By the blurb, I expected to love this, but it just failed to grab me. Honestly, it feels like written by a teenager. Also, it's a debut and it shows. ( )

A fantastic, gut-wrenching debut. A must read for all fans of space opera and military sci-fi! ( )

9/10. It was an amazing book!!! ( )

This book is incredibly hard-hitting and Szal pulls out all the stops but none of the punches. It is set after the end of the war and focuses on how it has affected Fukasawa and his family. Brotherhood, both familial and found, is a central theme in the book, and it pulls ALL the heart strings. Szal also addresses other issues like addiction, mental health and radicalisation, each explored in a mature and powerful way.

While not set during the war there is a lot of violence in this book, though it is often harrowing and at times uncomfortable rather than glorified, making it impossible not to be moved by the atrocities of the Reaper war and the consequences of Harmony’s actions. Fukasawa’s flashbacks to the battlefield also provide gradual insight into his struggle to maintain relationships while clinging on to his humanity.

Being one of the more intense books I’ve read, there are also memorable moments of humour and friendship, and Szal’s worldbuilding is both fascinating and unique. For me, the setting of Compass is up there with Bas Lag and the Tower of Babel as a favourite fantasy/sci-fi location - it’s an immense asteroid containing tiers of massive cities and microenvironments like a vast, cosmic layer cake (for the sake of the simile it’s a very ugly layer cake). Szal also describes an interesting ethnic evolution, with intersystem colonisation having isolated and mixed together nationalities, overtime birthing new cultures. He writes with a visual language that hints at inspiration from cinema and gaming; in Compass, people stomp around in space armour of varying shapes and colours, and the story develops in various locations almost like levels in a game. As someone who was obsessed with Halo growing up, the one scene where Fukasawa goes shopping for new armour was just as magical as Harry’s first visit to Ollivander's. I feel like Szal has brought to life my favourite Xbox adventures in a fun, shockingly human and meaningful way.

Stormblood covers a surprising amount of thematic ground but it all fits together well, something that is emphasised when the meaning behind the book title becomes clear. I’d consider it a must-read for any sci-fi lover, or any reader looking to be punched in the gut with words. Fans of John Scalzi will be thrilled to know they can find their new favourite author just a little to the right on the shelf. ( )

This is not Fantasy, despite occasional scientific speculation. The blurring of lines between the two (antithetical) genres really does a disservice to kids coming up reading this stuff who can't distinguish for themselves. Another way of putting this is that there used to be a material and meaningful distinction between kids who read Szal, Asimov and Heinlein (science nerds, who would be encouraged to pursue science, math, and becoming an astronaut) and kids who read about elves, orcs, Cthulhu, and princesses (dungeons and dragons nerds, who were encouraged to smoke pot and eat Cheetoes). At base, conflating the two does a disservice to science nerds. And then there’s SF-that-reads-like-Fantasy, but I won’t write anything about it because I’ve to draw a line somewhere... SF-that-reads-like-Fantasy is the lowest of the lowest…cheaper than chlorinated chicken.

Science fiction always feels like too big a bucket to categorise books by. Science fiction novels are rarely (never?) just science fiction, they’re romance, they’re murder mystery, and they’re every other genre of fiction just set in a different environment. There are always characters in them, and a plot and all that good stuff. My favourites aren’t good science fiction books, they’re good books set in a science fiction environment. And that’s where Szal’s “Stormblood” excels at.

Like most prejudice, it is the product of ignorance. SF has covered every major theme: mortality, the essence of humanity, politics, environmentalism, war, race, gender, everything. Books like Szal’s “Stormblood” explores the cutting edge of what means to be human. And this is not Militaristic SF at its worst either. Szal is every bit as accomplished and artistic as the most vaunted lit fic wordsmiths around. It’s quite surprising to read a book like this in 2020 some SF pundits talk about the genre like it's 1948 to assuage the snobbery of his middle aged, middle class readership.

I think the problem is that SF is culturally lumped in with wider "geek culture", associated with superhero films, Pokemon and Star Wars branded lunchboxes. As this novel shows, SF is far bigger than just a category of prose fiction. It has distinct strata, some low brow and some every bit as serious and accomplished as Proper Literature. But you have to actually engage with the culture to appreciate those levels, rather than just seeing it as a morass of robots, hollowed-out asteroids and space ships. Our schools actively teach children to look down on science fiction (and other genres). At age 16, faced with writing a critical review of a novel of my choice, I was told quite unambiguously by my Portuguese teacher that I would be marked down for choosing a science fiction work, no matter how good it was and no matter how well I wrote about it. When society teaches children “en masse” to routinely devalue an entire genre, it is little wonder that people who read that genre feel they are being sniffed at.

Probably the most revolutionary vision of the future was the tryptic painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch, created in the years around 1500. That’s the vision I’ve in my mind as I finished “Stormblood”. Today’s multi-gender identities, cyber-enhanced bodies and genetically engineered super-babies in our “societies” map very cleanly on to spacepunk…All that is needed is for the genre to make a comeback and replace all the sad Disney-Superheroes of today’s SF. Give me more Bosch-like-SF, not chlorinated-chicken-SF…

SF = Speculative Fiction. ( )