When the pirate airship Red Queen raids a courier vessel, second mate Rhett Delisle questions whether they will have anything worth stealing on board. To the Queen’s misfortune, there is one item: a puzzle box whose contents, while unknown, are enough to get the captain and first mate killed and the ship captured. The remaining crew, including Rhett, are left sailing in the life-glider down to the city of Sanctuary, an unaffiliated haven trapped between the two warring factions called the theocratic Union and the corporate-run Republic. But Rhett snags the box on his way out, and thereby gets himself into more adventure than he’d planned. Now he and his childhood friend-turned-partner, Charli Munroe, have to figure out what the box contains, what it means, and how to disarm its dangerous secret before its pursuers catch up with them.
R.F. Reynolds’s RED QUEEN: Skies of Freedom is a lively, exciting book with nonstop action from beginning to end. It’s also dramatic and cinematic enough to translate quite well to the movie screen, if given a chance. It’s essentially a steampunk Western with outlaw towns, pirates, villainous corporate interests, and, oh yes, airships. The worldbuilding is solid here, unfolded for the reader with as little tedious backstory and digression as possible, giving us an image of a place that is both familiar enough to be understandable and different enough to be novel. Characters are intelligent, capable, and well-developed, with Rhett and Charli being a delightfully appealing couple. They’re witty, charming, and their relationship is solidly rooted in both childhood friendship and romantic attraction.
Charli’s enigmatic uncle, Hahli, who helps them figure out what’s going on and recruits them for his own purposes, clearly has more going on than what shows on the surface. He offers a thoughtful and intelligent counterpoint to the sometimes-reckless young couple, particularly Rhett, and helps him reconsider what he’s really looking for. Readers are given enough of the perspective of their pursuer and his backers to understand what danger the main characters are really in, heightening the cat-and-mouse chase that forms the backbone of the larger part of the story. All in all, this is a delightful action-adventure novel with enough energy and charm to make the reader look forward to its sequels.
A rollicking steampunk adventure, R.F. Reynolds’s RED QUEEN: Skies of Freedom will satisfy readers who enjoy engaging characters, solid worldbuilding, and an energetic plot.
~Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader