The author’s affection for explorative and occasionally silly scifi easily shine through. Some humor works more naturally than others but it’s an entertaining ride. I just wish the characters felt more solid. ★★★½

Captain Hadrian Sawbuck and his rag-tag crew of the Starship <em>Willful Child</em> continue their unusual adventures, bringing chaos and disrepute to the galaxy around them.

Sawbuck isn't the brightest LED on the console but he's full of confidence and he's forever trying to laid. And maybe they are trying to accomplish a goal, but the real goal here is to offer up a laugh at the parody parallels with one or more famous science fiction television franchises. The obvious one (to those of us familiar with sci-fi television) of course is <em>Star Trek</em>, but there's a bit of <em>The Orville</em> (which, of course, is also a parody of <em>Star Trek</em>) here, too.

The book is part of a series and I read the first book (<em>Willful Child</em>) and I enjoyed it, which is why I wanted to read this third book as well. But I found this book lacking. It was much more work to read this book and follow the exploits of the group. Even a parody should have a plot that takes the reader on a journey and the humor comes with the comparisons along the way. The story here ...? I can't really identify it for you (and if you read through the first page of Goodreads reviews, you'll notice no one identifies the plot). Like the first book, this reads like a series of episodes, with a little mini-plot every chapter or two. But where I found the humor in the first book amusing, I found the humor here to be forced. We either work too hard to set up something funny, or characters/situation are brought in simply for their humor potential.

Only four times did I chuckle here, twice at names of characters (Captain John "Lucky" Placard and Admiral Trustworthy Honest), once as author Steven Erikson pokes fun at himself ("It's like a ... hopeless amalgam of tropes!") and once at a juxtaposition of phrases that caught me by surprise.

Erikson clearly knows the <em>Star Trek</em> universe and has an appreciation for it - you can't write a parody without a love for the subject. But trying to recreate parody magic is not easy.

Looking for a good book? If you absolutely loved the first two books in Steven Erikson's Willful Child series, then, yeah, you'll probably want to continue with this, <em>Willful Child: The Search for Spark</em>. But if you simply liked the first book for the parody, there isn't much here that's different to make this worth reading.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I couldn’t get past the 20% mark on this one. The intended humour fell very flat. Erikson can write incredibly funny and witty humour, but this was neither. I found no redeeming qualities in this book, it was just all around not funny. And since the book seemed to sacrifice any effort at story telling in an effort to be funny, that leaves very little else to review. Thanks for the opportunity to review it, but I sincerely hope Erikson goes back to Malazan or tries something different but for the love of god please don’t continue this series.

I won’t be reviewing this on Goodreads.

If you think the show The Orville doesn’t take its homage far enough, you will enjoy Willful Child: The Search for Spark.

Captain Haddrick of the starship Willful Child is a conceited and not too smart wannabe ladies’ man. His crew consists of various stereotypes. He also has an incredibly sarcastic incorporeal AI named Tammy constantly haranguing him. His only outlet is frivolously killing entire alien races. When one, from an alien bar on a suspiciously familiar desert planet, decides to get revenge using free porn and cute cat videos, Captain Haddrick and, mostly, the female dog lovers of his crew have to fight back.

Willful Child: The Search for Spark is an over-the-top spoof of the extremely positive Star Trek and somewhat grim Star Wars worldviews. The mash-up works. Somewhere between all the jokes, homages to individual scenes, and pure human stupidity is an interesting plot. While this can be read as a standalone, I think it would be less confusing at the beginning if I had read either of the two previous books. 3 stars for those new to the series like me.

Thanks to Tor Books and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Willful Child: The Search for Spark by Steven Erikson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I tore through this one and had a great deal of fun. These are the continuing adventures of... Oh My God, who put that flea collar on that cat!? This is genocide!

Ahem... the continuing adventures of the sexually frustrated captain of the Starship Willful Child as he and his loyal crew of a beachball doctor, a claustrophobic engineer, a mad AI holographic chicken, Scalzi, two replacement janitors, and ABSOLUTELY NO RED SHIRTS anywhere to be found discover the meaning of life in the undiscovered country. But before that, they will merrily jaunt across the galaxy, blowing up aliens with extreme prejudice and redefine the entire genetic destiny of oddly malleable consumers.

"We will be called the Purse."

Oh, yes. Hunting down spare change in all the couches across an enemy's fleet, letting nothing stop them. *shudder*

In-jokes abound. Everywhere. Every page. Erikson is pulling off one hell of a ride here, but I should warn you: it's dark humor. Very dark, with a splash of light that is usually followed with a cocktail of drugs and a quick displacement into a tank filled with teeth within teeth within teeth.

Is the original spirit of Star Trek preserved?

Sure, if you think of it as an Orville on steroids and force it into the R-Rated category. :)

But where it really shines is in the deep and abiding love and knowledge of all the originals. Erikson subverts them all. :) And he doesn't limit himself just to Star Trek.

I think I would recommend these books to all hardcore fans of SF. They're not just parodies. They poke holes in universes and the logic at the originals, sure, but this is a good story all by itself, too. :) So much happens... and I'm only referring to the Space Marines in their D&D marathon!

I just want more. And more. I can't get enough. :)

Gratuitous profanity stopped me cold when attempting to read this, The premise sounded good and perhaps the story lived up to it's hype but not everyone wants to read a mouthful of filthy language to get to the story. Sad :(

Willful Child: the Search for Spark by Steven Erikson. This book is very satirical and very derivative. pulling in material from just about every well known sci-fi author, but that was not what drove me from this book. I was actually looking forward to it until the unnecessary foul language became pervasive. It is possible to write a good funny satirical book without foul language every few sentences. Thank you for giving me a chance with this book.