Owner’s Share
Year: 2014
Author: Nathan Lowell
Length: 574 pages
Well, here we are. The end of the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper series has been quite the interesting journey, essentially tagging on to the events that happened in the previous book, Captain’s Share. While this was the logical final step for Ishmael Wang, I appreciated that some of the loose ends that had been introduced throughout the series were finally resolved. I also appreciated that the characters weren’t all idyllic or idiotic, thus providing a balance of the likable and unlikeable characters instead of heavily including one side of the spectrum or the other.
In terms of plot, Nathan Lowell has spun together a great yarn here with a lot of “what could go wrong next?” scenarios. Even if these events didn’t feel like they carried much in terms of consequences, due to these inevitabilities never coming to pass, they were usually impediments to Wang’s goals. The one twist near the end of the novel took me for a loop, just for how sudden and drastic it was. I would have been fine with a fairytale ending, but clearly, the author had other plans for the visibly aged Wang.
What strikes me about this book, and the series as a whole, is that it was incredibly easy to digest as a reader. I could always follow along with what was happening, and the narrative style of Ishmael Wang was a simple, but also quite comprehensive. And while I really liked the first three books as their own kind of “trilogy”, these last three have had their unique elements as well, even if the whole shipping business felt like it was “old hat” by now. That being said, I’m almost looking forward to the next time I decide to pick up these books and give them another read because I have a feeling that it might be a lot sooner than you might think.
A fitting end to an incredible series, I give Owner’s Share 4.5 stars out of 5.
