Pirate's Gold

Crimson Skies: Wings of Fortune #1

by Stephen Kenson

The Ace's Dream I've always been lucky, although you wouldn't necessarily know it to look at me. Take now, for instance, 15,000 feet off the ground in the seat of a baby Nieuport, Archie bursting shells all around me, German Pfalz buzzing around like someone stirred up a wasps' nest, machine guns tracing lines of fire through the air. But not a single bullet-hole marring the canvas of my Nieuport, much less me. Like I said, lucky. A Pflaz roars past, guns chattering. I pull back on the stick hard, pulling up my machine's nose and climbing up after him. I roll to the side and come up right behind. The Hun pilot doesn't even see me. With a grin I get him in my sights and hit the trigger on the paired machine guns mounted on the nose of my machine. They yammer out 650 rounds a minute, tracers lighting the way to the Pfalz's tail. I see smoke pour out in a steady stream and the Pfalz starts to go into a dive, the wind fanning the flames spreading across his tail. He! 's finished. I don't bother watching him go down, not when there are so many other tempting targets to deal with. I climb up to 20,000, the ceiling of my little Nieuport, and look down, spotting another Pflaz some 4,000 feet below. I bank to the left and come down in a dive, putting the Hun directly in my sights. Machine guns roar and the tracers announce my attack, but too late. The Pfalz banks one way, then the other, trying to get away, but I stay on him, my rounds ripping through canvas and cracking framework, looking for a vital spot or the pilot himself. I find it when some rounds reach the Pfalz's engine, which starts to smoke and the machine goes into a long, slow dive, trailing smoke like a flag of surrender. Making a close pass, I give the Hun pilot an ironic salute as he starts to drop, almost close enough to imagine he can hear me, even over the roar of the wind and the crackle of the flames starting to spout from his crippled engine. "When you get to ground, tell 'em Nathan Zachary sent you!"

Genres: Fiction, Adventure, Pulp

240 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

Reviews

[Lecturas a bocados · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una sorpresa inesperada.

El libro comienza en la primera Guerra Mundial contando las peripecias del protagonista, para más adelante meternos en un "What if" de un EEUU fragmentado, donde los piratas del aire hacen de las suyas. Un cambio sin demasiada explicación, pero tampoco le hace falta.

Las batallas aéreas (que son continuas) están bien representadas y en general puedes seguir el ritmo de los combates sin que sea algo abrumador o pesado.

Es una lectura rápida y adictiva, donde no buscas profundizar en nada, solo en pasar un buen rato y dejarte llevar. Tiene aspectos a los que le pongo pegas, pero en general me ha entretenido mucho.

- ¡Cuando llegues al suelo, diles que te envía Nathan Zachary! - le grité mientras sonreía.

[Rich Kooyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great primer for the Crimson Skies Universe if all you know are the console games or the WizKids miniatures.

The Crimson Skies world is a nicely detailed world that was created by FASA and went through a few iterations and twists. Very few novels were written and a lot of the short stories were either published on the Microsoft website as a tie-in to the video games. This book did a great job of filling in the gaps that led in to the first computer game that was published at the same time as this novel.

Kenson does a graet job of telling the story from the hero's (Nathan Zacahary) perspective and how he related to the Great War and the subsequent fracturing of the United States. The details are wonderful to read and resembles the high-action of other pulp fiction stories of the 30's.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book over all, but the poor editing in it kept me from enjoying it as much as I thought I would. If you love the Crimson Skies game (computer or TT) then give it a read.