhail’s foster brother Turk and a local woman Paige.
Paige is a wonderful heroine. Decisive and kind, compassionate and ruthless, loyal and smart, she is more alive in this story than the whining Mikhail, the prince. She captains her own ship, crewed with her siblings and cousins, roams the endless sea of Sargasso without fear, and wouldn’t let anyone dictate her course. Until she fishes Turk out of trouble and falls in love.
Turk is also a much more interesting character than his foster brother, the erstwhile Captain Mikhail. Turk is a Red, created like all Reds by the human geneticists to be a perfect soldier, an outstanding fighting machine. In the outside world, all Reds are property and used mercilessly to fight human wars. Turk is an exception – Mikhail had freed him long ago – but for everyone else outside Sargasso, he is just another Red, little more than an animal trained to kill. Reds don’t even warrant personal cabins on spaceships. They bunk together in ‘Red Pits’.
Turk struggles with some demons of his own. He hates himself for being non-human. He doesn’t fully understand the concept of personal freedom. He is full of worry for his foster brother Mikhail. His is torn between his duty, which lies with Mikhail, and his love, which belongs to Paige.
Between these three, the story romps along the crazy lines of the impossible, until the author brings it to a surprisingly satisfying conclusion. Almost everyone wins in the end, and I absolutely loved the happy ending.
A wonderful novel.
October 5, 2023
Story: Fantastic worldbuilding, fascinating interpersonal relationships, fabulous imaginative story arc. Love! 5 stars
Narration: I'd been warned by reviews, had tried the sample…and passed on buying the audiobook. It was only when Audible Plus gave me the membership perk that I decided to chance the listen. No skin off my nose…
I went in expecting the atrocious… and oy. Thick American accent for the basic narrative. Thick American-Russian accent for some characters. Inconsistent accents for some. Terrible voices for females.
What a waste! The basic narrative could—and should!—have been done in a more neutral accent. American accents were not necessary for the main characters, who had no reason to have said accent.
They should have gone with a different narrator.
I managed to stand to listen because I was expecting it to sound atrocious, I liked the story, I sped up the narration…and I had spent no money on it and as such had no regrets or a need to kick myself for a disappointing purchase.
Faint praise: I could stand to listen to it.
Narration: I'd been warned by reviews, had tried the sample…and passed on buying the audiobook. It was only when Audible Plus gave me the membership perk that I decided to chance the listen. No skin off my nose…
I went in expecting the atrocious… and oy. Thick American accent for the basic narrative. Thick American-Russian accent for some characters. Inconsistent accents for some. Terrible voices for females.
What a waste! The basic narrative could—and should!—have been done in a more neutral accent. American accents were not necessary for the main characters, who had no reason to have said accent.
They should have gone with a different narrator.
I managed to stand to listen because I was expecting it to sound atrocious, I liked the story, I sped up the narration…and I had spent no money on it and as such had no regrets or a need to kick myself for a disappointing purchase.
Faint praise: I could stand to listen to it.
September 3, 2020
Definitely a little difficult to get through, lots of names, places, family lines, and lore to keep straight. But enjoyable. One of the things I like about Wen Spencer is the re-readability of her stories, because honestly you never fully grasp wtf is going on in the first read through. Then the second and third really cement your understanding of the details. The poloticing within the regular-space human factions felt a little disjointed and out of place, but did provide some context. A good read, overall.
December 27, 2021
1.0 out of 5
Quit at 8% – Ridiculous Behavior
December 27, 2021
I got only to the 8% point before throwing in the towel on Wen Spencer's 2007 novel [[ISBN:9781618246226 "Endless Blue"]]. The problem wasn't even the entirely spurious and weird sex scene in the second chapter. It was that I'd already run into three separate instances of people doing ridiculous personal things (of which sex was but one) in the midst of a crisis. So, I'm rating the book at an Unreadable 1 star out of 5 and quitting.
Quit at 8% – Ridiculous Behavior
December 27, 2021
I got only to the 8% point before throwing in the towel on Wen Spencer's 2007 novel [[ISBN:9781618246226 "Endless Blue"]]. The problem wasn't even the entirely spurious and weird sex scene in the second chapter. It was that I'd already run into three separate instances of people doing ridiculous personal things (of which sex was but one) in the midst of a crisis. So, I'm rating the book at an Unreadable 1 star out of 5 and quitting.
June 16, 2017
Very fast flowing story in a marvelous inverted world with good aliens and good human characters.
January 23, 2018
A bit of a guilty pleasure read, but it is a step above generic naval military SF.
March 5, 2019
Well developed characters, plot a little too Dark Crystal at the end, but very enjoyable over all.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 1, 2020
If a novella this would have been fine. It didn’t help that the narrator didn’t help. Rather poor with the voices of the characters. Sorry
January 23, 2021
bon moment de lecture (clonage, être une personne)
May 9, 2021
Excellent story
Like all other books by Wen Spencer this book grabs you and drags you into the story and holds you till the end !
Like all other books by Wen Spencer this book grabs you and drags you into the story and holds you till the end !
January 4, 2024
Worldbuilding is great, the species, religion, history, and social issues are written out interestingly and aren't too overwhelming.
August 6, 2020
This book gave me a deep nostalgic feeling for the works of Jo Clayton. (There might also be some of Niven’s Known Space in the flavor, but I’m mostly reminded of the patchwork anomaly worlds and environments within Clayton’s paracosm.) Despite the feeling of nostalgia, it was a difficult book to read due to deep knee jerk hatred for certain plot points and social mores. (In other words, I was in a bad position of loving some of the characters while wanting most of their world/universe/society to die in a blaze of napalm. This is not a comfortable feeling to have, most of the time.)
The basic back story is that an alien race called the nefrim has apparently decided to wipe out the entire human race. The human race is fighting back mostly by using genetically enhanced humans known as “Reds” to fight for them. The Reds undergo a vicious training program that renders them almost completely incapable of integrating with normal human society. Our heroes are one Mikhail Volkov and his not-quite-foster brother Turk, a Red that acts as the commander/overseer for his Red crew. When a ship called Fenrir, long thought lost to a “subspace jump” reappears–and looks like it had spent a lot of time in an ocean somewhere Mikhail is sent off to try to discover where the ship went.
“Where the ships that disappear go,” turns out to be a sort of dimensional nexus called “The Sargasso” by its human inhabitants. It’s a vast sea where star ships built by who knows how many alien species crash and eventually form islands. Mikhail and Turk end up crashing their ship, and get separated due to sabotage on the part new members of the Red team who decide to try to kill Turk (apparently not realizing that this will not make them “top cat” just dead at the hands of Mikhail when he finds out). A ship captain named Paige Bailey eventually rescues Turk, and a wary friendship forms. Mean while, Mikhail desperately tries to keep his ship afloat and work on repairs while trying to find him. Both brothers become closely involved with local politics and the discovery of what caused the Fenrir to reappear in normal space.
The “local politics” involves a longstanding feud between two human communities. One which treats genetically enhanced “Blues” and “Reds” as human, and the other, which continues to treat them as animals. It is interesting to see both Mikhail and Turk get bowled over by the differences in a society where civil rights are an active issue. One difference they encounter is that the culture also is fundamentally different in the way it treats the “Blue” genetically enhanced humans. In “normal” space, Blues are primarily used as living sex toys, and are brainwashed from an early age, much like the Reds to have “animalistic” behaviors. In the Sargasso, it’s been discovered that Blues are very, very good diplomats and tend to be gifted linguists. This gives them a very high status in the community that treats genetically enhanced humans like people. (There is however a certain assumption that Blues will “put out” during the course of negotiations.) Another difference is that there are female Reds (“Reds” in normal space are all-male and cloned/produced in batches), something that causes a certain amount of difficulty due to someone under Mikhail’s command being a moron.
The “brothers” are eventually reunited, discoveries are made, crises averted, and mysteries solved up to and including why the nefrim have such a huge desire to wipe out the human species. I enjoyed the adventure aspects of the story, and certain aspects of both Mikhail and Turk’s journeys and discoveries. I also enjoyed the rocky beginnings of romance between Turk and Paige (complicated because of mutual misunderstanding and a great deal of the prejudice Turk had absorbed from his environment). I wasn’t quite sure of how to react to the happy reunion between Mikhail and his father. (I wasn’t able to “buy” that the father would be all that concerned for the personal welfare of either his son or Turk. Mikhail because of a horrific incident that resulted in the death of Mikhail’s baby brother, and especially in the case of Turk, who he allowed to be severely beaten and abused by his “trainer” until Mikhail put a stop to it.) With that said, I’m kind of hoping for a sequel where more of the issues brought up within the story are resolved.
The basic back story is that an alien race called the nefrim has apparently decided to wipe out the entire human race. The human race is fighting back mostly by using genetically enhanced humans known as “Reds” to fight for them. The Reds undergo a vicious training program that renders them almost completely incapable of integrating with normal human society. Our heroes are one Mikhail Volkov and his not-quite-foster brother Turk, a Red that acts as the commander/overseer for his Red crew. When a ship called Fenrir, long thought lost to a “subspace jump” reappears–and looks like it had spent a lot of time in an ocean somewhere Mikhail is sent off to try to discover where the ship went.
“Where the ships that disappear go,” turns out to be a sort of dimensional nexus called “The Sargasso” by its human inhabitants. It’s a vast sea where star ships built by who knows how many alien species crash and eventually form islands. Mikhail and Turk end up crashing their ship, and get separated due to sabotage on the part new members of the Red team who decide to try to kill Turk (apparently not realizing that this will not make them “top cat” just dead at the hands of Mikhail when he finds out). A ship captain named Paige Bailey eventually rescues Turk, and a wary friendship forms. Mean while, Mikhail desperately tries to keep his ship afloat and work on repairs while trying to find him. Both brothers become closely involved with local politics and the discovery of what caused the Fenrir to reappear in normal space.
The “local politics” involves a longstanding feud between two human communities. One which treats genetically enhanced “Blues” and “Reds” as human, and the other, which continues to treat them as animals. It is interesting to see both Mikhail and Turk get bowled over by the differences in a society where civil rights are an active issue. One difference they encounter is that the culture also is fundamentally different in the way it treats the “Blue” genetically enhanced humans. In “normal” space, Blues are primarily used as living sex toys, and are brainwashed from an early age, much like the Reds to have “animalistic” behaviors. In the Sargasso, it’s been discovered that Blues are very, very good diplomats and tend to be gifted linguists. This gives them a very high status in the community that treats genetically enhanced humans like people. (There is however a certain assumption that Blues will “put out” during the course of negotiations.) Another difference is that there are female Reds (“Reds” in normal space are all-male and cloned/produced in batches), something that causes a certain amount of difficulty due to someone under Mikhail’s command being a moron.
The “brothers” are eventually reunited, discoveries are made, crises averted, and mysteries solved up to and including why the nefrim have such a huge desire to wipe out the human species. I enjoyed the adventure aspects of the story, and certain aspects of both Mikhail and Turk’s journeys and discoveries. I also enjoyed the rocky beginnings of romance between Turk and Paige (complicated because of mutual misunderstanding and a great deal of the prejudice Turk had absorbed from his environment). I wasn’t quite sure of how to react to the happy reunion between Mikhail and his father. (I wasn’t able to “buy” that the father would be all that concerned for the personal welfare of either his son or Turk. Mikhail because of a horrific incident that resulted in the death of Mikhail’s baby brother, and especially in the case of Turk, who he allowed to be severely beaten and abused by his “trainer” until Mikhail put a stop to it.) With that said, I’m kind of hoping for a sequel where more of the issues brought up within the story are resolved.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 18, 2017
While browsing for fiction, I remembered that I had enjoyed books in the Tinker and Ukiah Oregon series (pre-me-keeping-this-log, apparently), so I figured this would be a nice diversion.
It took me longer to warm up to this book, for sure. Sailing is not really my jam; I came for the SF. And I never really got a good mental picture of the Reds; I think the cover art really threw me. But once I got past that it was fine. Not my favorite of hers, but she writes such *different* stuff every time that it's always interesting to see where it's going to go. (And the quasi-retro political backdrop suddenly feels relevant again.)
It took me longer to warm up to this book, for sure. Sailing is not really my jam; I came for the SF. And I never really got a good mental picture of the Reds; I think the cover art really threw me. But once I got past that it was fine. Not my favorite of hers, but she writes such *different* stuff every time that it's always interesting to see where it's going to go. (And the quasi-retro political backdrop suddenly feels relevant again.)
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