You can always count on Draven for some creative world building that doesn’t feel like LOTR fan fiction.
Plot: Nathaniel was a rich, happy dude with a penchant for steampunk type engineering, not least because Lenore, the daughter of the inventor he worked with most was brilliant and beautiful and super into him. But he had a passion for exploring, so he got himself drafted to work on a transport ship that travels deep into space, and then promptly got himself killed by unutterable horrors from beyond. For whatever reason, his corpse ended up on the table of a Dr. Frankenstein of sorts who played with the idea of creating an army of soldiers by supergluing the soul of a dead guy to the body of a different dead guy. The creations were… Controversial. So Nathaniel hid. And then Lenore showed up. Shenanigans ensue.
This is a novella! How is there so much in it? I bet you have so many questions already. The aesthetic gave me a Treasure Island (the early aughts animated movie) meets Frankenstein. Draven put a lot of thought into how to marry the magic and technology in a way that creates a really rich world to explore, which is fortunate since this is the first in a series.
Where the novella felt weakest was in the characterization. Lenore and Nathaniel are pretty generic, and their bond feels more like a convenient vehicle for the plot than its own fleshed out arc, which would be fine only Draven leans pretty heavily on it. The other characters, like the ship’s captain, is phenomenal, however. Draven clearly has plans for her future, because she has such a clear and distinctive voice.
Interesting start to a series.