Special Review: Max Florschutz's Starforge · 8:24pm Nov 10th, 2022
Yeah, it’s a break week, and yeah, I wasn’t supposed to do reviews. But this story got published just yesterday and I figure I’d best strike while the iron is hot.
Starforge
1,584 Pages (estimated)
By Max Florschutz (AKA Viking ZX)
Sequel to Jungle
Jake, Anna, and Sweets have been through a lot together. Fighting alien drones in the depths of the ocean colony Pisces. Surrounded on all sides by violent lifeforms in the jungles of Livingstone. Fighting off an alien infestation aboard a compromised starship. They’ve come to be known as the Triumvirate, and their new home of Pisces has one last mission for them. The hyperviolent All must be stopped or else they’ll destroy all life in the galaxy, and the only hope of doing that is reaching a place known only to the still functioning AI of a long dead race: a dyson sphere called the Starforge.
I should preface this review with a notice that Max sent me a pre-release copy of the story, so there may be changes that aren’t reflected here.
This story follows our intrepid trio as they once again go on a mission. The first two were outright forced upon them by uncaring higher powers. This time they’re given the choice. Luckily, they’re the selfless and noble types, so they agree. Especially considering that, unlike every other time, now they’re fighting for the entire human race. Long story short, the planet Pisces is actually artificial and exists as a weapon against the genocidal alien being called the All that was woken up in the previous story, but it can’t do anything without fuel. The only place to get that fuel is the Starforge. Which, of course, the All is now trying to conquer.
What follows is a long, arduous journey. Unlike the plot formatting of Jungle, Starforge jumps into the action from the start. Max’s action is as riveting as ever, and is accentuated by new threats, new solutions, and new consequences. The trio find themselves traveling across an alien world yet again, only this time accompanied by a bunch of soldiers.
I bring up the soldiers because, unlike what you’d expect to find in so many stories, Max does what he can to make them people rather than just expendable goons. It’s hard to familiarize a reader with so many different characters in a single story, but Max does what he can. We get names, a little backstory, future plans, conflicts of interest, even outright antagonism. As time goes by and these people survive more and more brutal encounters, it can be easy to start recognizing names and rooting for a few.
Then people start dying.
Fortunately for all of us, Max finds a certain balance to this. It isn’t Game of Thrones where every character you fall in love with dies eventually, nor is it the Disney fantasy where no matter the threat everybody comes out okay. And that’s good. It’s great, even! It lends an uncertainty to events, where you never know what’s going to happen next. I admit, there was more than one instance where some character was like “Yeah, sure, I’ll join the trio as the fourth man on this little side mission of theirs” and I was like “whelp, that one’s dead.” Only it didn’t happen. Except when it did. Max kept things from being too predictable, and I like it.
In the midst of these character elements comes the worldbuilding. We’re traveling across an alien world, and our inquisitive protagonists can’t help but theorize and guess at what it all means for the race that not only used to live there, but literally built it. There’s an effort here to truly embrace the concept of “alien life”, with unique architecture, quirky technological concepts, and interesting ideas regarding how an aquatic species might view the world around them.
The worldbuilding is, not to put too fine a point on it, stellar.
As an aside, I couldn’t help but think of the ongoing conflict as sort of Starcraft-esque. I mean, you’ve got the terrans playing defense all the time, the animalistic All constantly and rapidly mutating into newer, more deadly forms with the intent of making anything that isn’t All into All and attacking in massive waves, and you’ve got the super-advanced Sha’o doing everything in their power to wipe out the All even if that means sterilizing entire planets, human occupants included. Hell, Max even throws in a direct reference to Zerg rushes. I’m not saying the comparison is bad by any means, but it’ll certainly raise the eyebrows of anyone familiar with the games.
Speaking of humans, even when all that’s done and the supposed primary point of the story is over, it’s still not over. After all, there’s still Earth to worry about. And wow, what a monster the final villain is. Seriously, this is someone you’ll love to hate.
But frankly, I’m just glad to see more of Anna kicking enemies around. That woman is awesome. As is her mother, who we finally get to meet, albeit briefly. Anna’s mom might not be hefting cars or blowing up aliens, but I loved her characterization all the same.
Not to say that Sweets and Jake didn’t get some good ol’fashion stomping done. Anna just tends to steal the show when it’s time for the bullets to fly.
Also, there’s the romantic tension between Jake and Anna. Which I’m glad to see. It’s interesting that one of the positive comments I made regarding Colony was that Max pitted Anna and Jake together as a team without some sort of romantic element shoehorned in. But now it’s finally happening with this story, and it felt right. Especially considering it was never a central point of the story, but rather was something teased and hinted at through brief conversations and surreptitious glances. I applaud Max for finding a way to do this without it feeling invasive or unnecessary.
I could keep going, but this review is getting long and I need to stop somewhere. Just know that this is a big story with a lot going on and I’m barely skimming the surface. Probably for the better; fewer spoilers. There is the caveat that this is the conclusion of a trilogy, so if you haven’t read the prior two stories you may be lost at the start. But you should be reading the whole thing anyway, because it’s all great.
A great read, and a delightful way to end the trilogy. Well done, Max.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
Second the motion here. I've been a Max fan for longer than I realized, since when first found Axtara (the very NOT-lazy dragon) the name looked familiar. Then I looked through the like eight books I have on Kindle and there he was with One Drink, which I had downloaded some time ago back when I first got my iPad. So now between A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking and That Dragon Was In No Way My Fault, Monster Hunter International and Servants of War I've got Colony and soon this one also. (Now I need more time to read, darnit)