Bud Sparhawk

This was a free book I applied for as part of the Library Thing first reviews, and the first one I’ve ever received from them [review originally written in 2015]. It was a good choice, as it matched up to the description, which is something that often puts me off!
Louella is a professional sailor – single-handed round-the-world races being the sort of thing she does, although there are also four colleagues who occasionally form crews for crewed races. We meet her first in the Southern Ocean, handling high seas and tremendous danger, with all the technical sailing jargon you could wish for and terrific descriptions of the seas, wind, wildlife and isolation. Having overcome adversity on this trip, she’s looking for the next challenge, and new sponsors, when the Jupiter Investment Company come a-calling and make her and three others offers they can’t really refuse to have a sailing race on Jupiter.
Yes, you know there are no seas on Jupiter, and the atmosphere is full of storms and noxious gases. Science fiction takes over, and it’s a really nice bit of scientific fiction. I love the concept of sailing Jupiter’s skies, and to me the difficulties that need to be overcome were spot on. When that race is finally done, the sailors are inveigled into one last race within their contract – this time on Mars. You’re joking. No sailing on Mars, surely? Well, it’s a type of landyacht or sandkart, with huge sails to make the most of the slight winds involved – and it’s very dangerous! Again, the maths behind the sailing is excellent, and the tactical approach to the race more like harbour racing than the endurance aspect involved in Jupiter’s skies.
I couldn’t quite work out whether this was four novellas that had been squished together or whether it really was intended as a novel. Maybe it’s both, but in the new cover they haven’t done enough to squish them – there is a little too much repetition (adrift like a latter day Flying Dutchman came up three times in quick succession), and when I was looking for covers for this post I discovered the blurb for one of the editions simply lists a number of short stories (although they don’t necessarily fit the ones I read). I think the author could streamline it into a single novel to good effect.
Some people may find the level of technical detail on the sailing to be too much for them. I enjoy sailing, although only as a holiday activity, and the detail was okay for me, just – rather like descriptions of baseball games in a good book to be reviewed next week, I could skim the detailed stuff without losing the thread or the action. If you don’t know your bowsprit from your bowline you may find it a bit taxing. Equally the depth of the technical exceeds the characterisation – except that in my experience people who do extreme sports and/or exploration tend to be a bit one-dimensional anyway and only come alive when immersed in their chosen medium. Otherwise the tension between characters and the plotting is good, and I really looked forward to every session reading it (unlike another book I gave up on during this period).
So, overall, an amazingly intricate and exciting sailing science fiction with first class factual groundwork, which I really like in my scifi. Could do with a little polishing, but I still gave it four stars.… (més)

Bud Sparhawk. Here is an author whose very name seems to conjure up images of the sea and sailing upon it. Bud, reminiscent of Melville’s “handsome sailor,” and Sparhawk bringing to mind the mast that holds the sail and the cold winter wind that drives it. Seemingly the universe wanted Bud Sparhawk either sailing or writing about sailing. As it turns out, Sparhawk does both. And if he sails as well as he writes about sailing then he must be a very accomplished sailor.

In Distant Seas, a collection of short stories all involving sailing, we are taken from the oceans of earth to the “seas” of Jupiter and Mars. The bulk of the stories concern two veteran earth racing sailors, Louella and Pascal, who find their racing careers taking an unexpected turn as they are compelled to race the gaseous sea of Jupiter and the sand sea of Mars.

While each bit of off-world sailing is obviously fictitious it is wonderful to see how Sparhawk’s accounts have the heft of detailed non-fiction accounts. Those accounts make up for the weakness in character development. This is not to say there isn’t character development, just that it is, at times, too stilted, too stereotypical to draw you in as do his sailing scenes. But the rap against character development is minor when set against the excellent moments of sailing adventure.

As I read his stories I was reminded of another author who devoted himself to writing about sailing, Tristan Jones. While Sparhawk is not quite Jones’ writing equal it was nice to have such fine writing remind me of another writer of sailing tales.

I received this book as part of the Early Reviewers Program through Librarything… (més)