Salt and Fury By Liz Shipton

Salt and Fury by Liz Shipton

A great start to a Dystopian Water World Trilogy

 Alright, before we get into the review, let's get the disclaimers out of the way.  I received an ARC copy of all three books of Liz Shipton's Thalassic series free of charge from the author.  Liz was looking for ARC readers on TikTok, and luck of the draw I was selected.  For anyone who doesn't know what an ARC reader is, I was given a copy of the books free of charge, prior to the mass release so that I can review them.  That's it.

Now that we've covered that, we can get in to the book itself.  Let's start with the cover.  Well, the cover and a little bit of the history of this book.  Salt and Fury was originally a YA novel under the title Salt.  Shipton at some point decided to rework the novel as a somewhat spicy New Adult fiction.  I have not read the YA version, but I think going New Adult was a smart move.  Aging up the characters, just by a couple of years, and adding a bit of seasoning, so to speak, I think made the story more interesting and more compelling as an adult reader.  That being said, I think the cover for Salt looks a little bit better than the cover for Salt and Fury.

Salt by Liz Shipton 2023 cover

The cover for Salt and Fury does, however, fit in to that New Adult fiction feel.  A hyper realistic, split contemporary color scheme.  Even the typography slots it into that new adult feel.  I look at it and automatically know that it is geared towards a slightly older audience.

Salt and Fury by Liz Shipton 2023 cover

That being said, I sort of wish Shipton had kept the aesthetic of the original YA cover as the new one looks like the book is going to be spicier than it actually is.  I get the logic behind this, Shipton probably doesn't want people who heard about Salt, picking up Salt and Fury by mistake because of those more adult elements.  Still, if there are future covers, I think blending the two styles together would make for an over all better design.    

With my opinions on graphic design and typography out of the way, let's get to the actual story itself.

Official Synopsis

 

  The setting is undeniably post apocalyptic, though it is labeled as post apocalyptic dystopian.  I'd argue on the dystopian, at least for the first novel.  Dystopian brings to mind an feeling of oppression that the novel does not fully convey to me.  There are certainly elements that lend to the dystopian trope, but it doesn't have the same feel as Dystopian fiction to me.  The focus feels to be more on the post apocalyptic elements.  Climate change, and disease feature heavily in the book, and at times are driving forces for the plot and world building.  The Dystopian elements feel almost reactionary to the post apocalyptic elements, it is one because of the other, not as something that stands alone.  This isn't really that big of a point, but I feel like readers who are going in with a clear idea of what they think Dystopian is, will be kind of disappointed that this book isn't really about that.

Something that I really enjoy about Indie author's is their consideration for their readers.  Particularly when making sure that readers are aware of things before they begin reading.  A divisive topic maybe, but I like trigger warnings.  I read a lot of horror, and while I can deal with a lot, graphic animal cruelty is a deal breaker for me.  So knowing before I even read a book that it has that in there, I can avoid that entirely.  Indie authors seem more willing to put these in, but I think it's mostly because no one is there to talk them out of it.  The warnings for Salt and Fury aren't that sever, compared to some, but it is always good to be open with your readers before you even start.

Trigger warning page from the eBook edition

World building in Salt and Fury is one of it's weaker points to me.  There is defiantly world building, there are technologies, slang, and a some culture.  However, I am big on world building.  I love world building.  So the world building here just felt a bit flat for me.  It was just missing something that made me fully believe that this was a world different than our own.  The inclusion of the basically wifi chips that people have installed in their heads and activate by touching different parts of their body was good.  Using slates, like blank pieces of stone, to help the characters visualize the information being processed through their brain was also good.  I think the sticking point for me was simply geography.  Places were named, and their locations given, but I didn't feel completely oriented to where everything was in relation to each other.  This could partially be because it is a first person narrative told from Bird's perspective.  Bird could simply be an unreliable narrator when it comes to relaying this information because she isn't really sure of it herself. 

The action of the novel begins in a sort of gated community of a town called Brume, owned and controlled by the slightly shady Zenith Corporation.  A corporation seemingly entirely run by women, who single handedly saved the world after both a cataclysmic climate disaster and later a pandemic.  This again buts up against the Dystopian elements, but it isn't fleshed out enough in the first novel to really drive it home.  The start of all the really big things dealing with Zenith, besides it being as a moralistic as any company, are all saved to the third act of the book.  It just doesn't give the ideas enough time to fully develop. 

The majority of the action takes place on Sargo's boat the Panga, once Bird, due to her own actions, runs in to some trouble and drags Sargo along with her.  Even with this the action does not feel inherently claustrophobic.  The book gives us a set destination and goal, finding Bird's brother Shale in a coastal city called Alluvium somewhere to the south of Brume.  This drives the plot forward, aided by their being pursued by the shady crime organization called the Anonymity, and their run in with the crew of the Kingfisher.

I do like the inclusivity of the book.  Both Bird, and the ML of Salt and Fury Sargo, have two mom's.  This is a unifying common ground between them, but also shows the worlds views on things like this.  It is never commented on in any derogatory way, it's simply a fact. There is also a non binary character, and a deaf character introduced mid way through the novel.  Bird sort of bungles her first interactions with both, one with misgendering, and another with ableist attitude.  However, when she is called out for it, and corrected, she immediately switches to the preferred pronouns internally, and attempts to communicate with sign language once shown how. It further drives home, along with her adoption of the dog Malarkey, that Bird maybe a flawed person, but she isn't a bad person at her heart.

Sargo, while being present through out much of the book, isn't as fleshed out as Bird, but that is due to the narrative style.  Everything about him is tinted though his interactions with Bird, and her thoughts about him.  A Hispanic character, Sargo's character does shine a light of the disparities people experience in this world of Salt and Fury.  Towards the beginning of the second half of the novel, he and Bird have an altercation where he lets her know that he is very aware that his ethnicity influences the reactions and actions of people around him.  

If this is meant to drive home the Dystopian elements of the novel, it sort of does.  However, given the reality we all live in today, it's simply a depressing note that a fictional world a hundred years in the future still has these sort of issues.

Without spoiling the later half of the book, there is a bit of a twist that is both expected, and unexpected.  Part of it was heavily hinted at through out the book, and if your like me, you'll guess it by about chapter twenty.  The other is more of a curveball, but that's just because there wasn't really a way to believably foreshadow it till you were right on top of it.

The ending is open ended, and arguably would have been better if it had ended a few chapters before.  Not cutting what happened entirely, just shifting it from the end of this book, to the beginning of the next.  It's more of a flow thing.  Ending on a cliffhanger would have set things up nicely to start the second book.  Instead the last few chapters seem to be there just as a cool down and to set up the next novel.  Their aren't bad chapters by any means, but it does break up the momentum I feel was building in the last quarter of the book.

Final thoughts.  I would recommend this for anyone looking for a postapocalyptic book that has a lot to do with sailing.  That isn't a criticism, I enjoyed the sailing parts, but if you are someone who finds all of that boring, this book probably isn't for you.  If that sounds interesting, I'd say go ahead and give it a try.  I had a very enjoyable time reading it and I can't wait to start in on the next one to see what happens.

Salt and Fury is available for purchase June 1st, 2023