Published By: Angry Robot
Pages: 336
Released On: 14/04/2026
Ella Pickering is drowning in debt. Once a Unity skymage trained to make aerial supply runs in the great war with the Ranneas Empire, following a crash she now uses a wheelchair and works gruelling shifts making magical weapons in the Unity workshops, thinking of better days.
One night Ella witnesses an experiment by engineer Jackan Grissom go awry. His device morphs into a crude rocket blasting skywards before falling into the war’s spell-ravaged No Man’s Land. But this inspires a dangerous dream: could such a device reach the moon – the forbidden home of the gods? Could they go and beg them to stop the war?
They will need help, but as more folk get involved in their blasphemous plot, can they keep it under wraps? Can magic get them to the moon? Or will their heresy lead them to the gallows?
*****
Thanks to Angry Robot for the proof copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I haven’t read of any Cameron’s books before and so I had no expectations going into this one.
I am more of a fantasy reader than a sci-fi reader, but I have read a few very good sci-fi books so I was hoping this would be a part of that group.
It opens with a punch and I was instantly hooked. It starts at the end and then the rest of the book builds up to that end. I thought the prologue section was very interesting and I couldn’t wait to see how we got to that stage.
I appreciated Cameron making one of his protagonists disabled. Heroes are normally so perfect, and so to have a disabled hero is almost unthinkable. But as an ambulatory wheelchair user, I loved that he didn’t dim her sparkle. She’s just as much of a star, a hero, as anyone else. I think more books need to show disabled heroes, and not just as a tick-box exercise. It would good a world of good, particularly for young readers to see that disability needn’t be an obstacle to greatness.
I really did enjoy this, but in the interest of being completely honest, there was one or two issues with it. They’re not huge issues, and are 100% more of a personal taste thing than something wrong with the book, if that makes sense. I prefer short, snappy chapters and so the chapters in this were a little longer than my personal preference and they do take a lot of concentration. I do wonder if it was a smidge too long. It’s only 330-odd pages so it’s not long, but there is so much content that it does feel a bit heavy at times.
No-one can say they found this book boring. It’s got thrills, spills, danger, injury, death, war, threats. At times I wondered if there was too much. Having finished it I would say he’s got it just about right. There is a lot but it’s not too overpowering. But you do need to keep your wits about you because there’s lots of characters and plot twists and background information that you need to keep on top of.
I know this isn’t Cameron’s debut novel but it is the first I’ve read. It wouldn’t be my normal kind of read and whilst it wasn’t 100% perfect for me, I still really enjoyed it. It’s very busy, requires concentration, but it’s full to the brim of excitement and adventure, with well-rounded and interesting characters, a deep story, and moral behind the story, with a well crafted narrative.
It’s sci-fi, yes; it’s about inventions and machines and adventure. But it’s also about friendships and found family, about overcoming obstacles and achieving more than you think you could, about proving people wrong, and about finding your magic.
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