Tag Archives: pirate

A Blood-Drenched Queer Space Opera for the Ages: Redsight by Meredith Mooring

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the cover of Redsight by Meredith Moore

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Better buckle up your buttered biscuits, because you’re in for one hell of a ride. 

Meredith Mooring’s debut novel Redsight, freshly published February 27, 2024, arrived studded with blurbs. The two that ultimately pulled me were: “The heretical, genre-defying daughter of Killing Eve and Dune,” (Kemi Ashing-Giwa) and “A stellar debut, born from a collision between epic space opera and bewitching cosmic space horror” (Ren Hutchings). Sign me up. 

Fresh from having devoured all 394 pages in a single sitting, I have to agree with the comparisons. 

Our chosen one, Korinna, is a red witch thrust into the heart of an intergalactic conflict she doesn’t understand, haunted by the bloody memory of a massacre and her own complicity. Like all Redseer clerics, she relies on tactus—the tactile energy of all things—to sense her world, rather than sight. She’s raised with the knowledge drilled into her that she is the weakest of her cohort, fit only for duty in the ship’s gardens. Certainly not strong enough to navigate a ship, let alone a massive Imperium warship.

When Korinna’s path intersects with the buff and mysterious pirate captain Aster Haran, Korinna can’t deny her attraction to the other woman. As the stakes grow ever higher, Korinna has a choice to make: loyalty to her Order and the only life she’s ever known… or cutting a destructive swathe of vengeance across the universe beside a gorgeous outlaw with an ever-expanding array of secrets. 

Redsight is action-packed, occasionally to the detriment of its characters, who have a slightly unfinished quality. They easily accommodate belief-shattering concepts, reconciling multifaceted issues within the space of a single conversation. Maybe I’m a sadist, but I wanted to witness their internal struggles play out longer.

There is so much to love about this book and the sweeping universe Mooring created. There were passages that left me breathless, ravenous to know the outcome. Mooring has a talent for channeling visceral physical trauma, so there were other passages that had me gritting my teeth and begging for my favorites to just please, please make it through. 

Redsight also has one of the more unique magic systems I’ve read in awhile—and I do so love an epic mythos. You can never give me enough goddesses in locked tombs, and you can never give me enough queer space pirates and acolytes. Bring on the apostasy, baby.

However: a word of warning for my queasy friends re: Mooring’s gift for transcribing bodily harm. The blood, y’all. There’s so much blood, all the time. It is immensely disconcerting and I’m used to gore. Honestly, it’s impressive. 

Redsight might be one of my new favorites. Not because it’s perfect, but because it gets so much right.  Mooring offers truth and a way forward. She offers a sense of hope and belonging for perpetual outsiders. Despite the heavy content, there are glittering threads of optimism woven throughout. I wouldn’t call it a feel-good, but… the novel is a deliciously weird and delightful treat, and I’m going to be thinking about it for a long time. If you’re a fan of powerful queers in space, you’re going to enjoy Redsight.

Content warnings: blood, violence, gore, low self esteem, dubious consent (taking power)

Danika reviews Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess Vols. 1-3

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Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess Vol 1

I finally got around to reading Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess, a comic series that’s been on my TBR ever since I heard of its existence. I’m kicking myself for not starting it sooner, because it’s just as awesome I was hoping. Raven is the daughter of a pirate captain, and she was supposed to inherit the title. Unfortunately, her brothers stole that from her. Now, she’s determined to put together her own crew, get a ship, and regain what’s rightfully hers.

This is a diverse, all-women pirate crew bent on revenge. There’s an f/f romance between Raven and another member of the crew, who was a childhood friend until Raven betrayed her. (Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Lovers?) I can’t help but compare this to Lumberjanes for a) the all-women group of adventurers and b) hijinks, but Raven the Pirate Princess seems to be aimed more at teens than middle grade. There is more violence than something like Lumberjanes, and the relationships are more complex.

My favourite thing about the three volumes I’ve read so far is that I feel like I’m really getting to know the entire crew, not just the five on the covers. They all have distinct personalities, and they have their own close friendships and rivals within the group. In addition to the racial diversity and multiple queer characters, there’s also a Deaf character who uses sign language. Although there is a lot of action, and the plot progresses quickly, I felt like there was still attention paid to establish each character.

In addition to adventure and heartbreak, there’s also a lot of satire, especially making feminist points. I also loved the references that I caught (Doctor Who, Avatar, a Kelly Sue DeConnick appearance). I preferred the art in the first volume (that’s what’s the cover), though, and I did take a while to get used to the art in the second volume. In the third volume, there’s a subplot that I don’t feel great about. [spoilers/content warning about race, highlight to read] A black woman (elf) is held captive and treated like an animal. One of the people imprisoning her (he is wearing a turban and has light skin) befriends her, and begins to argue for her to have more privileges (like a room to be locked in instead of a cage), but is still imprisoning her. They fall in love. He breaks her out. I feel uncomfortable with the prisoner-falls-in-love-with-her-captor story line no matter what the context, but having the black woman character treated as an animal and kept as a cage just adds to the grossness, and I don’t believe there are any black creators on the team. [end] There are a lot of diverse characters, which helps, but I did personally cringe at that point.

I do want to continue with the story, though, and I’m excited to see where it heads next!

Alice reviews Escape to Pirate Island by Niamh Murphy

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Escape to Pirate Island cover showing a woman in a flowing red dress looking over the ocean at a pirate ship

This book! I want to take this book, parcel it into treasure map wrapping paper, and post it back in time to my fifteen year old self. Not that it’s a book for teenagers specifically, but it’s the book I craved so deeply back then. I loved it, it really did, and I hope you do too.

The story follows two daring ladies and their friends, the daring, smart smuggler Cat Meadows, and the brave, proud Lily Exquemlin, as they flee the day they lost everything and peg all their hopes on a ship and the hope of treasure. With pirates, betrayal, marooning, and swinging from the high ropes, this book is thrilling. You, my friend, are on the edge of an adventure.

It’s is a well-written tale, with an engaging and distinct cast of characters which all manage to come across and individual, self motivated people, with clear personalities. Perhaps the bad guys are little too bad guy without reason, but it wasn’t something I even noticed when I was reading as my heart was in my mouth all the way through for Cat, Lily, and their friends.

Sadly, despite being a pirate story, there is no apparent racial diversity in the book, and the only disabled character in the book gets killed off nice and quickly to put the main character down the path she needs to for this story to work. This is always frustrating with pirate stories, as pirates came from all corners of the world, and with sea surgeons hacking of every other limb to stop gangrene, there were plenty of seafarers who weren’t as able bodied as the cast of this story.

I grew up on the British coast and this story made me heartsick for the sea, for the promise of freedom that the horizon seems to promise, and why else would you be reading a pirate book? The romance was sweet and standard for a YA, which I feel is where the story tone sits best, but be aware it does have one ‘Mature’ scene. The story celebrates loyalty, yet understands loyalty.

Honestly? Read this story. It’s fun, well paced, well written, you lose all track of the real world when reading it… it’s a wonderful little book. I recommend it for anyone who is fed up of the mundane and wants a swashbuckling adventure alongside a cast of real people whom you’ll feel you know well.

Rachel reviews Taming the Wolff by Del Robertson

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tamingthewolff

In this debut novel by Del Robertson, Taming The Wolff is a story of piracy, adventure, and love. Kris Wolff is a female pirate captain of The Wolfsbane who hides her true gender from most of her crew. She is aloof and reveals little about her past. She abducts a duchess and her two daughters for ransom. Alexis DeVale, one of the daughters, had been bound for an arranged marriage and now is captive on The Wolfsbane. She, like most others, believes Captain Wolff to be male. Kris protects her hostages from prying eyes, and though she and Alexis butt heads at first, an attraction between them is undeniable. Alexis soon discovers Kris’s secret, and wrestles with the idea of loving another woman. Meanwhile, The Wolfsbane is pursued relentlessly by naval officer Captain Jackson, who will stoop to torture and murder to obtain Kris. And during all this, Kris and Alexis must decide if they can have a future together.

Taming The Wolff gives readers insight to how being gay would be perceived in 1703, the year this book takes place. While Kris sees no problem with loving another woman, Alexis does. She was brought up in her family, society, and her church to think homosexuality was a sin. As a result, she has a hard time trying to reconcile her love for Kris. But that was a real factor back then; and still is today.

The characters of Kris and Alexis were complicated. I liked both women, but sometimes I found myself angry with them. I will not spoil the plot, but at one point, Alexis makes a sudden decision that to me seemed tacked in to the story. The explanation she gives for her action was rather unsatisfying, and I was thinking there had to be some better reason than what she was saying. When that turned out to not be the case, I was disappointed with the unexpected shift in the storyline. Also, Kris and Alexis had their arguments, like every couple. But some of the arguments seemed forced and interrupted the plot a bit. But maybe the purpose was to show how the two women were dealing with coming from two vastly different worlds and beliefs.

Those issues aside, the book had some good battle sequences and love scenes. Robertson accurately depicted the dangerous life of a pirate. There were many tense moments that had me wondering what would happen next. There were also enough twists and unexpected events to keep me reading on.

Taming The Wolff is a good book for those looking for adventure and surprises. Though not my absolute favorite, it can still be interesting and suspenseful.