MY ⭐️ RATING: 4.25/5
Format: Kindle Whispersync
BOOK DESCRIPTION
“To survive in this galaxy, you need a wand in one hand and a gun in the other.”
On a little-known planet, Archmage Varic Vallenar casts a grand spell to empower himself with the magical abilities of his alternate selves. The ritual works too well, granting Varic not only the magic but also the memories from six lives.
Including their gruesome deaths.
Now, Varic has power greater than any wizard in galactic history, but he knows that won’t be enough. The enemies he faced in those alternate lives were apocalyptic in scale. Terrors of technology and magic. Nothing that he, or anyone, can defeat.
Sun-eating extra-dimensional insects, shadowy secret organizations, genetically enhanced alien super-soldiers, ruthless mega-corporations, and hordes of cyborg undead all lurk in the darkest corners of the galaxy, and Varic knows that any of them can become a world-ending threat at any moment.
All these are beyond any wizard, no matter how many spells he’s mastered or how many interstellar warships he’s rallied to his cause. Hopeless, Varic finds himself trying to preserve what little he can from the coming doom.
Until he hears rumors of a mythical starship, an invincible vessel of heroes made to do battle against galactic threats.
A ship called The Last Horizon.
MY REVIEW
The best way to describe The Captain is that it is a fast-paced, sci-fantasy fusion, highly entertaining joyride where Star Trek meets Power Rangers meets Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s fun and exciting start to a series but leaves you wanting a bit more from the story.
I read a few reviews prior to reading this, looking at everything from 5 stars to a 1 star to get an understanding of what I was getting into. As a fan of Wight’s Cradle series, it seemed like I was getting myself into that same type of situation. If you’ve read Cradle, you’ll understand that Wight’s character development doesn’t happen quickly within a single book, it takes time to give his characters depth. There’s also not a lot of development with the magic or tech, it seems fairly simple and easy to understand, but the rules of magic don’t seem to apply to anything and is whatever it needs to be to advance the plot, whether it makes sense or not. Part of the issue I had with the plot was that we either got to meet too many of the crew, or not enough. It’s an odd thing to say, but once you read it, you’ll understand this statement.
There were a lot of great fight and battle scenes, and I mean a lot! One scene in particular brought me back to the Uncrowned King Tournament during Uncrowned in the Cradle series. When someone describes a book as action-packed, this should be the example that is used, it just seemed to be one after another. Was it too much? Maybe just a tad, since I feel like the plot suffered from the constant action, like it only progressed because of the action and everything seemed to happen way too quickly. There were several nods to other sci-fi movies and shows, music and books like Guardians of the Galaxy and Bon Jovi, that I thought was really cool.
“For someone who talks about not relying on magic as a weapon, I use magic as a weapon a lot. But not only are guns more efficient, there’s only one thing a gun can do. Magic can do anything.”
I did love the characters though. If there is one thing Wight can do, it’s make some unique and fantastic characters. I like Varic, he is such a great main character and is what brings that fantasy, Avatar element to the story, but the same way that Eithan and Dross stole scenes from Lindon in Cradle, the side-characters stole from Varic. Of all the characters in this story, Raion may be my favorite, he seems to be a Power Ranger-like character, along with a Titan Knight, similar to a Zord. What I like most is that his personality reminds me of Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy with his simplistic understanding of things, which creates a bunch of scenes that made me giggle. Without giving too much away, there’s a character that reminds me of Cad Bane from Star Wars that I also kinda liked more than I expected, but seeing that I like Cad Bane, I shouldn’t be too shocked, and there were some other characters that reminded me of others, I could go on and on, but I’ll let you figure that out yourself, and I can’t wait to meet the rest of the crew in book 2, The Engineer!
And finally, the man who needs no introduction, the illustrious, Travis Baldree once again knocks his performance out of the park. I absolutely love how he’s able to create the voices for the characters that helps really bring out their personalities, each one distinct and clearly noticeable when they are speaking, drawing out the goofyness or the seriousness whenever the time came. Just an all out incredible performance.
Wolfmantula.com 