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A review by pilebythebed
Void Black Shadow by Corey J. White
4.0
Australian author Corey J White exploded onto the science fiction scene with his first Void Witch novella – Killing Gravity. That all action story focussed on void witch Mariam ‘Mars’ Xi, who has extreme telekenetic powers and is taken in by a group of scrap traders when pursued by the authorities.
Void Black Shadow opens not long after Killing Gravity ends. The challenge for White is what to do with a character who has just used her mental powers to literally destroy a whole armada of space ships. He does what most writers in this situation would do – he starts by creating a more powerful enemy (in this case Borg-like hive-mind cybernetic soldiers called The Legion) and then finds a way to take away those powers. Mariam loses her powers as for a while as she gives herself up to get into a moon-sized prison to try and rescue Mookie, one of her comrades from the first book.
Mars once again is the centre of this story. And while she has a few moments of introspection she is really defined by her actions. And she is constantly in action.
There was an opportunity after Killing Gravity potentially to slow things down and explore the universe that White has created a bit more fully. But that is not this book. Instead, White doubles down on the action and the pace with plenty of battles and scenes of psychic destruction. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Void Black Shadow once again scratches an itch for pacey, big budget space opera and is just the right length to be devoured in a single gulp and leave readers both satisfyingly exhausted and waiting for more.
Void Black Shadow opens not long after Killing Gravity ends. The challenge for White is what to do with a character who has just used her mental powers to literally destroy a whole armada of space ships. He does what most writers in this situation would do – he starts by creating a more powerful enemy (in this case Borg-like hive-mind cybernetic soldiers called The Legion) and then finds a way to take away those powers. Mariam loses her powers as for a while as she gives herself up to get into a moon-sized prison to try and rescue Mookie, one of her comrades from the first book.
Mars once again is the centre of this story. And while she has a few moments of introspection she is really defined by her actions. And she is constantly in action.
There was an opportunity after Killing Gravity potentially to slow things down and explore the universe that White has created a bit more fully. But that is not this book. Instead, White doubles down on the action and the pace with plenty of battles and scenes of psychic destruction. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Void Black Shadow once again scratches an itch for pacey, big budget space opera and is just the right length to be devoured in a single gulp and leave readers both satisfyingly exhausted and waiting for more.