Now this was a book!!!! I am normally not a fan of sci-fi books but this one was great. I think the reason why I enjoyed it so much was the characters! Theodore has created a band of unlikely heroes, all with their own strengths and flaws and I just loved being part of the Wind Sabre Crew! This book had adventure, suspense, romance, beytrayal… all set to the ever present Flotsam!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Stars: 2 out of 5

DNF at 45%.

There is a good book hidden somewhere in there. Unfortunately, it's buried under tons of overwritten plot and bad characterization. It feels like this story isn't quite done yet. It need more time to "cook" in the author's head, or maybe a strong developmental edit.

The premise is fascinating: a whole planet shattered by a cataclysm that left it in chunks. Yet somehow life still exists there. There is atmosphere and gravity even if that revolves around the "islands" - floating bits of planet. There are five "gods" that remade their respective people in some ways to facilitate their adaptation to this new environment. And these deities are not fictional. They exist, they interact with others sometimes. There is a mysterious ring and some even more mysterious aliens. And the crew of a smuggler's ship caught in the middle of all of that. Sounds interesting? Sounds like lots of fun and action, doesn't it?

That promise kept me going for almost half the book. That's when I realized that the flaws of the book made it almost impossible to enjoy the story. I was skimming most of the chapters just to get to the juicy bits, but even those weren't enough to keep me interested.

This book is horribly overwritten - I don't need descriptions of what every character is wearing and all the weapons they have unless it's relevant to the story. And while yes, I'm interested about how Sub Rosa was founded, I don't need 6 pages of exposition about it. This kills the momentum and makes the book a chore to read.

The other problem is the extremely stilled and unnatural dialogue. The characters don't talk like people. In fact, most of the time, the characters barely talk. The protagonist talks and assumes what her crew is about to say from their posture or the look in their eyes, when they barely said a word or two before she interrupts them. This is extremely irritating and makes the protagonist look unstable, even unhinged sometimes. Prone to mood swings and quick to lash out... without any provocation. 

This impression comes from the fact that the author tells us everything, but is very bad at showing it. So the author tells us that the crew is being insubordinate and even disrespectful, but nothing in the scene actually "shows" us that. Half the time, when I read those scenes, I came away confused - exactly why did the protagonist lash out? Nothing in the dialogue provoked that response. I don't really want to follow a character I don't like and can't understand.

All of these flaws just kept adding up and by the time I decided to say goodbye to the book, I was just not getting any enjoyment out of the experience.

PS: I received a free copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

R. J. Theodore’s Flotsam
But what happens when a traditionally published book suddenly doesn’t have a home? That was the case for R. J. Theodore’s Peridot Shift novels, the first two books of which came out from Parvus Press.

Though Theodore had originally been kicking around the idea of self-publishing, and had even gone so far as to commission original artwork for the cover. But when the offer from a small like-minded press came along, Theodore decided to work with them. Flotsam came out in 2018, with Salvage releasing in 2019. But publishing with a small press came with its own problems—the staff were passionate, but overworked, and the books struggled to get on their feet, despite very good reviews and an audiobook version of Flotsam narrated by Mary Robinette Kowall. When Parvus closed its doors in 2021, before the third book in the Peridot Shift could be released, it looked like Theodore would have to go back to the drawing board.

But instead of opting to self-publish on their own, Theodore connected with fellow self-published authors in a collective: Robot Dinosaur Press. “Robot Dinosaur Press was a newly birthed concept when I accepted an invitation to join in 2021,” Theodore tells Paste. “An imprint of Chipped Cup Collective, it’s a coop founded on the idea that a team of self-publishing authors can pool their individual energy and talents so that their books have powerful and consistent branding, support, and promotion. With a membership that stretches around the globe, each individual member lends their strength to the others, allowing self-published queer authors and authors of queer content to leap over the barriers and slide through the kept gates that we face in a landscape shaped and dominated by traditional publishing.”

The result is not only two new gorgeous editions of Flotsam and Salvage, both of which released in 2022, but the original release of the final book in the trilogy, Cast Off, which comes out in December. Given the epic nature of the first two books (a planet beholden to selfish gods, who themselves are threatened with murder by an advanced alien species—all with Captain Tallis and her misfit crew stuck in the middle of things as the only ones trying to save the world), readers will be eager to find out how it all plays out.

Thank you to the publisher for the free cooy

This book was ... a ride! I absolutely adored the thought and details put into the worldbuilding. It was vast and rich, with so many different layers that sometimes it was hard to keep up and understand the context. It also made the book drag at times when talking about both the sailing and cultural aspects. While I loved the characters, I feel like more time could have been taken to talk about them, their pasts and relationships than religious beliefs and cultural timelines.

Flotsam was a really fantastic book, I found it very easy to read. It was well paced, with a great cast of diverse characters, and the way the mystery unfolded was done in a way that hooks you in right up until the last page.

The world building is a,aging and good fun, the concept of an exploded planet existing after this Cataclysm and the way the different peoples trade and travel was just really well thought out and good fun to read about.
The mysterious aliens and what they represent were a good mystery and an interesting surprise antagonist, I loved finding out their motivations, and the thought put into their culture was great to see. The author clearly had fun coming up with ideas for how alien cultures would present and come about, and I found the idea behind different pronouns referring to class to be an interesting spin on the idea. The lore about the five gods was also great, and had some good twists.

Our main character Talis is fantastic, I enjoyed seeing a woman in her 40s take centre stage for this sci fi adventure. It added a good sense of gravity to the whole situation, that a woman as experienced as she was caught up in impossible situations, and she didn’t know what to do. Her insecurities and love for her crew made her a really compelling protagonist and I found it very easy to root for her and understand her motivations. Her crew mates were a fun mix, and I liked the dynamic they had with one another as a group and in individual pairings.

Loved it, cant wait to continue the series! Video review to come.

Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5, rounded up on Goodreads/retail

I was granted eARC access to Flotsam by R.J. Theodore by the publisher via NetGalley. Thank you for the approval! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

I'm a simple reader. I saw LGBTQIA+, I saw steampunk, and I clicked request! Am I disappointed? No, this book did indeed serve an LGBTQIA+ cast and rainbow-friendly environment in a steampunk setting and managed to present a strong plot and interesting characters. Would recommend, for sure!

Now here's why I'm not as enthusiastic as I'd hoped. This book is already fairly long at 450+ pages, but it felt like 800. The overall plot is strong and interesting, but in execution it took a lot of sightseeing tangents that I didn't sign up for. For about 50% of the book right in the middle I let the screenreader do the work reading this to me while I got mindless chores done because it wasn't doing enough to hold my attention, but in the same way that middle grade books that are truly well done but also perfectly targeted to 10 year olds don't hold my interest. I wish they did, I wish this did, and I can see there's something special here, yet somehow it just didn't click for this reader.

I also want to echo something I've heard a few other reviewers touch on, and that's the fact that the focal non-binary character is the main alien. This character uses the neo pronoun xe, and I'm impressed that Kindle's screenreaders reads it correctly, but given that this is an alien character and this character's name isn't actually said that often, "Xe" became this character's name in my mind, not a pronoun. So we've got an alien being who's already very socially and biologically different from the more human characters, not really expecting this character to have a familiar concept of gender, and then a pronoun that sounds like a name gets used frequently. Xe just didn't read as NB representation to me, and I'm non-binary myself. I didn't see my identity here; I saw a being from an entirely different species and society.

With that said, I am 1,000% here for the merger of scifi steampunk with fantasy. This universe was so interesting and so well described and I absolutely adore all of the very classically steampunk tech and occupations. This is exactly the sort of thing someone who grew up on underappreciated masterpieces like Treasure Planet craves!

Overall this book felt YA to me. I know it's on the long side, I know the characters are adults, and I know it gets quite mature at times, but the overall feel of this book just seems like something I would have loved just that little bit more in high school. This felt like the sort of thing I would have read in 12th grade sitting up against my locker during my spare block rather than doing my homework, right after finishing an instalment of the Bartimaeus series. (Have I totally dated myself yet?)

If you like steampunk flavoured SFF and you like LGBTQIA+ casts, Flotsam is definitely worth a read!

Solid, swashbuckling sci-fi/fantasy set in one of the most unique and alluring world's I've ever read. Flotsam delivers everything you want in a space pirates fantasy: a first mate with a troubled past, a hungry engineer looking to set out on her own, a pilot who's just happy to be there, and a captain with a dubious, but honorable, moral code. Then you add in a dash of truly alien beings, a race for treasure, floating island hopping adventure and AIRSHIPS?

Sign me up. Sign yourself up. Sign your friends up. This is the Pirates of the Caribbean/Firefly crossover you didn't know you needed.

Interesting ideas for the world building and races and I did enjoy the 👽👽👽.
The characters fell flat for me and there wasn't a lot of development going on. The dialogue between crew members was very average and I would've liked to see more background stories and crew interactions.
Also some of the fighting scenes were too drawn out for my taste. The writing itself is good and I'd check out more from this author in the future.

2.75 stars for this sci-fi-airship-adventure.

Thanks Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received an eARC of this book from the publisher, for which I thank them.

Flotsam was originally published several years ago, but has been given a new publisher & a refresh after its first publisher closed and the rights reverted back to the author. This is a review of the 2022 version.

I loved the setup of this novel and the worldbuilding. Theodore has created a rich world, with aliens, mysterious gods, and the tenacious crew of the Wind Sabre. Talis, the ship's captain, thinks she has it made - one job, to get an old ring off of a ship in the flotsam, essentially a graveyard of everything that's fallen from the skies in Peridot. But not all is as it seems. Soon, Talis and her crew are drawn into an adventure that none of them could have prepared for.

I loved the first third of the novel, and the end, but there was a patch in the middle that I found so dull I had to set the book down for a while. There's a lot of plot in this relatively short novel, and a lot of character development; each character really did have their own personality and place in the story. And that cliffhanger ending... which I'm even more mad about knowing that it's incredibly difficult to get book 2 in the series. Hopefully it'll be re-released when book 3 comes out eventually.

3.5 stars

Talis will do just about anything to protect the crew of her airship, Wind Sabre. The crew seems to have fallen upon hard times after hard times when the story begins. When Talis is offered a large sum of money in exchange for a ring lost in a pile of wreckage, she doesn't hesitate to jump at the offer. Talis finds herself constantly running from an old friend turned foe and consorting with aliens all on behalf of her crew.

World building is Theodore's greatest strength. There are no long passages of description explaining what things look like or what the political state of Peridot is. Instead Theodore uses dialogue to create the world of Peridot. Readers are able to piece together the state of things based on what characters say (some very original cursing) and how they behave.

I look forward to reading more from Theodore and thank NetGalley for the ARC of the re-release.

I am finding this book to be too dense to read. At 10%, the scene pretty much hasn’t changed. Everything has been told and such minute detail, that I just can’t keep it in my brain. I wanted to like this book but I just can’t make it through it. I did not finish. I just cannot force myself to keep going

Thanks to the publisher -Chipped Cup Collective, Robot Dinosaur Press for providing ARC in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley.

3/5 stars

It started off well! Well enough to keep me engaged from the very first page. I was hoping I have found a good adventure for myself through Flotsam. My love for fantasy compelled me to pick this one as I wanted to see how reading a less famous book impacts my opinion. Having said that, there are many such books I've read that many people haven't heard of year, that impressed me to the core. It just didn't happen with this one. Sadly, I was disappointed.

Flotsam talked about airships. How cool is that? There is this ring Talis has that everyone is ready to trade for. I haven't read any of her books prior to Flotsam. It's not that I was very disappointed with her writing, I'm still open to reading books written by her. She looks to be having great potential.

Let me start with the things that impressed me. One, the story had great world-building with airships(Yes, I know I have already mentioned that) which got better and better as the story progressed. So yes, I kept reading. The thing that I didn't like in the story was that there was no character development. All the characters felt a little flat to me. Also, the story was flooded with descriptions of every little thing that came across. There was more of the telling than of the showing. This made the story too long.

I will recommend this book to fantasy lovers who are looking for something new to read.

Release Date: 01 Feb 2022.

Review Posted: 05 Feb 2022.

I started the first few chapters of this book and even if I was curious about the world, I didn’t understand much of it. I also had to think a lot to figure out what was going on which definitely took me out of the story.

First of all, thanks to Robot Dinosaur Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced readers copy of the book in exchange of a honest review.

I'm still not sure if it's 3.5 or 4 stars.

Ok, the book is good, is interesting and it's a good trilogy start. What bothers me is that the main character which is a grown adult that has stopped being a naive young girl some time ago makes mistakes that not even the dumbest protagonist of the most cliché teen movie or book would make. Things that were very obvious and she refused to see or not giving the enough importance to other things even when a goddess (literally) told her the importance of those said things!

So, I don't know how I would classify this book because it has many genres, something like a space opera with fantasy and steampunk, a weird mixup, but it works well.

I have to recognize that at the beginning of the book it was difficult for me to really get into the story, and that's partly because the story itself, the principal problem in the book, doesn't start until the 58% of the book, everything that happens before that is the construction and preamble to that specific moment, I just hope it doesn't happen the same in the sequel.

I loved all the rest of the characters, including the aliens with unpronounceable names, Meran, the Wind Sabre crew and even Hankirk. The deities were more like meh to me, they weren't by far the more interesting thing in the book, but there were many things that I did like.

My favorite quotes of the book:
• It wasn’t the most impressive private airship in the skies— just a single lift balloon, a handful of cannons, and room for a small crew. But it was hers. You didn’t get to have or keep much in this world.
• She couldn’t give him back the future he’d lost, but she never stopped trying to make a new one for him.
• Talk to the goddess that had a penchant for turning people into mermaids if they pissed her off.
Of course.
Why not?
• Then a wave hit her. Desolation. Aching emptiness.
Silus Cutter is dead.
Her god. The being who created her people and protected them. The being who was supposed to be immortal.
He wasn’t. He was dead. And she was kneeling among his murderers.
• “We all do...” Xe paused for a moment, resting. “...what we must to survive. Act for what we believe is the greater good of our people.”</i>
Sometimes, she thought. And other times we act selfishly and court disaster.
• “Do you have a purpose I can live for?”
“Same thing I have. Freedom.”
• “This one would raze it all to the ground for you,” she said, her eyes flashing at Talis.
Dug’s eyelids lowered, and he inhaled deeply. He looked intoxicated, leaning toward Meran, who cupped his chin. But Meran looked at Hankirk.
“As would he.”
• “Should have killed him,” she said under her breath to Dug.
“You still can.”
She stayed silent. She’d already proven that she couldn’t.

This. Book.

RJ Theodore has built such a vivid, vibrant, captivating world with Flotsam. The writing style and attention to detail is phenomenal. Where a lot of writers tend to tell rather than show to make sure the reader see’s and understands everything they want to convey, Theodore shows you everything, bit by bit, to let the picture slowly form inside your mind, like a puzzle being put together. Absolutely beautiful.

And the characters are interesting and varied and fully-formed. I felt as though I understood where everyone was coming from, whether I agreed with them or not. I felt a lot of love for Sophie and Tisker in particular. These two are just such beautiful souls.

I think one of my favourite things about this book is the way that queerness and the use of neopronouns are completely normalised. The scene where the crew introduce themselves and exchange pronouns with the alien gave me so much queer joy.

I can’t recommend reading this book enough, and I especially can’t wait for the next installment!

Content warning: deicide, dismemberment, murder

I had the opportunity to read the original release of Flotsam when it had been under Parvus Press. But in February 2022, the book is being re-released with Robot Dinosaur Press. There have been a few updates in the prose, but largely the story has stayed the same.

It’s the same delightful steampunk meets first contact story about a pirate ship in search of a magic ring which may or may not throw the balance of magic and godhood off in search of power.

Upon revisiting, and perhaps this had been part of the revision, but the world-building is so clear. Between five factions worshipping five gods, plus the literal alien invaders are very easy to keep track of, even without the map at the beginning. The world is also queer norm, with things like pronouns and different relationship structures totally standard within the world. It’s refreshing and allows for focus on the wider stakes at hand.

The characters also remain fun and complex, with greater attention given to the smaller details. Sophie remains my favorite, but the relationship between Dug, Tisker, and Talis remain so much stronger. I also greatly appreciated Hankirk’s presence as a kind of antagonist, though certainly not the big bad. The chaos in the entire last quarter of the narrative is so wonderfully calculated. Seeing all the characters come together and play to their strengths and against their mistakes is so much fun. Truly swashbuckling while taking advantage of its unique position with one foot in science fiction and the other in fantasy. It’s balanced so excellently and truly a treat.

Once again, a fun romp across a fantasy land with steampunk mechanics and frightening cosmic consequences.

This was great space fantasy that I could it put down. Loved the epic adventures of the crew! I’d definitely recommend this book to everyone

okay I’m ready to be dropped into the flotsam now

This book follows captain Talis as she embarks on what should have been an ordinary salvage mission. Once she has her prize, she encounters a number of parties are interested in the salvage, and her and her crew discover all sorts of plots between aliens, other races, gods, and cultists.

The world itself is interesting (to both the aliens and to me), and learning about its lore and history is fun. Besides the super cool alien race that recently appeared, there are five different humanoid races living on the planet. However there were tropes between the different races that bothered me. Specifically: the dark skinned race is large, known for their strength, and live in tribes; while another race is blind but dress beautifully because even though they are sightless they can still ~see~.

The beginning of the book hooks you in, the small crew is a gang of fascinating characters with their own interests; one is a street rat, another is separated from their own race; another is even considering leaving to captain their own ship. However as the plot moves forward we stop learning about the crew or stop getting as much out of their characters. They don’t have much development past about the halfway point and that disappointed me because I really like Sophie, Dug and Tisker!

There was an exciting build up between multiple groups’ agendas, and there are constant plot twists and turns throughout the book that keeps you on your toes. The anticipation builds as we approach the final battle but then the last scene falls short. In the end scene, I kept reading and wondering, “what on earth is so-and-so doing?”, “where is ___?”, “is [that guy] just sitting around?”. And for a while they really were just sitting around! Characters are literally ‘in a trance’ during the battle and this leads to people doing absolutely nothing but watching what’s going on between like 4 people.

Overall I think this book is great for people who love world-building, especially steam punk and space opera type worlds, but who aren’t going to be bothered by tropey humanoid races and who don’t get as character-obsessed as I do.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this edition!

PS. I hate Hankirk PERSONALLY.

I thought this was fantastic! More fantasy than science, part of the fun was trying to figure out the world, with cockeyed physics, glowing pumpkins as light sources, islands floating in air, and five different types of humanoids. Talis is a very likable protagonist, she is very courageous without being fearless, values her crew immensely, and tries to maintain integrity even while operating as a sort of pirate. She struggles to balance sympathizing with her crew individually while ensuring they do what is best for the ship. She accepts a too-good-to-be-true commission, which leads to some even more improbable missions, encounters with gods and aliens, and some major secrets and conspiracies are uncovered. There is never a dull moment, and the book ends very dramatically. There's no cliffhanger, but I'm glad there will be a sequel because I would like to know what happens to Talis and her crew next!