Decent steampunk fantasy with space opera elements. Did liken the fact protagonist lead is female, who can handle flying around on an airship.

Tails and crew are down on their luck so accept a contract that will tide them over, trouble is this simple job to salvage an old antique ring is not so simple and they're not the only ones with an interest. A fabulous SteamPunk adventure with Airships, Aliens and God's.
I really enjoyed this and I loved Scrimshaw the Yu'Nyum Alien who ended up on the Wind Sabre and I hope we see more of his character in the next book, which I'm really looking forward to.

I thought this book started off really well. It is written from single perspective and you get a really good feel for the main character. You get a good feel for all the main characters really, but you get a little bit of a slant on them from the main character's perspective. Talis seems to be a strong willed heroine and one who, despite being a little lacking on the planning side of things, is a capable leader. The author also does a good job with the world development, doesn't data dump, but does give you a good feel for the world, what it looks like, and how it feels to be there. The author's style and prose was very readable and kept the story flowing. I didn't note anything that threw me out of the story.
***Spoilers***
The plot itself was going along well, but then when the opportunity to take the simple and entirely too expectable turn of the aliens using her to attack the gods, it seemed like the author avoided the simple twist in the plot, but jumped to an entirely ridiculous level out of nowhere. Okay, so it's sci-fi fantasy and ridiculous is somewhat expected, but the mermaids and the vial were out of nowhere, then they never did tie back in. If that was a setup for something in a later novel I would have to say it was not particularly well done. I doubt if I wasn't writing this review about it that I would remember that scene once I finished the novel, but scanning back through trying to pinpoint why I felt lost in the plot of things, here with the mermaids is really where my lost feeling began. At this point in the story as Talis is taking the aliens to meet Onaya Bone, the reader is not sure if the aliens will turn on Talis, but we're assuming that. My first assumption is that these supposed gods aren't really gods at all and as the reader I'm waiting for this moment as a potential big reveal. The description here of the goddess was pretty brief and I didn't have a good mental image of her. The whole scene left me feeling a little disoriented for what had happened until I read it a second time. The first time I guess I had been sidetracked and didn't catch the reference to Silas Cutter's death and then the next chapter opens with Talis acting ill. I thought she was just ill from disappointing the goddess and the spiked drink the first time. The 2nd time after reading the whole book already, it's clear to me that part of her nauseous feeling stems from Silas Cutter's death. I think Silas Cutter should have been played up as more important to Talis somehow before this point. I know it was referenced, but I kinda felt like these gods weren't likely real gods of any significance up to this point and we still don't know that these gods have any significant power yet. The references to pre-cataclysm tech allude to their being a much more sophisticated culture before the cataclysm. I read this as the gods just likely being normal people who had access to the most advanced tech and set themselves up as gods with some of this technology that is now long forgotten by the people. So this is where the plot loopholes get a little sketchy for me truly and this is probably the biggest reason I can't give this book a higher rating. These aliens just went to talk to this goddess, who is really just on a screen and not there, with no real plan to tell her something they had told here before and they wound up dead. Now if they were a known aggressive force by Peridot's gods, why would they have relative free reign to run around and go wherever they please? Why would they go in to make a threat of war a second time and not be armed? Why would Onaya Bone give Talis this job, alone, to retake this ring from the hostile alien force, knowing the ring is likely there only chance at a successful defense. The whole plot just stops making sense here basically. It just feels like the author gave up and had to move the story on somehow, already knowing where she wanted it to go. Everything else in the book leading up to and after this point is acceptable plot structure, but this most pivotal scene is totally screwed up in my opinion. The judgement of gods here sucks, because Talis couldn't have even been successful had they actually killed Scrimshaw. Convenience of him living is one thing, but the fact that the rulers of their world are morons, I can't handle. Then everything from there on was pretty interesting. I thought the ending and just running away from Meran was a little odd, but probably not unjustifiable so it could work. Then there is another smaller climax that leaves the story wide open for the next novel, but unfortunately I didn't feel like it brought this one to a full close. We really have no idea what the state of Peridot is, at the end of the book. I don't think this hurt the book much, but I don't like loose endings like this particularly well. In the end because of how well I liked the creativity of the story and world, as well as how likable the majority of the characters are, I am going to give this 4 stars. I feel like maybe it should have only been 3.75, but I enjoyed so why not round up.