STORMBLOOD by Jeremy Szal – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Stormblood by Jeremy Szal
Series: The Common #1
Published by Gollancz on June 4 2020
Genres: Adult, Science fiction
Pages: 544
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: An excellent start to a new series, Stormblood melds high tech thriller with a cyberpunk sensibility and a dash of humor and heart.

I’m so grateful that Jeremy Szal reached out to me and asked if I’d like to read his book, because otherwise I wouldn’t have even tried to get a review copy, since I live in the U.S. and at the moment, Stormblood has only been released in the UK (although Amazon US is selling it—go figure!). Stormblood is an addictive debut with some of the coolest sci-fi world-building I’ve run across in a long time. Lots of reviewers are comparing it to video games like Mass Effect, which I won’t be commenting on since I’m not a gamer, but trust me when I say I loved Szal’s futuristic world, populated by interesting characters who are mostly trying to make amends for horrible things in their pasts. Szal gives us not only high stakes, thrilling action sequences, but plenty of heart and emotion as well. 

The story is set in the far future—the year 2431 to be exact—and mostly takes place in a city called Compass, which is located on an asteroid. In this future, several alien races have integrated themselves into human society. Vakov Fukasawa is ex-military and fought in the Reaper War several years before the story begins, and now does odd jobs as a smuggler and thief. As a Reaper, Vak was given injections of an alien DNA called stormtech that turned him into a super soldier of sorts. Stormtech fuses with its human host, running through all parts of the body—bones, veins, muscles, etc—and creates a drug-like high with every adrenaline spike. This has caused most Reapers to become addicted to stormtech and has made life after the war very difficult. Vak has gone through rehab in order to control his addiction, but he still struggles with it at times. The stormtech is a permanent part of his body—once in your system, it never leaves—but it also gives Vak super strength and enhanced senses, so it’s not all bad.

The biggest downside to stormtech, however, is that it’s made its way into the civilian population through illegal black market sales. When the story begins, there has been a spike in stormtech deaths, and an operative named Katherine Kowalski is determined to get to the bottom of it. When Vak’s estranged brother Artyom is caught on surveillance tape selling illegal stormtech, Kowalski convinces him to help her track the operation to its source and stop it for good, using Artyom as a way in, of course.

That’s the bare bones of the story, and I’ll leave you to discover the rest of it for yourself. This is a twisty, exciting thriller with a little something for everyone. I loved many of the characters, particularly Vak, who narrates the story from a first person POV. This might sound odd, but his most important relationship is with the stormtech raging through his body. Vak has learned how to live with it, but it still surprises him on occasion. The feeling of invincibility that he gets from the drug leads him to leap into dangerous situations without thinking things out first, resulting in all sorts of dire predicaments. Luckily, the stormtech also gives him the strength to get out of most of those situations alive.

Vak has quite a dark past, including an abusive father who made life a living hell for Vak and his younger brother Artyom. Vak’s biggest regret is that he lost touch with Artyom when he joined up to fight in the Reaper War, leaving him behind to suffer at the hands of their father. The relationship between the two was heartbreaking, made even more so by the fact that they are now caught up on opposite sides of a very different war. Szal also included flashbacks to Vak’s time in the war, and I thought these added a wonderful emotional layer to the story.

There were a couple of other standout characters for me. I loved Grim, Vak’s best friend and partner in crime. Grim is a talented hacker and gets Vak out of one scrape after another. He’s also the comic relief of the story, and I loved the funny banter between the two of them. I also fell for Vak’s home AI (think a futuristic Alexa), a large rabbit who is not only full of well-timed quips, but has an impressive arsenal of home protection weaponry at his disposal. Seriously, I need more of that rabbit in future books!

But my favorite part of Stormblood was the world-building. Szal has created a world that feels a little familiar at times—think Blade Runner or China Miéville’s New Crobuzon series, for example—but he’s infused it with his own brand of cyberpunk/space opera/military SF and made it feel fresh. The stormtech itself is fascinating enough, but Szal goes even further and gives us a future filled with body mods, AI torture devices, and cool body armor that even heals gunshot wounds. We are introduced to several alien races, all with particular appearances and quirks (one race has deer-like antlers!) But my favorite elements were Szal’s descriptions of the asteroid—full of buildings, docks, warehouses, bars and more stacked on top of each other, a vast landscape packed with a population of six hundred million people. I got the impression that Szal’s world is much bigger than what we see in Stormblood, and I’m eager to see that larger scope in future books. 

I did have a few issues with the story, although they’re really pretty minor compared to all the things I loved. First, I didn’t like the budding romance between Vak and Katherine at all. Katherine, although she appears to be a major player in the story, is oddly one of the least developed characters of the bunch, and her personality just felt flat to me. Additionally, there was zero chemistry between her and Vak, which made for a very uninspiring romance, if that’s what the author was going for.

My other complaint may sound odd, but the world-building was almost too much at times. Now don’t get me wrong, you already know that I loved Szal’s futuristic world. His descriptions were so vivid that I could picture everything clearly in my head. But sometimes the world-building dragged down the story, despite how fascinating I found it. I wanted it to be integrated more organically, more “showing” than “telling,” if you will. There’s no doubt Szal’s imagination is vast, but imagine being introduced to a new concept on nearly every page, and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about. Because this is only the start of a series, I think he could have spread out his ideas over the next few books rather than cram them all together here. 

But those issues aside, I was really impressed with this debut. Szal is a young guy with a fantastic writing career ahead of him, and I can’t wait to read Blindspace, the next book in the series. Sci-fi enthusiasts who enjoy layered, action-packed stories will love this too.

Big thanks to the author and publisher for supplying a review copy.