Ocean of Stars by John Dodd

I would like to thank Francesca from Luna Press Publishing for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Luna Press Publishing

Published – 12/4

Price – £12.99 paperback £4.27 Kindle eBook

Alone in the universe after the destruction of Mars, Catarina Solovias joins the Starlight Eagle, under the banner of Charles Godstorm, a wealthy merchant who disguises his true nature as a murderer and thief. They encounter a ship from another time that rips them out of their own timeline and into the far future, where they are captured by the mysterious Morgan.

Godstorm trades Catarina's life for his, leaving her to find her way anew in a universe she has no knowledge of.

An epic tale of hope and loss, stars and ships, set upon a backdrop of the tyranny of time and the dreams of a people yearning to be free, in a universe like no other, the Ocean of Stars.

As a Doctor Who fan I admit for my science fiction I want adventure not pure lessons in physics. I want to see the wonder of the universe; have my mind blown by ideas; my heart pumping with adrenaline and leave with a content smile on my face. It was therefore with great pleasure I was to learn in John Dodd’s new novel Ocean of Stars that this would be exactly the reading experience I would be getting with a surprising tale of adventure in the heavens with a twist of space opera and revolution to boot and confirms Dodd as a SF author to watch.

This novel has three very different but smartly linked acts, so I’ll do something a little different to give you my thoughts but oh my goodness this is great! The first act focuses on the smart but relatively naïve engineer Catarina Solovias who in 2210 has been seeking a new adventure since she became a refugee of Mars which has now been destroyed along with her parents. She fell for the charming advertisements of Captain Godstorm but the sudden shooting by the Captain reveals she is now working for a greedy, angry, and petulant tyrant. To make matters worse they fall through a warp in space ending far into the future and face space pirates and Godstorm to save his neck hands over his crew in exchange for freedom. Now working for the enigmatic Captain Morgan on her ships the Unbroken Dawn Catarina needs to learn fast how this time works and also learn that her new ships too holds danger for her to navigate.

This first act is very much small scale focused on Catarina and introducing the far future of Dodd’s main tale. In many ways this is a pirate ship tale, and the Dawn is indeed a ship with sails in space. Over a thousand years technology has made people able to make star ships a thing of beauty and the reader needs to accept that in this future we can have sails powered by starlight, engines powered by cogs and where swords are fitting weapons for the crew to duel with.  Dodd skilfully gets us up to speed and with Catarina being a smart and capable engineer taking things in her stride and working out what works and does not we get a good tense tale of ship intrigue. There is a rapidly growing sense of danger as we find the crew no longer enjoy working on the ship and a secretive agenda is being cooked up by the Captain and her cruel first officer. Dodd throws in wonders here giant areas of space ruled by immense space dragons and total dark areas that belong to something, but no one knows what. What impressed me beyond the way we get to accept the new worldview is we move from a pirate tale to something with a touch of alien invasion and delivered with the panache where swordfights on a spaceship really really work.  I also really liked how Catarina’s character as an engineer really helps you understand her pragmatic approach to this story and beyond.

Ina beautiful way I was not expecting we then in the second act focus on Captain Morgan who we have gotten to understand a lot better in the first adventure. This deals with the aftermath and the crew having to learnt to work together again. The perspective change is done brilliantly (I doffed my cap at the way it is done) but here we get Morgan an older, wiser and mature woman who alongside her girlfriend Raley realise the treasure they’ve found in ship actually creates more danger for the universe. For this story we move into space opera territory opening up the universe and its many factions; tales of epic wars and dangerous technology leading to a story that has betrayals, ships chasing each other through space and a GIANT deliciously packed space opera. Here the crew of the Dawn are the catalyst for creating massive changes. Its raises moral questions and pushes the crew to their limits and we see characters fighting and giving their all on the line. I loved the tonal change and the way the story suddenly mushroomed to something much bigger than I was expecting after our first adventure. A charter suddenly talking in a certain way creates a lovely feeling of dread as the floor drops away from the reader. Dodd’s universe isn’t always explained so readers have to piece together clues from conversations and events to work out what is going on and that for me is much better than any infodump scene

After that moment of epicness we get a final act where again Dodd changes the story. The Dawn and Captain Morgan find themselves planet side and get roped into a tale of revolution and also an old enemy’s revenge. This actually I found the most emotional part of the story as we see how in the future people have effectively become slave miners for an empire and had their bodies hugely altered to serve their masters where we meet an inspirational President trying to finally change things who Morgan decides she will aid. Dodd here demonstrates they can produce a tale of intrigue, betrayals and powerful speeches planetside that also very neatly sews up the entire book with a rather smart piece of plotting and satisfying final page.

Overall Ocean of Stars works so well because Dodd delivers heart, panache and style to a story taking very familiar SF elements and yet finding a very creative way of delivering them differently. Morgan, Catarina and the rest of the Dawn’s crew really quickly get taken to my hearts and with the wider backdrop of Empires, aliens and spaceships glues it all together that makes this a superbly enjoyable reading experience. Its good hearted (ish) pirates in space crossed with the plotting, wit and depth of Babylon 5 and that is not praise I dish out lightly. Go get this and please tell me what you felt at the end of Book 1. Dodd is an author to watch closely!