WebLit review: Starwalker by Melanie Edmonds
I've been reading Starwalker in short bursts and have completed the first story arc, the mystery of the first starstep, and why it failed so spectacularly. Starwalker begins as the rebooted ship AI is brought online in a shipyard for her second attempt.
Starwalker, or "Starry," is a personality coded into the ship, but right from the start, it's clear that something is wonky about Starwalker's code. She's got a sense of humor, for one thing, and she's showing moments of jealousy or other irrational emotions that a ship AI should not have.
Starwalker as a character is a strong voice with a great personality and a great sense of humor. The ship interacts with a number of crew members, and the story is told through her log files, or through the log files of the other characters. Most commonly, the engineer Elliot makes up the other voice, and he's a brash, foul-mouthed ego-maniac. Which makes him sound awful, but that really translates in the story as "great comic potential."
If there's any weak link in the story, it's the captain of the ship. He's so irritating to me that at times, that I wished the pirates had somehow managed to shoot him. It's not just his skepticism about his ship that bugs me. At several key points, he makes awful decisions that could almost get everyone enslaved, or worse, killed outright.
The captain is so confounding, and to me, it doesn't make sense that these are the actions of someone with a long service record. I tried to be fair and take grief into account for his poor judgment, but he never strikes me as grieving or even distracted. Mostly, he's just self-absorbed. But thankfully, he's almost a bit character compared to Elliot and Starry, so his brief moments on screen can be dealt with quickly to get back to the "good parts."
And there are a lot of good parts to like. The narrative voice is unique in a quirky and witty way, and the story packs in plenty of action and moments of dread to balance the humor and whimsy. I give Starwalker 4 stars and recommend it to all fans of space opera sci-fi.
