Bryony Pearce. Phoenix Rising. Stripes Publishing, 1 June 2015, 368pp., $20.99 (pbk), ISBN: 99781847154507
Phoenix Rising is set in the future – where ships sail through oceans filled with junk, fossil fuels are no more, anarchy rules, and it’s every person (or ship) for themselves. The Phoenix is a pirate ship filled with an outlaw crew who try to stay one step ahead of their enemies as they search for a particular island where they can stop running and make a new life. The story centres around the captain’s son Toby who has been at sea since he was six years old, and although it’s not clear how old he is in this novel, he is probably a teenager since he has a romance with a pirate girl from an enemy pirate ship.
Pearce’s writing is descriptive, although it took a while to work out why the world is the way it is (with rubbish filling acidic seas and no democracy), who the characters are, and their relationship to each other and even that Toby was the captain’s son and not a stow away. A prologue that should set the scene didn’t seem to impact on the story at all, and it was also not clear why two members of the Phoenix’s crew seemed determined to harm Toby. Had a reason for their vendetta against Toby, which took up a lot of the storyline in the first half of the book, been give, the novel as a whole would have made more sense. This is just one reason why the story is a bit slow and somewhat confusing at first, but if readers can stick it out, the second half picks up and it becomes riveting. But spoiler alert (sort of): It ends with a cliff-hanger that is presumably resolved in the sequel called Phoenix Burning (out in March 2016).
Reviewed by Jane Carstens
