The novel “The Wooden Spaceships” by Bob Shaw was published for the first time in 1988. It’s the second book of the Land and Overland trilogy and follows “The Ragged Astronauts“.

It’s been 23 years since the survivors of Land arrived on the Overland and during that time only a small part of the planet was colonized. Toller Maraquine is no longer a boy but still has a bad temper that keeps on getting him into trouble. He crossed the line with his king but is saved by the news that someone has come from Land.

On the old world there are those who survived the attack of the pterthas rebuilding a society. Now their king intends to subjugate the people of Overland, with the aggravating circumstance that the contact with Land’s inhabitants is toxic because of the ptertha’s venom. The only hope is a war in the sky and Toller Maraquine must guide the construction of new airships and more.

“The Wooden Spaceships” is set on Overland, a planet that has a twin called Land. The two planets are separated by a few thousand kilometers so their atmospheres are mixed. Despite the alien environment, the people of Overland are very similar to humans and this helps to understand their desires and their motives.

In this novel, Bob Shaw continues the story of the inhabitants of Land and Overland several years after migrating from one planet to another which took place on wooden airships. The protagonist of “The Ragged Astronauts”, Toller Maraquine, was one of the main architects of the migration and his king tolerates his bad temper only because it is useful.

In this second novel a new, unpredictable crisis affects the inhabitants of Overland when a vanguard comes to from Land with the demand that the settlers should submit to their home planet. No one thought that the attack on the pterthas on Land had left survivors, instead someone was immune to their venom and over the years a new kingdom was built.

The war between the two planets is inevitable, fought using wooden airships and flying fortresses. I think it’s the best part of the novel, in which Bob Shaw tells about the strategies of Overland’s army to defend their planet from the invasion and some battles in the atmosphere in common between the two planets.

The story of the war seemed to me, however, too short because in “The Wooden Spaceships” actually Bob Shaw brings together two stories. At the beginning of the novel the story of Bartan Drumme starts when he finds an area that is apparently fertile but abandoned because it was considered haunted.

For more than half of the novel, Bartan Drumme’s story seems secondary leaving the reader wondering about its point. Finally, in the third part it all starts to become clear and after the meeting between Drumme and Toller Maraquine that becomes the only story.

Basically, it’s like “The Wooden Spaceships” was composed of two rather short novels mixed up so that it appears that it’s a unique novel almost as long as “The Ragged Astronauts”. I think this choice works only partially because the result is a bit uneven.

Personally, I’d have preferred having Bob Shaw focus on the war between Land and Overland, maybe also allowing us to find out more about what happened on Land after the migration. The consequence is that the end of the story of the war seems a bit hurried. Bob Shaw could also have developed independently the second story making it a sequel to “The Wooden Spaceships” rather than a part of it.

Given the structure of “The Wooden Spaceships”, Bob Shaw has still way to tell the story double with a quite fast pace. The further development of Toller Maraquine years after the events of the first novel increases his depth and other characters are developed.

Despite its flaws, I think that “The Wooden Spaceships” is all in all a pretty good novel in which Bob Shaw once again showed his fantasy in the intriguing setting of Land and Overland. If you liked “The Ragged Astronauts” I think “The Wooden Spaceships” is worth reading.