Starship’s Mage – I quite liked this book.

Starship’s Mage (Starship’s Mage, #1).
By Glynn Stewart.
My rating ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ out of 5 stars.

In a galaxy tied together by the magic of the elite Jump Magi, Damien Montgomery is a newly graduated member of their number. With no family or connections to find a ship, he is forced to service on an interstellar freighter known to be hunted by pirates. When he takes drastic action to save the Blue Jay from their pursuers, he sets in motion a sequence of events beyond his control and attracts enemies on both sides of the law.

I quite liked this book actually. I was a bit hesitant at first since trying to merge science fiction and fantasy (magic) can go horribly wrong. Here the author managed to pull it off. There is a bit of a pseudo-scientific explanation as to whether there are magic and mages in this universe in the first place. It really doesn’t explain that much of the science behind it but it helps with the universe building.

This book was first released as five short stories and the book I read was the “Omnibus” edition which is effectively the first full novel in the series.

As the blurb states the story starts by following the adventures of Damien Montgomery as he leaves the magic academy and starts looking for a job. I quickly took a liking to Damien. He is a likable character, competent and he has a working moral compass.

There are more to Damien than what first meets the eye (no surprise there) and thanks to his ability to see what others cannot he finds himself in one problematic situation after another. There are of course a few twists along the way as well as a fair amount of action and overall there is a good balance between magic and science as well as dialogue, character advancement and action.

The universe is built as we go along in the book and, although this magic part is a bit, well magical, in the beginning the author do try to gradually explain the existence of mages, runes, why they exist, why Mars has a King and how everything ties together. Personally I think he is doing a quite good job doing this.

Most of this book is spent on setting up the universe and preparing for the rest of the series. It is not until the very end that Damien’s future role becomes clear and I did indeed like how this was set up. I do see some serious ass-kicking in Damien’s future.

Overall, this is a solid four star book and this series goes onto my to-be-continued shelf.