Review: Not bad for a first novel
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 29, 2013
When I read that it was a post-apocalyptic world set primarily on the water with 'paleolithic' rules of survival I immediately thought, for no other reason that it's all I knew, Waterworld. After reading the first few pages those thoughts were instantly replaced with something more like Master and Commander. I literaly kept picturing Russell Crowe as Sam Bowditch.The world, which is only partly hinted to in Westerly Gales, is destoryed from massive natural/man-made destructive forces. The survivors beat all odds and continue society as they remember it eventually building a maritime culture that mimics that of the 1700's (Willams explains why they did that). The story begins well into the establishment of the Kerguelinians with our hero and main character, Sam, with his first brush with the pirates eventually leading to the creation of the first Navy the world has (probably?) seen on hundreds of years.So, why the four stars? Or more like three and-a-half? I felt lost as Williams described the voyages to and from the many different colonies throughout the new world. So a map could have been useful. I understand it is a martitime adventure story but I know nothing about maritime terminology and Westerly Gales is full of it! Maybe a glossary and diagram of a ship (like the cover) to show what the different parts of the ship are. I spent a good deal of time opening up the dictionary and only then being given a basic idea of what he was talking about. I can understand it adding to the authenticity but I caught myself skimming over a lot of the 'ship talk.'The characters , to me, lacked personality and depth. The dialog did not feel authentic at times but flowed good and was easy to read. Maybe there could be more conflict between the characters? All this combined, I feel, caused to story to be too short. However for a debut novel Williams did a good job!There are some typos (mostly punctuation) but even the professionally edited books have them so they could be looked over.I think destroying the world so that one can start over with a new and fresh idea is a safe way to world build. There are no new races to invent or history to create as its all at ones finger tips. Maybe that's why I like post-apocalyptic fiction so much vs fantasy. Williams strategically destroys the world leaving the survivors out of harms way, so-to-speak, so that he can invent a new world and weave in his love of traditonal ships and maritime adventure. And what an adventure story it is! I thoroughly enjoyed Westerly Gales and look forward to starting book two.