Review: Fountable 1
Boarding School in Space! Space Opera! Superscience!
Over the past couple decades, a proliferation of magical boarding school novels have abounded, but very few BOARDING SCHOOL IN SPACE have. It's as if Harry Potter was more popular than Ender's Game, which would never happen in a just world. However, I have finally found a novel to scratch my itch: Fountable 1.
The Story
Our hero, a youth gifted with intuitive mathematical skills and a skilled devotee of an ancient fictional martial art, has won a math scholarship to the main school for the gifted in the center of the stellar Empire. Dormed with his fellow math nerds, whom he readily befriends, he is urged to use his athletic skills in the standard manner of youths: to get a girlfriend.
He joins the school team, catches the eye of a beautiful girl, falls in love. When it is revealed that the girl in question is the daughter of the Emperor, the story switches from HARRY POTTER IN SPACE (which, honestly, I would already have forked over my money for) to TRADITIONAL ROMANCE OPERA IN SPACE (which is even cooler.) After escapes, kidnapping, true love, and elopement, our hero and all his co-conspirator friends are exiled together--a strategic blunder for the Emperor, as anyone who has read superscience pulp fiction would know. Never exile a bunch of supergeniuses together--the results are as predictable as they are awesome.
The Characters
Tervan -- Our Harry Potter stand-in. Intuitive mathematician and skilled athlete at a field that gets the girls. He is humble, not a show-off, and plays the social dynamics of teenager friendship fairly competently.
The Teachers -- Math, History, and the Athletics Coaches have a lot of impact on our hero--Math because it's his best, and History because it's his worst. The teachers are less strongly-characterized than those of Harry Potter, but are helpful, opinionated, and compassionate. They're good teachers, as might be expected at the imperial school for the gifted.
The Math Nerds -- Merlok, Fralik, Gratt, Iranjo, Filitha, Lerinthis, Evanderia. A gender-balanced group with fun group dynamics and distinct personalities, which form the core of our hero's coterie. They're romantics at heart when not geeks. Merlok fulfills the best bud role of pushing Tervan to get a girl.
Furzana -- The love interest. Charming, fun, and a little mischievous. A great character.
All in all, the characters are fun, have distinctive personalities, and have more to them than meets the eye.
Politics
The politics of the story are realistic to traditional imperial politics, with the usual amount of ostracisms and palace coups. The author has clearly studied some imperial history.
Content Warning
There is a fair bit of naughty-flirting and implied marital relations, with, however, no real implied non-marital relations. YES! Finally only implying the morally-allowed naughty stuff!
Who is it for?
At first, as a science fiction fan who liked Ender's Game and Harry Potter, I thought this book was written for me. Then, as a science fiction fan who enjoys traditional drama and opera, I thought this book was written for me. Then, as a reader of oldschool superscience pulp fiction and space opera, I thought this book was written for me.
If you're in any of those categories, this book is for you.
Why buy it?
Space Boarding School, Space Opera, and Superscience done well, with the true love and the fate of the Empire hanging in the balance.
Fountable 1 is the first book of the Fountable Trilogy, published by the Martian
When I hear or see the word "boarding" I think of iron men on wooden ships with a saber or pike in hand taking another ship by force. A school of boarding in space sound exciting. I'll give this a try on Kindle.