The sun tech the novel makes use of is some of the most amazing additions I’ve ever seen to a novel, especially one like this. What this all comes down to is the mingling of a pirate story with solar energy. It was both futuristic and historical all at once, leaving me with this feeling of wonderful fascination. I really got a sense that this was a place I could see–though I’ll admit that it would be even better if the book had come with a map–something that closing my eyes was enough to allow me to experience the full truths of the way of life many people in this society had to deal with. What really got me about this novel was how much I absolutely adored the world building. I don’t usually care to compare novels to others, but Seafire was everything a feminist pirate novel should be. In all the areas that Levenseller’s novel disappointed, Parker’s excelled. I remember a while back, when I read Daughter of the Pirate King, being really thrilled about the idea of a female pirate captain and a crew of women navigating and looting the seas.

And now, with a crew of her own and the repaired ship of her mother’s, Cala is determined to do everything she can to take Aric, and the bullet who destroyed her family, down. Caledonia Styx lost her entire family, the crew her mother commanded, and the people she protected in her resistance of Aric’s rule at the age of fourteen all due to a mistake of trusting a bullet, the name given to the young boys taken in and added to his fleet. Conqueror and now ruler, Aric Altair oppresses his people, conscripting young boys and girls to his fleet and guaranteeing their loyalty by forcing them to become addicted to the drug Silt, which only he can provide. And that’s pretty much the major source of conflict for the crew of the Mors Navis throughout the course of the novel. Parker feels like a study in Murphy’s Law.

Seafire novel