A Song For the Void by Andrew C. Piazza book review

Full of slow, brooding, and often macabre, horror, A Song For the Void is well written and delivers excellently on its time period. The ‘Charger’ is wonderfully tangible in the way it operates, from the ship itself to the command structure and interactions of the crew, as well as just being an excellently setting for a horror story, from the dark under-decks, to the opium smoke, to just the plain reality of being out on ocean with nowhere to run to.
Edward Pierce is a thoroughly enjoyable primary protagonist, coming across as both deeply human and flawed, while still being likable and competent. His battle with addiction is both well realized and serves the narrative well in many situations, as well as being entirely understandable. The way he speaks, moves, writes, thinks, and philosophizes feels immensely authentic both as a character and to the time period.
An impressive feat is how alive the rest of the crew feels, despite only having moments or paragraphs of interactions: the breadth of their personalities and histories, of their flaws and characteristics help make them all feel alive and as if they belong on this ship and time period despite having such a small allotment of time. Most of them aren’t inherently likable, but the feel of their humanity gives all the horror elements of the story grit and despair.
Speaking of horror, the Darkstar fulfills the role of the monster wonderfully, progressing through unknowable, terrible and vast, to weirdly understandable despite that. The gradually revealing of its rules allows for both the horror of the known, while still maintaining the threat and fear as the reader begins to understand it. It is immense and powerful, and fits into the narrative elegantly on so many levels, from the way its affects people via their use of opium (which is of course a vitally important element to the setting of the opium wars) to the way it folds into the climax (purposefully vague for spoiler purposes.)
The entire book is taut, neat, and thoroughly well conceived and plotted. However, it is a horror book, and many of the scenes are intensely macabre, so its probably not for the faint of stomach.