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Richard "Quickdraw" McCallister: A Eulogy
McCallister was done with the world. The world wasn't quite done with him.When the Tamani blew a hole in his ship, his friend, and his career, Richard McCallister called it quits. No more TerraCorp work. No more cheerfully donning the uniform and pretending he couldn't see the cracks in the bulkheads around him. From that moment, he'd be his own man again.Until the message came - a whisper, carried through the few contacts he had left to the Dust, the farthest reaches of settled space. A warning that the Tamani had returned.When it arrives, McCallister is presented with a choice: He can run, finding a darker corner of the universe that the Tamani haven't found yet. He can stay moving, and stay alive. Or he can turn back into the maw of their approaching doom and pluck his friend's legacy from its teeth.Winning means honoring his partner's memory. Losing means sharing his fate.The choice is his.
395 pages, Paperback
Published December 25, 2020
3 people want to read
About the author
Casey White
20 books77 followersCasey White lives in Michigan with her husband and the requisite herd of roaming cats. She splits her time - spending her days working the desk as a civil engineer, and her nights writing fiction ranging from fantasy to scifi and everything in-between.
Her stories tend towards the more personal - she favors first person or over-the-shoulder third person that matches punchy, fast-paced storytelling with ongoing internal dialogue.
Her fiction can be found at her website, listed above, or at the subreddit where she publishes her novels one chapter at a time - https://www.reddit.com/r/Inorai/
Her stories tend towards the more personal - she favors first person or over-the-shoulder third person that matches punchy, fast-paced storytelling with ongoing internal dialogue.
Her fiction can be found at her website, listed above, or at the subreddit where she publishes her novels one chapter at a time - https://www.reddit.com/r/Inorai/
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 7, 2021
I'm a big fan of sci-fi westerns and I loved Casey White's space opera, so when she offered me a review copy of this one I was eager to accept.
The plot here is a perfect blend of both sides of the genre. Things like evil aliens and space ships are central to the plot. But there's still a western feel in the lone-nature of the protagonist, scrappy town versus big company conflict, and focus on legacy. I particularly enjoyed the emphasis on both dust and complicated sci-fi machinery.
Rick is a great protagonist. Grumpy and impatient, but with obvious care for a dead friend and a determination to do the right thing (even when he sometimes has to be reminded what that is). The jury's out on whether he's entirely likeable at the beginning, but you can see the reasons for his nature in the flashbacks.
The storytelling is pretty non-linear. There's the main plot and flashbacks, which are told out of order. Thankfully, the flashbacks are told both with italics and a different POV (first person versus the main narrative's third) so it's easy to spot right away when you're looking at a scene from the past. And it is intriguing to get a deeper look at Rick's relationship with Clay, and a bit with Kara. It shows just how deep their friendship went and shows Rick's devotion to his friends legacy, all these years later.
I was impressed with the stakes. I can usually tell right away whether a character is going to live or die (hint: the majority of the time they live) but Casey White's writing always leaves me wondering. IS this character going to make it? And then often they'll survive one dangerous encounter only to be immediately thrown into another and I think, "Oh, NOW they're gonna die." It kept me excited to see what would happen next.
This isn't the best sci-fi for beginners, mostly because there's so much emphasis on space ship repair and futuristic technology, but it's great for anyone that loves a good cowboy-helps-the-scrappy-widow story... but with aliens.
The plot here is a perfect blend of both sides of the genre. Things like evil aliens and space ships are central to the plot. But there's still a western feel in the lone-nature of the protagonist, scrappy town versus big company conflict, and focus on legacy. I particularly enjoyed the emphasis on both dust and complicated sci-fi machinery.
Rick is a great protagonist. Grumpy and impatient, but with obvious care for a dead friend and a determination to do the right thing (even when he sometimes has to be reminded what that is). The jury's out on whether he's entirely likeable at the beginning, but you can see the reasons for his nature in the flashbacks.
The storytelling is pretty non-linear. There's the main plot and flashbacks, which are told out of order. Thankfully, the flashbacks are told both with italics and a different POV (first person versus the main narrative's third) so it's easy to spot right away when you're looking at a scene from the past. And it is intriguing to get a deeper look at Rick's relationship with Clay, and a bit with Kara. It shows just how deep their friendship went and shows Rick's devotion to his friends legacy, all these years later.
I was impressed with the stakes. I can usually tell right away whether a character is going to live or die (hint: the majority of the time they live) but Casey White's writing always leaves me wondering. IS this character going to make it? And then often they'll survive one dangerous encounter only to be immediately thrown into another and I think, "Oh, NOW they're gonna die." It kept me excited to see what would happen next.
This isn't the best sci-fi for beginners, mostly because there's so much emphasis on space ship repair and futuristic technology, but it's great for anyone that loves a good cowboy-helps-the-scrappy-widow story... but with aliens.
Displaying 1 of 1 review