2020 SF novella, side story in the Starship's Mage series. Ivan
Halloway is a retired Mage who wanted to get away from the dangers of
naval service; but he'll still help out his old buddy who's got
himself into way too much trouble…
Some novellas and short stories are designed to be an easy
introduction to the series; they'll appear in a themed anthology and
encourage the reader to seek out more in the world. This isn't one of
those; rather, it's a stand-alone story, but one that wouldn't make a
great deal of sense if you didn't know at least the basics of the
universe.
The characters are rather more flawed than is usual for Stewart, at
least at the start: Halloway is avoiding reserve status because he's a
coward and can see the war that's coming, while his old friend Karl
Charpentier has got divorced, driven away his crew, and got into debt
to Bad People, all the while owning a ship that should be a licence to
print money. And while Halloway does eventually overcome his
cowardice by the end, one feels that although Charpentier is doing his
best he's got a fair way to go before he qualifies as a good guy.
Something of a change of pace, therefore, and almost without any space
battles. I don't mean that sarcastically: Stewart is producing
something like eight books a year, which one would expect not to leave
time for anything beyond stereotype, and yet he does have a
distinctive voice and one that I enjoy frankly more than I expected
when I started to read his work.