Review: Ship of Fools

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Ship of Fools Ship of Fools by Richard Paul Russo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I finished this book last night I was grumpy. I hated the ending, so I slapped a 3-star rating on it and immediately distanced myself from it by running headlong into my next book. To be fair, the story wasn't just good, it was great, so today I've corrected my hasty rating but I'm going to make it clear that the end of this story is a major let down.

As soon as I started this story I was hooked. The writing is anything but fancy and yet the plot continually emerged and evolved so naturally from the simple narrative and it kept my interest all the way through to the crushing disappointment of an ending. From the way the story is told, the twists really do seem to come from out of nowhere and over the course of your journey through these pages you'll realise that there be dragons in the unexplored regions of this newly imagined world.

Humanity seems to have largely left Earth behind on various exploratory and colonisation missions. We follow events on one particular ship, as they make their first planetfall after decades of searching. After leaving the planet they head for a massive derelict which turns out to harbour much more than they've bargained for.

Part mystery and part horror story, but mostly this story served as a contemplation of religion and faith and honour and best intentions. I'll be honest, I thought some of the reflection came across as too apologist but I thought in general it was a fair representation.

The characters were all excellent. The relationships delightfully complex. And the eerie situations we encounter in this plot will thrill fans of scifi and fans of horror, both.

But be fully warned that the ending leaves questions unanswered, fates unknown and even though there's more than enough room to follow this up in a sequel, it has been 21 years since publication and there's still no book two in sight.

Be prepared to enjoy this all the way up until it let's you down. Like your ex did.

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