Customer Reviews

The Black Ship: A Novel of Crosspointe

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Sylbrac is a member of the important Pilots Guild, one of the men necessary to any ship sailing the hazardous, magic-filled waters of the black Inland Sea surrounding the Kingdom-Isles of Crosspointe. But he's a loner, eschewing friends, uncaring about making enemies and flouting Guild customs and politics. He finds that he has finally stepped too far and crossed those in the Guild who have the power to keep him from the sea--the only thing he has a passion for in life. Then he finds himself kidnapped, forced to serve as Pilot on a Black Ship, a vessel operating outside the law, captained by a man stripped of his license and thought mad, and crewed by the dregs and the cursed of seafaring society.

Taking the name Thorn, he faces killer storms, ravenous creatures of the deep, a mutinous crew, enemy ships, pirates, death magic, and the horrific spawn-inducing magic of the sylveth that is the source of power and danger in the sea. But he also, surprisingly finds a sense of brotherhood among the outcast crew of the ship.

The story is full of page-turning action and adventure, harrowing danger and narrow escapes. The characters are compelling, with horrific pasts, and they all develop in fascinating ways. The world is equally intriguing, with its magic and gods and various warring societies and political intrigue.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I love historical sea adventure, as well as fantasy, so the mix was a happy one for me. Thorn was a strong and memorable character. The world was well-developed and was full of mystery and dangerous magic. Although the book ends without a cliff-hanger, the voyage is not complete and there are story threads that need to be concluded. I sincerely hope the adventures of Thorn and Captain Plusby and the Black Ship Eidolon continue in a sequel. I did not want to leave this world and these amazing characters.

Sylbrac is a Pilot in Crosspointe and a law unto himself. When he is denied another commission on a ship for the Pilots' Guild he is a part of, his world shatters. In his misery, Sylbrac is abducted and asked to Pilot a "Black Ship" with a ragtag crew, insane Captain, and an unknown cargo.

The world is excellently described, which is the highlight of this book, but when compared to the first book in the series, "The Cipher", it is boring and slow, in my opinion. I was not that interested in this book, and I found myself skipping pages just to get the story moving along. I found the third book in the series to be much more interesting than this one.

Before there was Thorn, there was Sylbrac, and before him there was Fish. But before each of them, there was Geoffrey Truehelm, son of the lord chancellor, and after a terrible incident in his youth, he swore he would never let his father use him in such a manner again and fled. He became known as Fish, and over the years he made his way on the cruel streets and eventually found himself a position on a ship, where he later discovered the blessings of being a Pilot--a rare and highly prized person to navigate the seas. Without them, ships have no chance surviving all the dangers that lie in wait. And on that day, Fish died and Sylbrac was born.

Now finding himself betrayed and sold by, Sylbrac can only assume, his own fellow Pilots, Sylbrac leaves that name behind and calls himself Thorn. Now the Pilot aboard the Eidolon, along with a motley crew who have been given another chance at the open sea, risk their lives in order to see a ship filled with unknown cargo to its destination. At first Thorn sees his kidnapping as a curse, but later sees it only as a gift as he makes friends from the most unlikeliest of people. And friends are something Thorn never thought he needed or wanted. Of course, that is what got him in this predicament in the first place, never making any alliances within the Pilots Guild, and realizing too late the error of his ways.

Brilliantly crafted and fully realized world, Diana P. Francis excels at writing a believable and highly engaging fantasy. I found myself immersed and lost aboard the Eidolon, for which Thorn was kidnapped to Pilot this illegal ship, otherwise known as a Black Ship. The crazy amount of research she had to do in order to make the scenes come to life aboard the ship was astonishing in my eyes.

The Black Ship is fraught with perilous adventure, raging sea storms, and the dangers that lie within the depths of the water, as well as a need to learn what it is exactly this black ship is transporting. The vivid characters drove this story. Thorn is such a great character. At first you think him rather selfish, but that's just the way of Pilots. But then you see that he is different from the rest of his ilk. He actually cares, and is quite an honorable guy. There is much fantastical things to sink your teeth into within the pages of The Black Ship, and I found it to be quite an experience, full of action and adventure! This is an amazing author whom I've grown quite fondly of since reading the two books I've read--This one and The Cipher (Book one in the Crosspointe Chronicles.)

So put on your majicked boots and clothes to keep yourself dry and hop aboard the Eidolon for a sweeping adventure on the Inland Sea. But watch out for the silvery majickal substance known as sylveth, for it could turn you into spawn, a hideous and evil type of creature!

Diana Pharoah Francis has done something very unique. Each book focuses on someone new. The old characters are there, but not focals. Each installment builds on the last, allowing the readers to learn more about different aspects of Crosspointe, to get deeper glimpses of the large groups which are struggling to govern their world.

After reading Lucy's story in The Cipher, I wasn't sure how I would feel not following her into the next. I'd seen her grow, seen her change. But then I met Thorne. He's so intriguing and in The Black Ship I get drawn into sailling and being on the water and learning more about the origins of Pilots, even meeting the enemy face to face. I couldn't put the story down and I didn't feel like I'd missed anything. I'm just eager to get to the next one, The Turning Tide. Can't wait for it to come out!

I was absolutely thrilled to find this book! I loved "The Cipher" and this was just as good. I can't wait for more!

I had trouble getting into The Black Ship at first, but it turned out to be wholly worth that slow start. Part of that was learning the world, since I hadn't read the first book, and part of it was dealing with a main character who spent some of his initial time being rather unlikable. This was definitely only a minor hiccup, however!

Once Sylbrac is kidnapped (or "crimped") to serve aboard the black ship, the tale immediately takes off and sings with humor, tension, and character. I'm not particularly entranced by tales of sailing, yet Diana makes this one so fraught with danger and action that I was glued to the pages. The dangers of the seas on this world are extreme, and it'll take a skilled (if fractious) crew, a fantastic ship, some major majick, and a first-rate Pilot and captain to pull off the journey.

As wonderful as the action is, the interactions between the characters are even better. Sylbrac quickly realizes that the only way he'll get to keep being a Pilot is to keep his new ship, forced on him or no, and that means forcing the crew to gel. How better to unite them than by uniting them in anger against him, particularly since he's so good at angering everyone around him? Needless to say, this results in plenty of both humor AND danger for everyone involved.

As if all of that wasn't enough, the world-building is fascinating! I won't go into it too much, so as to avoid giving plot points away. Suffice it to say that Diana gets into how Pilots become Pilots, how majicars become majicars, and what some of the other civilizations are up to, all as part of the heady, action-packed plot.

[Just as a note, there's some amount of dark and/or adult material in here. Nothing terribly explicit, but this isn't a kids' fantasy novel.]

One of the best of the elite Pilots, few can navigate Crosspointe's magical deadly seas better than Thorn can. However, he is stunned when the Pilots' Guild bans him from his love: sailing the seas. Though he knows someone betrayed him and set him up to take a fall and that individual had to be an important person in the guild, he remains clueless as to who and why.

While despairing what to do since he lost his vocation, things get even uglier for the beleaguered Thorn; he is kidnapped and dumped on an unmarked vessel sailing the seas. He soon learns the ship Eidolon is also unregistered but concludes the captain is insane, the crew ready to mutiny and someone in the shadows is sabotaging the vessel to insure it never makes it safely to a port.

The second Crosspointe tale (see CIPHER) is a superb fantasy in which the hero's shanghaied ocean voyage leaves the audience feeling they are on board the ship; as Diana Pharaoh Francis' water building is incredible. The story line is fast-paced, but it is the setting along with a fully developed crew, captain and the disgraced pilot who make for a strong thriller.

Harriet Klausner

In this second novel, the author takes us on a terrific high seas adventure the equal of any C.S. Forester swashbuckler. The tale is told from the perspective of Sylbac, a Pilot for the Guild that controls the commerce of Crosspointe. Only Pilots have the majickal ability needed to navigate the dangerous waters of the inland sea. Sylbac is a prickly individual, an outsider disliking his fellow Pilots and being shunned in turn. At a Guild meeting he observes -

"He stared back, feeling malevolent. He refused to see the scars, the weariness, the lines of laughter in the weathered faces. He didn't want them to be people. Just cold, pretentious, power-bloated leeches, feeding on the desperate need of anyone in Crosspointe who lived or died by ship commerce."

The Black Ship becomes a voyage of personal discovery and rebirth for Sylbac. He is kidnapped and forced to join the crew of a secret ship that shouldn't exist, carrying a treasonous cargo on a dubious mission. Sylbac decides to leave his old life behind changing his name to Thorn. His survival and future becomes entwined with that of the crew and captain, forcing him to difficult decisions including leaving behind his solitary mien, building new relationships and turning a mutinous crew and mad captain into a cohesive whole. But the obstacles are enormous and at one point he thinks -

"In the last two months he'd lost his brother, lost his guild, lost his life. In the last few days, he'd gained a black ship with an insane captain, unknown enemies who were willing to kill to take the ship, a majicar shipowner with astonishing powers, and a bitter and divided crew with nearly a dozen wounded crewmen. How could he think the Eidolon was anything but a cursed ship?"

The author subjects the voyagers to test after test with almost relentless pacing; treachery, storms, privation, majickal incursions and battles at sea are only a few of the highlights of the journey. The descriptions are vivid, the cast of primary and secondary characters, engaging and sincere. Each event serves to bind the crew closer and build their bond. In the latter part of the novel, Thorn and the crew of the Eidolon, encounter a pirated Jutra warship crewed by refugees escaping Jutra political and religious oppression. Out of necessity they join forces, but in a sequence that reminded me of Barry Longyear's wonderful Nebula award-winning novella Enemy Mine, they learn that finding common ground with the enemy is more important than retaining old hatreds.

The purpose of the black ship and the nature of its mission become clear to Thorn and the captain towards the conclusion of the novel (sorry no spoilers) nicely setting the stage for the next instalment of the Crosspointe series - The Turning Tide. The romance of the sea is not the only romance in the The Black Ship as Thorn despite misgivings, finds a kindred spirit in the female captain of the Jutra warship, that unfortunately will require future installments to evolve.

The Black Ship offers rich world-building, a highly original system of magic, and a rousing storyline. I liked Thorn and the crew of the Eidolon a lot and hope to see their return. The Black Ship is easily read and enjoyed as a standalone novel, but I encourage readers to start with The Cipher for the full picture and enjoyment of the Crosspointe universe.

Reviewed by SciFiGuy.ca

The Black Ship, as well as its predecesor The Cipher, are two excellent reads. The Cipher grabs you from the first page, The Black Ship from the first chapter. Both books make it hard for you to put them down. I reread The Cipher before reading The Black Ship. You don't really need to but it does help when the two main characters from the first book show up as minor characters in the second book. For me, Diana Pharaoh Francis has become an author that I will continue to read and will eagerly await her next book.

With majick and intrigue aplenty, Francis has spun yet another marvelous tale! The Black Ship is a story of honor, friendship, and self-sacrifice.

The story unfolds as the illegal ship, Eidolon, crewed by a host of absorbing characters, from the insane captain, Leighton Plusby, and his stoic steward, Bess, to the unlucky `charmers' Crabble, Halford, Blot, and Wragg, struggles through a myriad of magical dangers to deliver its mysterious cargo.

Things get underway when majickal ship's-Pilot, Thorn, is crimped into guiding the illegal ship as only a Pilot can do on the dangerous Inland Sea. Thorn is perhaps one of Francis' most likable characters yet. Determined, generous, and deliberately irritating to everyone around him, Thorn first amused me and then (pardon the cliché) pulled on my heartstrings. The society around Thorn expects him to be soft and selfish but he struggles for the right to roll up his sleeves and give away the very things which sustain his life to the crew of his ship. And when majick and injuries look like they might finish him off, Thorn presses on through really horrendous obstacles to keep his crew safe.

I loved this book! The fast paced action kept the pages turning. The single point-of-view narrative was both easy to follow and interesting to read. Equally vivid as The Cipher, The Black Ship is full of brilliantly constructed majick, from the intriguing pantheon of gods to the copious monsters and wild disasters of a majickal natural world; Francis took the mythic vagaries of `sea-monster' and created them into a wealth of creatures--either grotesque or beautiful, and all singularly terrifying. Also, Francis' training as a Victorianist shines through, with her host of comically named, richly textured characters akin to the best and dearest of Dickens'.

Go. Read it NOW!