Book Blurb:
A brilliant inventor… A prolific writer…
A chance meeting between Nikola Tesla and Jules Verne catapulted the world into a new kind of power. Using meteor fragments from a comet named Uriel, they created a world powered not by combustion but by steam. The incredible inventions that followed launched the world into an industrial revolution ahead of its time... a steampunk revolution.
While Tesla's inventions were designed to ease people’s day-to-day burdens, Thomas Edison's ERP Corporation used their power and influence to ensure people paid for their modern miracles.
One man brought hope to the people as he pursued Tesla’s dream of invention for the everyday person. His exploits were legendary, his crew infamous, and his airship a vision of the future . . . Corsair and the Sky Pirates!
Book Buy Link: https://geni.us/YagDQk8
Author Bio:
Mark Piggott, a native of Phillipsburg, N.J., enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1982, beginning a 23-year career.
He served on four aircraft carriers and various duty stations as a Navy Journalist before he attained the rank of Chief Petty Officer. He retired from active duty in 2006. He and his wife, Georgiene, live in Alexandria, Virginia. They have three children.
His first novel, Forever Avalon, was published in 2009, followed by his second novel, The Dark Tides, in 2014. The Outlander War: Book Three of the Forever Avalon series was released in 2020. Additionally, Forever Avalon was made into an audiobook, narrated by voice artist Traci Odom. In 2021, he published the start of a new steampunk fantasy series with The Last Magus: A Clockwork Heart and made into an audiobook, narrated by Melissa Barnes.
At the end of 2021, Mark signed with Curious Corvid Publishing as one of their new authors for this small, independent publisher. His fantasy novella, The River of Souls, in collaboration with poet Ashley Valitutto, was published in 2022, and in 2023, the steampunk historical fiction Corsair and the Sky Pirates launched along with the sequel to The Last Magus, Dragonfire and Steel.
His novels have won a slew of awards over the past years. The Outlander War won second place for fantasy in the 2021 Firebird Book Awards, The Last Magus won first place for steampunk, and in 2022, Forever Avalon won second place for fantasy. Additionally, The Last Magus: A Clockwork Heart won the Grand Prize for Fiction in the 2022 Authors Marketing Guild Indie Book Awards and 3rd Place in Fantasy-Myths and Legends in The BookFest 2022 Book Awards. The River of Souls won two Firebird Book Awards and was nominated for two Indie Book Awards in 2022. Corsair and the Sky Pirates added two 2nd Place awards from The BookFest in 2023 in Fantasy-Gaslamp and Sci-Fi-Steampunk.
Editorial Review:
Alternative histories offer the author a chance to play with possibilities, and in Corsair and the Sky Pirates, Mark Piggott certainly takes up that opportunity. The premise is relatively straightforward.
Piggott creates his alternative history around an amazing power source, fragments of a mysterious comet called Uriel. He uses this to build a world where, rather than being powered by electricity, Tesla develops an engine which uses pieces of the Uriel comet to produce clean steam. Piggott’s is a Steam Punk world in every sense, and his love and knowledge of that genre shines through every page. He employs many of the usual Steam Punk tropes – we have fleets of steam powered air ships doing battle in the skies, steam powered armour, and various steam powered weapons. He goes into detail about each of these, and whilst in the early stages it helps create the sense of a well thought through world, the detail does, after a time, become a little jarring. Time taken in describing another new steam-powered machine could perhaps have been better employed in plot and character development.
“Thanks to the genius and unparalleled visions of people like Tesla, Edison, Bell, McCoy, and
others, steam-powered machines utilized the fragments of Uriel as a power source. The
discovery of the comet and its power brought about a new Industrial Revolution, an age
where these devices made life easier and more reliable for everyday people. Machines no
longer operated only on the ground or on the seas. They moved into the sky.”
The tension in the plot comes from a struggle between good and evil in the use of the
meteor's use. On one hand, Corsair and his crew, along with various other sky pirates, work for Tesla to counter the machinations of Edison and his company. Edison wants to use Tesla’s engine and the fragments of Uriel to subjugate the world and make themselves rich, with scant regard to the ordinary person. The hunt is on to secure not only fragments of Uriel but also the path and frequency of the comet's visits to Earth. This results in a series of encounters between Corsair, his crew, and the Edison men. The arc of the plot is predicated primarily on the struggle to gain the meteor fragments via these violent encounters. It is not until deep into the text we find any further development. Whilst this is meaningful and adds to plot complexity, it comes a little too late.
The story describes each of the violent encounters in great and graphic detail, and once
again, the overwhelming descriptions overshadow the development of the characters. As a result, characters feel two dimensional, with little depth of emotion or motivation.
“Even though more than two-thirds of the Galeru was open space for helium bladders, the
lower two decks were crew areas. The largest of them was the hangar bay. It held two small
aircraft called aero-wings designed by two bicycle shop owners in Ohio using a Tesla engine,
retractable gun mounts, and a bomb rack. It also contained several drop tubes—hydraulic
cylinders that forced their way into the superstructure of another airship—allowing for quick
boarding and an equally fast escape.”
This is a pity, as Piggott melds together real and fictional characters in an interesting way.
For example, we have real people such as Mata Hari and Colonel Samual Cody popping up, yet not enough is done with them. The same applies to Piggott’s fictional characters, of which there are many. They are there, they take part in fights, yet they appear as though through a dark glass. There is little notion of getting to know the characters or understand them. Perhaps there are plans to further develop them in the next book, for this does seem to be set up as a series, however it would have been more engaging to reveal more of their natures, their desires and fears, rather than use them as simple props for the parade of action scenes. This lack of character development makes it difficult to become engaged with the people who inhabit Piggott’s world, to fully get behind any of them, to care for them, to love or hate them.
The author uses an omniscient point of view throughout, which further disassociates the
characters. There is no real focalised perspective, and thus the characters remain closed off and inaccessible. The inner workings of the Red Fox, of Eager the blind Navigator, of Corsair himself, would have brought the narrative to a more vivid life, making the reader engage with and care what happened to the characters. This would make the series of battle scenes much more meaningful, for to care for a character is to have a stake in the fight, a reason to continue the narrative. Although the fights are well-choreographed and have compelling action, they lack engagement.
“Penelope lunged at Kiki, thrusting her sword while pushing off her back foot.
Kiki parried her thrust, but the expert fencer flicked her wrist to cut her across
the inner thigh. Penelope smiled at the fact she drew first blood.
“You must have had a poor teacher to be caught off guard so easily,”
she cooed.
Despite this, Kiki never lost her composure and focused on her opponent.
“Master Saigo Okita was one of the last living samurai,” Kiki explained.
“He had no children to pass on his sword. So, he chose me instead—an
orphan and a Gaijin—because he saw my potential to become a ronin.”
“You? A masterless samurai? How the poor little déclassé dreamers
think so highly of themselves!” she ridiculed.
“You may have a blue blood education, Penny, but mine is the Way of
the Sword. I walk the path laid out before me by my sensei, and no one, not
even you, can shake me from that journey.””
Towards the end of the narrative, Kiki, the Corsair's lover, finds herself locked in a
battle, fighting for her life. The action is well delivered, the dialogue realistic, yet the
whole lacks meaning, as there is little engagement with her. That said, Piggott's
Steam Punk world is well constructed, and the narrative delivers a lot of action.
Those things alone make the text an interesting read.
*****
“Corsair and the Sky Pirates” by Mark Piggott receives 3.5 stars from The Historical Fiction Company
To have your historical novel editorially reviewed and/or enter the HFC Book of the Year contest, please visit www.thehistoricalfictioncompany.com/book-awards/award-submission
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