3 out of 4 stars
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I was delighted recently to read Rapier, a fast-paced, science fiction, swashbuckling novel from R.A. “Doc” Correa. Refreshing in its approach to the adventure novel genre, Rapier takes the reader to the reaches of outer space, traveling along with a crew of highly skilled privateers.
The main character, Kathy Masters, had gotten her big break: a contract with Galactic Geographic to photograph a new planet. It’s a dream come true… until her ship is taken by pirates, and she finds herself their captive. The next decade or so of Kathy’s life makes for an entertaining and engaging read.
I think what I personally enjoyed most about Rapier was the author’s unique storytelling style. Usually, with fiction, I value becoming immersed in the plot immediately. The quicker I find my imagination captured, the more committed I become to the characters. In Rapier, instead, I found myself identifying with a harried mom, grimly recognizing the morning rush, the struggle with children developing their own lives, the indifference of the family pet (that still, excuse me, wants to be fed), and the bills that never seem to stop coming. I didn’t need to be caught up in that scene; I live it. But then something amazing happens. As the main character, Kathy begins narrating the flashbacks that will serve to be her family’s bread and butter, the most amazing and engaging story of swashbuckling emerges. For most of the book, I simply didn’t want to put it down.
That said, this story was not an entirely comfortable read for me. First of all, the story centers around Kathy’s life while living with pirates. No matter what Disney tells us, pirates (as a rule) are not nice people. Kathy herself has to learn the code of the “brotherhood” and learns to leverage it well to her advantage. But she, and we, as readers, also learn about the dark side of piracy and human beings who decide to live outside both the law and ethics. Most of the violence in the book is limited to the space battle type we enjoy in certain movies, and the author does a good job of addressing the impact of how, to the characters, this is real violence. But even more so, when you live such a lifestyle, eventually the violence gets personal. There are several passages which I found hard to process emotionally. It’s not that they were unrealistic or outside the bounds of the plot. On the contrary, they were very real, and the author did his job in making it so for the reader. While I admire his work in this respect, I feel obligated to let others know that such difficult passages arise in a book that is otherwise extremely “feel good.”
I did note several occasions where Rapier could have benefited from a closer editorial eye. Over the course of the entire book, there were a few times where the text reflected errors of punctuation or grammar, where possession was to be demonstrated, or a subject and verb pair were not in agreement. These instances were rare, but present, and are a shame in such an otherwise well-crafted story. For this reason alone, I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. Otherwise, I would have given it a perfect score.
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Rapier
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