Dear Author » futuristic

REVIEW: Wars of the Heart by Inari Gray

Shuzluva — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:00:38 +0000

Dear Ms. Gray,

When I read the blurb for Wars of the Heart, I was utterly confused. Let me explain; or better yet let me sum up the blurb, which goes something like this:

Katherine Morgan is a diplomat from Earth, she thinks that someone is out to destroy Earth’s Ozone Shield, and goes to the Peace Keeping Intergalactic Council (PKIC) for both assistance and an investigation. But the PKIC can only offer up someone else’s muscle. Of course, the muscle is King Ja-el Lamar, the guy whose heart Katherine broke a long, long time ago. So she’s told by the PKIC that she has to “force” an alliance with Ja-el or else he will lose his kingdom. Oh, and Ja-el has his own scheme.

Yep. There’s a powerless council that will force a king to do something, a diplomat that is apparently in charge of Earth’s environmental well-being, and a king that is described as impetuous and at the mercy of said diplomat. You may ask why I would bother to read this after such a strange and WTF-laden blurb. Well…it’s space + romance. Let’s face it, I just can’t get enough of space and romance combined, and I’ll try anything that’s billed as SciFi Romance once. And after reading the first five pages of the book I was in serious hope that things would get better.

They didn’t.

But before I delve into my issues with the book, let me sum up for realz:

Katherine Morgan is a diplomat for Earth, working hard at a job she’s always wanted. She’s discovered that there have been strategic attacks on Earth’s Ozone Shield, targeted at the most important loci to do the maximum amount of damage. Fearing that Earth is in danger of attack and will become a scarred wasteland, Katherine appeals to the elders of the PKIC for help. During a video conference with numerous representatives, they admit that they can offer technological assistance but the only planet that can offer true military backing is Salatiel, but it’s representative, King Ja-el Lamar, doesn’t bother to dial in to the meeting. In a twist (ok, not really), Tobias Laivir, the head of the Elder Council and Katherine’s ex-boyfriend, moves to send Katherine to Salatiel to tell Ja-el to “yield” or the PKIC will be forced to take action.

Katherine goes to Salatiel and Ja-el refuses to see her immediately. Katherine has conversations with her ex-mentor Laramie, who happens to be Ja-el’s political advisor, Ja-el’s military master and member of the PKIC Elder council, Neelam Reybak and her father who is an Elder member of the PKIC. Katherine delves into memories of her time on Salatiel for diplomat training, goes for long walks on the beach, and pretty much accomplishes nothing. There’s a lot of what is supposed to pass for political maneuvering; Ja-el makes Katherine wait to see him and Katherine makes noise to the PKIC, but it just reads as two kids sniping at each other. Ja-el is also…er…enjoying the benefits of a princess of a neighboring planet. She’s none to thrilled that Ja-el is unable to give her his heart, or any sort of emotion whatsoever. But apparently they are having some hawt sex.

The plot…er, I should say, the Ozone Shield plot, becomes more confusing with different twists added. There seems to be some weird things going on, but no one shares information with each other. As I read the book I realized that a lot of clues were thrown out, but nothing was tied together in a way that made complete sense. In addition, everyone on Salatiel is operating in their own little bubble, existing on bitter feelings and reliving glory days, none of which move the plot or the romance forward. The lack of communication between the characters means you have one giant clusterfuck of a who-did-what-to-whom-and-why storyline. On the romance side, the heat between Katherine and Ja-el is nonexistent. There seems to be more going on below the belt and mentally with Ja-el’s princess paramour. The Katherine/Ja-el romance is flat and uninspiring and there are times when it feels like I’m reading about to bratty teenagers rather than a king and a diplomat.

But my real issues with the book are Katherine and Ja-el. She met Ja-el and they fell in…something when she was sixteen. Oy. I couldn’t wrap my head around that, or the fact that yep…Ja-el “did” something to her to tie them together forever back when they were in “training”. Two: the writing was so…out there with descriptions that I had a hard time imagining what people were really thinking or feeling. Take a gander:

In the center of the screen, eyes brighter than glowing amethysts stared at her intently. Exasperation showed in the constricted brows that towered above them. Katherine looked at the man they belonged to, a vision of fairytale-like beauty with striking features and wispy sandy brown hair. Behind the mask of his attractiveness, his violet stare was cold as stone.

Is she looking at his constricted brows? What the hell is a constricted brow? But the weird descriptions go on:

Her tongue felt thick, too heavy to form coherent words. “I was just about to go find you.” He didn’t respond. He simply stared, deathly silent, unnerving. She fought the urge to recoil. His eyes pierced hers as though they saw a web of lies beneath the surface of her skin. Honesty, she reminded herself, though the urge to lie came more naturally. “There’s something I really wanted to discuss with you,” she said, when the silence stretched to an uncomfortable level.

I would have thought the piercing of her eyes was more uncomfortable than the silence.

Finally, Katherine neither acts nor thinks like a diplomat, a grown woman, or someone who is in a position of authority. Ja-el neither acts nor thinks like a king, a mature man (ok, that might be an oxymoron, but nonetheless…), or again, someone in a position of power. There’s zero strategy from Katherine and a bit more than a thimbleful from Ja-el. I plowed through this one, but unless you’ve got a hard on for space-based romance like I do, I wouldn’t bother. C-

~ Shuzluva

Since anything else might veer into spoiler territory, I’ll refrain from saying more about the plot.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

REVIEW: Once Upon A Time in Space by Heather Massey

Shuzluva — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 20:00:02 +0000

Dear Ms. Massey,

I have totally procrastinated about writing this review, which will probably give you a hint regarding my reaction to Once Upon a Time in Space. My hesitation is due to this coming on the heels of my less than charitable review about another group of space pirates, but since honesty has always been my policy, I’m diving in head first.

Earth is a dying world. Its crust is crumbling and its citizens are forced to live in cities beneath the ravaged surface trying to eke out existences in overcrowded cities. The Space Defense Corps, the military power that has essentially replaced the government, has a stranglehold on the populace, the planet and all space travel and exploration. To say that existence is miserable and there’s constant unrest is an understatement. Reading about the overcrowded, dirty, miserable conditions makes me want to take a long walk outside.

Nick Venture is unexpectedly fired from his position as an engineer at an excavation company, then ends up on the wrong side of the law all in the same day (when it rains, it pours, right?). Nick is immediately found guilty of a punishable offense and sentenced to a labor camp. He thinks his life might be over, and from the sound of it, he might possibly be right. While awaiting transport to Alcatraz labor camp, Nick receives a proposition: join the Collective and lead an expedition to a viable planet that the Collective has discovered. Why Nick? Because he’s the last living relative of Christopher Columbus and his presence on the expedition will give the people of Earth hope. Yes, you read that right, he’s expected to lead the expedition…as in captain a spaceship. We’ll circle back here in a moment.

Raquel Donovan is a space pirate better known as the Siren. She is the captain of the Deathraven, one of the most feared vessels in space, and is infamous for her tactical prowess and plain old guts. Raquel description falls into the category of stereotypical pirate for me, complete with eye-patch and ascot…and of course, wears a super-sexay black ship suit. Raquel is on a mission to find and kill her nemesis (no spoiler here…sorry) and makes no bones about taking out as many Space Defense Corps ships as she can while trying to find and destroy her enemy.

This book had a certain element that should have made my heart sing while hysterically crying with joy: a heroine that won’t take shit from anyone and captains her own spaceship. The plot premise itself was great: a dying planet run a corrupt government and military, with a group of pirates rebelling against them coupled with a somewhat forbidden romance. All of this, along with tactical space battles, intrigue and deception. There could not be any more win here. However, the story, the hero and finally, the heroine ended up letting me down.

Raquel Donovan was fabulous…until she encountered Nick Venture. From the first it seemed like her backbone, and frankly her entire personality, disappeared around Nick. Before Nick showed up, Raquel was a woman with a vendetta, and I would have loved if her interaction with Nick was her taking the wheel and then telling him where he could shove it, but that definitely didn’t happen. From the beginning she keeps secrets from Nick to supposedly protect herself. She has Nick running in circles, but doesn’t divulge anything to him so the romantic tension felt manufactured rather than organic. There was so much wishy-washy going on in Raquel’s head that I couldn’t find the bloodthirsty, tough, strong, unforgiving space pirate I was led to believe was there.

And then there was Nick, who was so beta that I have a hard time believing he could command respect from a group of well-seasoned space travelers. Or that they would even let him be the leader of a mission. This was one of the biggest problems I had with OUTS. The Collective assembled a group of former “spacers” that were out of work to get to a new planet. Were these people given heavy doses of drugs? Were they brainwashed? They accepted a man that they’ve never seen before, a man who has never been on a space craft, and has absolutely no experience, as their leader. I just couldn’t suspend quite this much disbelief.

Nick’s other beta problem? I couldn’t believe that an Alpha like Raquel would want a beta like Nick. Yes, he is now a captain, and yes, he somehow has the respect of people on three different ships. But his internal dialogue is painfully weak, his interaction with Raquel is based mostly on lust and fantasy, and his instant lust going to instant love weirded me out.

The romantic/erotic element wasn’t terrible, but there was so little actual physical interaction that I’d be pressed to call the book an erotic romance. Since I had such a hard time with Nick’s character, I ended up skimming a lot of the sexin’. Finally, the last chapter of the story barely made sense and felt tacked on as a wrap-up epilogue even though it wasn’t titled that way. I really wanted to love this but I just couldn’t; and due to the weakness of one of the foundation plotlines and my issues with the characters I’d have to rate this a D.

~ Shuzluva

Book Link | Kindle | Red Sage

REVIEW: Jaq’s Harp by Ella Drake

Jane — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 17:00:42 +0000

Dear Ms. Drake:

I don’t read a lot of futuristics but I’m trying to be more adventurous in my reading so when this Carina Press book popped up on NetGalley, I requested it. It’s a no risk proposition to try out new books via NetGalley. Jaq’s Harp is a short story with six chapters. I’m not sure if this would have been better in a longer format, but I did feel like I was missing important parts of the story. It was also one in which I thought the sex kind of got in the way (or maybe because the story was so short that sex scene took up important word space that could have been devoted to some other development of the storyline).

Jaq’s Harp is set in “a world of floating islands” where the wealthy live in clouds above the flatlanders. The owners of the corporations that inhabit the world above but pollute the world below have been the target of Mother organization which tries to inhibit and control the harm that trickles down. Jacqueline "Jaq" Robinson is an agent of Mother, part of GOoSE (Global Organization of Strategic Equity), taken off the streets at a young age to be trained. When her sister falls ill to a new disease created by Giant Corp., Jaq tosses away her next assignment and instead seeks out a way to infiltrate the clouds and obtain the antidote.

Another agent is working undercover at Giant Corp, an agent that Jaq had loved but who left her without warning one night. His name is Harp and is pretending to be a singer at Giant Corp while searching for evidence to bring down Giant Corp. and to recover anecdotes for diseases that Giant Corp is causing. Jaq can’t wait, though, because her sister is near death. Upon a visit to Monsieur Bovine, Jaq obtains a few magic beans that will create a way for her to climb to the clouds.

The riff off the Jack and the Beanstalk story was clever, but most of the story was told in a serious tone and failed to deliver on the sly humor that names like Monsieur Bovine; Harp, the singer; Giant Corp.; GOoSE; and the use of magic beans seemed to promise. There was a playfulness that I felt was intimated by the premise but never followed through on. Further, the reconciliation of Jaq and Harp didn’t fit well in the short confines of the story.

I was frustrated with Jaq’s impetuosity because I felt her “plan” to recover the antidote was really poorly thought out and that she never could have accomplished her mission on her own. This made me think less of her when I wanted her to be this really amazing super agent. In fact, the more that I read of the story, the more I realized what a poor idea Jaq’s plan truly was.

I almost think that this story would have worked better if Harp had been an agent that Jaq confronted for the first time and that they had feelings develop when Jaq tried to screw up Harp’s mission for her own purposes rather than a rekindling of a romance. The attempts to provide romantic tension took away from time that could have been spent fleshing out Jaq’s plan to save her sister instead of Jaq’s and Harp’s longing to get in each other’s pants. I also felt that having Harp’s point of view was almost unnecessary. Again, I chalk this up to the shortness of the story. In a compressed space, there was simply too much and, at the same time, not enough information provided to tie the competing story arcs together. C-

Best regards,

Jane

Book Link | Kindle | nook
| Sony| CarinaPress

REVIEW: Sureblood by Susan Grant

Shuzluva — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:00:06 +0000

Dear Ms. Grant,

I admit, with a certain amount of chagrin, that there was a time when I would gobble up any romance or story with romantic elements that was set in space. I think I once told someone “A hero farts in space? I’m there and A+!” and I meant every word.

But that was a long, long time ago…

And from then to now, there has been an explosion in space-themed romance (thank you authors, and hallelujah) so I no longer feel the desparate need to read every outer space/other space/other planet romance that hits the shelves. I did read both The Star King and The Star Prince and remember liking them. However, with TSP, I also recall being frustrated by a scene where the H/H had 30 seconds to live and managed to have the boink of a lifetime in an escape pod during that time. Not that I think a quickie is a bad thing…but for some reason, I think that was their first actual boot knockin’ session. Which brings me to Sureblood: the key term here is frustration.

As the daughter of the head of one of the strongest pirate clans in the Channels, Val Blue is determined to prove her worth when she takes a command position during a raid on a mining vessel. But the pirates aren’t only looting for cargo; they’re trying to keep other pirate clans from getting the goods first, which means that the Blues must beat the Surebloods to the punch when they raid the ship. The raid goes wrong and the Blue raiding party is forced to work with the Surebloods to make sure they all get out alive and escape with the booty. Val is drawn to Dake Sureblood, the leader of the Sureblood clan, like a robot to a black hole.

The Surebloods travel to the Blue’s planet to try to make peace and Val and Dake get it on during the festivities, even after numerous obstacles are thrown in their path. However, there is so much mistrust and resentment going on between all of the clans that you know this party isn’t going to have a happy ending. Before the last orgasmic shudder fades, all hell breaks loose and Dake is accused of killing Val’s father and Val is forced to assume a precarious leadership position. Dake leaves the planet to investigate a suspicious accident involving Val’s brother and Dake (this is not a spoiler; it’s on the back cover) is abducted by the Drakken, an imperialistic group of slave drivers conscripting soldiers for their cause.

While all this sounds very exciting, the pacing of the book is unbelievably slow, the villains (along with their motives and their next moves) are totally transparent, the heroine has a massive lack of growth and the hero spends at least 1/3 of the book in miserable captivity. I was ready to toss in the towel. At the point where Dake is abducted, I almost fainted when I realized that I had more than 200 pages left to read.

As a hero, Dake is actually great. He puts his clan before everything else and truly believes he can not just initiate change, but begin a new and prosperous era for the pirate clans by uniting them. He realizes that everyone isn’t just going to capitulate to his charisma, and I think one of the issues I have with him as a “leader” is that he doesn’t seem to realize that the odds of any of this working ar really against him due to the ingrained distrust between the clans, and doesn’t seek to find a way to prove himself or his clan. On the positive side, his feelings for Val never waver (sure, you say, she wasn’t the one that was kidnapped…but we’ll get there in a moment) even after having his life shredded by the Drakken.

Val made me want to throw up. Like Dake, she has blinders on too, but her tunnel vision is so limited to raiding that her mother could have killed her father and she wouldn’t notice that things might be slightly awry. She blindly trusts people, allows questionable clan members into positions of power and never investigates things. When Dake disappears, she automatically assumes that he left her high and dry…but NONE of the Surebloods show up after that, and Val and the Blues take rumor as fact that they’re still fighting for the same turf. For someone who is supposed to be a clan pirate captain, Val’s massive self doubts and total lack of leadership outside of a combat capacity should have crippled her and quickly forced her out of the position. I’m actually shocked that she didn’t turn into the warrior I expected, but rather a wimpy shadow of what she was. Perhaps that was the one surprise in the book. D

~ Shuzluva

REVIEW: Alien Revealed by Lilly Cain

Jane — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:00:22 +0000

Dear Ms. Cain:

I asked for all the erotic romances published by Carina Press in June because I have been desperate for a good erotic romance. I don’t know where they have all gone. Yours was sent to me with a number of others and I read all five in a row. Alien Revealed is about 100 pages long and is a futuristic. Because of its length, I think the story suffered in terms of sufficiency. What I mean by that is a futuristic requires world building and its hard, I think, to create a fully imagined future world and a great romance in under 100 pages.

Alinna Gaerrii is an Inarrii agent who was sent to observe humans on earth and report these findings back to her people in advance of treaty overtures the Inarrii would like to make. Her observation pod crashes near an understaffed military base which is currently playing host to Major David Brown and his team of pilots who were training for a Starforce mission. Brown’s team, however, must receive the okay from a psychtech. Brown’s base is informed of downed military crafts and is sent out to search, rescue and investigate.

So many questions arose. Like why did Brown only have command of pilots. Aren’t pilots trained to do one thing and there are other soldiers trained to do other things? Why would a bunch of pilots be sent for a search and investigation of a downed military aircraft? Wouldn’t that be better suited for people trained to actually conduct searches and investigations? I know that you mentioned that the station was understaffed but I admit I figured a crew would consist of some group of people other than just pilots.

When Brown and his inept crew of search, rescue and investigate arrive they find Alinna and immediately assume that she is Dr. MacPherson, the psychtech. If Brown and his crew are responsible for Earth safety, we are all doomed because even after Brown figures out that Alinna isn’t who she says she is, he still wants to bone her. (But she’s a good alien so all is well).

Alinna catches on quick and through her superior alien technology is able to hack into the base’s mainframe and download into her memory bank. Inarrii are touch sensitive creatures and can absorb people’s memories and thoughts.

Alinna is instantly attracted to Brown and finds that he could pass as an Inarrii if only he had the L’inar. Alinna is a highly sexual creature. Sex helps the telepathic Inarrii to relieve stress and control emotions. The L’inar are like veins that run around the body, forming tattoo like impressions on the skin and when the men are aroused, the lines rise in tight ridges. I found it a little incredible that something so distinctive to the Inarrii wouldn’t be a big deal in terms of attractiveness for Alinna. Growing up with a certain standard of beauty, one would think that an Inarrii would find those ridges to be a desirable trait and would actually miss those lines if they were missing. But Alinna doesn’t ever think about that. There was another point where David was running his hand over the curve of her buttocks, tracing her L’inar lines.

Unlike some Inarrii women, she had several stray lines curling over her ass cheeks to trial down to her sex from behind. Few Inarrii men thought to stroke them, and David’s touch delighted her and teased her with its primal focus.

I thought this was pretty unbelievable. A race of creatures who have sex all the time and whose L’inar are sexually stimulated wouldn’t have thought to trace all these lines on her body a hundred times? I get that we were supposed to see David as this superior being but these types of things actually reduce credibility of the story. Then there was the fact that Alinna had never heard of having anal. David had brought something new to her table. But really? Again, not believable.

Alinna and David engage in sex. First, though, its only dream sex. Then it is actual person to alien sex. And yes, it is hot and sexy but the conflict surrounding the story sped by at hyperspeed as so much is attempted to be shoehorned in such as Alinna’s backstory, the need for the Inarrii to connect with humans, the bad aliens who are attempted to destroy the Inarri (and other peaceful people). Some of the story is relayed through a convenient transfer of memories so we, the reader, are filled in on all kinds of information when Alinna obtains memories or thoughts through David or Alinna passes thoughts and memories to David.

There were too many questions that the worldbuilding left unanswered and the sexual attraction seemed more of necessity, particularly for Alinna, than one born out of love. I liked the voice and wonder if a full length novel would have resolved so many of the problems I had with this story. C-

Best regards,

Jane

REVIEW: Fantasy in Death by JD Robb

Janet — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:00:52 +0000

Dear Ms. Robb:

This is a difficult review for me to write, because something happens in Fantasy in Death that many will likely regard as insignificant, but which for me changed the series in a fundamental way. Several books ago, Jane noted that Eve did something at the end of Creation in Death that seemed completely out of character for her. Whether blip or character shift, only time would resolve, and for me, with this book, it's resolved in favor of a frustrating change in Eve's character. Readers who see Eve as any different or who don't find the change I see concerning will probably find Fantasy in Death a much more satisfying book than I did. Especially if they are enjoying the stronger mystery/procedural focus the series has recently acquired.

When techno boy wonder Bart Minnock is found dead in his locked holo room, burned, bloody, and alone except for the disk of the new game his up and coming company, U-Play, is readying for sale, the NYPSD and Eve Dallas are stumped. There was no sign of tampering with Bart's droid, his apartment, or the lock on the holo room, and no record of any visitors since he came home from work the previous day. As soon as the e-team tries to retrieve the game disk from the hard drive, it self-destructs, a safety measure Bart had in place to deter spying and stealing. How could a guy who seemed to have no enemies and whose biggest competition was the man who had generously helped Bart build his business (Roarke) be murdered? How could anyone actually get in that room to murder him?

These mysteries generally run one of two ways: Eve has a suspect in mind from the beginning and spends the book setting him/her/them up, or she is working to narrow down a broad field of suspects before revealing the killer near the end of the book. Fantasy in Death is of the second variety, and it is an effective suspense builder, as the way Bart died is so closely connected to who might have done it. From Bart's girlfriend to his three partners to game company competitors to the kids in his building who played various games with him, there are numerous people around Bart who could have been responsible, even though it is difficult to imagine anyone wanting a guy like Bart dead. Affable, honest, brilliant, non-threatening, and young, Bart is a rather unlikely murder victim. In fact, was it even murder that took his life?

For the past handful of books, I have been noting a decided shift toward a bigger emphasis on the mystery and police procedural aspects of the series. While Robb has always woven the relationship and mystery elements together, the past few books have featured Roarke and Eve working together on these cases, almost like partner detectives, with Roarke's own world-domination a footnote at best and any battles between them erupting in the context of the case or over a somewhat mundane issue. I will return in a bit to the main conflict between Eve and Roarke in this book, because it connects to my most substantial problem with Fantasy in Death, but in terms of their personal life more generally, Nadine's book launch is the primary "life event" featured in this book (and note that the book is launched in print hardcover!), allowing Trina to make her usual terrorizing appearance, Leonardo to design a fab dress for Eve, and the extended gang of friends to dress up and mingle at the launch party. These appearances are becoming routine (Eve feels compelled to say something nice about Mavis's baby Bella, Peabody gets to dress up and be complimented by Roarke, etc.), although they are reassuring in regard to series continuity.

As for the mystery, I actually guessed the method early on, although it took me a while to catch on to the responsible party. Fantasy in Death felt current to 2010 in its specific focus on gaming and on the changing technologies we are, even now, seeing around us. I have always wanted the more futuristic aspects of the In Death world to be more directly featured in the books (as they were in the beginning), and Fantasy in Death delivers on this a bit more than quite a few of the recent books have. I enjoyed all that quite well, and even though I caught on pretty quickly to what was going on, it was still fun to watch Eve's brain sift through various suspects and theories. I've always found her most compelling when she's in "cop mode," and there's a great deal of that in this book.

Where I had real issues was in the way Eve's moral compass, the aspect of her that has been so powerfully inflexible since the beginning of the series, has, in my opinion, gone inexplicably wonky (well, I think there is an explanation, but I'll get to that). I still remember the huge battle Eve and Roarke undertook in Purity in Death over whether "justice" as Eve or Roarke sees is should prevail over the limits of the law and Roarke tells her how "black and white" she is. Or when, later in the book, she makes a deal with a dirty cop who took the law into his own hands to bring down his confederates:

She looked away from him a moment because knowing she'd try for the deal made her sick. The greater good, she told herself. Sometimes justice couldn't sweep clean.

Or what about Conspiracy in Death when Eve temporarily loses her badge and is literally inconsolable because her respect for the law is so complete and her dedication to enforcing it so fundamental to her identity. How many times in the series has Eve taken a stand to do things the "right" way, from within the letter of the law? Dirty cops have disgusted her, cops who take the law into their own hands have enraged her, and she's made many hard choices out of respect for the law. Even her use of Roarke's unregistered equipment has made her feel conflicted, although that lessened once she was able to officially bring Roarke on board to her investigative team. Any mercy she has shown has been carried out within the letter of the law, even if it was at the very edge. So, a few books ago, when Eve stepped out of that moral absolutism in regard to a suspect it was extremely shocking to me. It seemed a very clear and abrupt change of direction for a character whose identity for more than 20 books has been consistent in regard to her respect for the law.

Whether that change was a blip has, in my mind at least, been settled by Fantasy in Death. And my belief now is that Eve has changed, and the change is a function of what I see as the new series focus, namely Eve and Roarke, married detectives. Here Roarke, runs a deep security check on his own employees, because of the close professional connection between his company and Bart Minnock's (yes, of course Roarke is developing new gaming technologies). Eve objects strenuously to this search, not so much because it violates police procedure but because he does so without telling her and being told by her to do it:

"Any data from your run has to coincide with mine, and officially come from mine whether it clears your whole crew or somebody bobs to the surface."

"I know how it works, Lieutenant. I'll just get back to it then, so you can have what you need and shift it back to your side of the line." . . .

She sat brooding into her wine. She didn't know, exactly, why they were at odds. They were doing basically the same thing for basically the same reason.

Basically.

But he should've let her do it, or waited until she'd assigned him to do it. And that probably grated. The assign portion. Couldn't be helped. She was the LT, she was the primary, she gave the damn orders.

Now she was passing aggravated and heading toward pissed, she realized.

She'd just been trying to shield him a little. Wasn't that her job, too? she thought in disgust as she rose. Part of the marriage deal? So why were they fighting when she'd done her job?

So Roarke's stepping outside the strict limits of the law is now merely a challenge to Eve's authority and a frustration of marital responsibilities? While I have always enjoyed the petty struggles Eve and Roarke engage in; I even enjoy the petty aspects of Eve's character – they help make her human and relatable. But the old Eve, in my opinion, would have been worried that Roarke was himself going to take the law into his own hands, not so much whether she should have assigned the work to Roarke first.

If, indeed, the series is moving more toward Eve and Roarke as a detective team, Roarke has to become more "official," and thus his often unorthodox methods have to become more "official," and I wonder if this is why Eve has taken a turn away from her previous stance of the law above all. It makes a certain sense that this would be the case, and certainly, spending two years married to Roarke has challenged many of Eve's previously unchallenged biases. However, for me, her fundamental respect of the law and its limits has been the most defining aspect of her character, and I fear that is going to be more and more undermined as the series – and Eve and Roarke's professional partnership – moves forward.

As far as the mystery and procedural aspects of Fantasy in Death are concerned, while I can never read the interrogation scenes without counting the Constitutional violations (and yes, I assume that a society that still has some version of Miranda hasn't substantially altered the Bill of Rights), I found the book moderately enjoyable. Not the best of the series, nor the worst. Somewhere between feeling engaged and entertained and wishing for a bit more fire and novelty in the series, or between a B- and a C+.

~Janet

This is a hardcover. The mass market release is set for July 2010.

REVIEW: Beyond the Shadows by Jess Granger

Shuzluva — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:00:36 +0000

Dear Ms. Granger,

Let’s face it: I love romance in space, having to do with space, or having the element of the alien (and I don’t mean Sigourney Weaver Alien). Nowadays it seems particularly hard to get past all of the vamps and shifters and move off (or into the future/alternate past/Star Wars) of this planet. Beyond the Shadows starts out in just the right place: a bar in a spaceport with a pissed off woman used to being in command:

“I am not going to pay some rankock-licking Earthlen scum for passage on a junked-together freight hauler that doesn't even look capable of ï¬‚ying through the atmosphere shield. When will another ship arrive?"

If Commander Yara wasn’t quite so desperate to get back to her home planet Azra, she probably would have given more than a passing thought to the fact that a major base only had one trade ship docked. However, Yara is next in line for the throne of Azra, a position she’s been training for from birth, and is willing to take whatever transport is available. She’s on a mission to prevent a war from breaking out on Azra, and Cyn is on a mission to get a war started.

Along with the other Azralen rebels, Cyn is determined to see change come to his home planet. He’s disgusted with the ruling Elite and their treatment of the lower classes. Disguised as an Earthlen trader, Cyn’s job is to keep Yara from Azra just long enough for the revolution to start. He’s immediately attracted to Yara but delights in playing the uncaring Earthlen trader that doesn’t need or want to respect her authority.

"Listen, you . . ."
"Rankock-licking Earthlen scum?" He tilted his head as he watched her. "I'll concede the Earthlen scum bit, but I draw the line at rankock licking. Licking rankocks isn't my idea of a good time, Pix."
[...] "I don't know who you think you are, but I am still a commander on this base. You will address me as such or I'll watch you rot in conï¬nement for a week."
The corner of his mouth twitched as he took another drink. "Yes, sir."
He placed the glass back on the table, never once breaking his eye contact. "I'm sorry. I don't take on passengers. You're out of luck." He leaned back into the shadows, giving her a reprieve from his gaze.
"Everyone has a price," she hissed, unable to contain her ire. Did he think he could just dismiss her? "Name yours."

Yara and Cyn’s tension-filled exchanges don’t stop at the spaceport. They constantly grapple for the upper hand, and Cyn comes to respect Yara in a way he didn’t expect, making his deception even more difficult than it already was. As they go on a space-roadtrip of sorts, the worldbuilding is incredibly strong, with shady (and disgusting) slave traders operating outside of Union boundaries, secondary characters that I can’t wait to read more about (I’m thinking of you Xan and Maxen) and richly drawn and described planets.

I don’t want to give too much away for those that are planning on reading this, the plotline builds strongly from each step in the story. Yara is an incredibly strong character, but she’s naÃ¯ve in nearly everything but the world of the Azralen Elite. The trip back to Azra opens her eyes to the universe around her, but doesn’t diminish her character or personality. Cyn is in a mess of his own making. Unable to reveal who he is to Yara, but unwilling to stay away from her, he realizes that she isn’t the Elite machine he believed her to be. To prevent Azra from collapsing under its own weight, Cyn knows that there must be change, and that change could end up costing lives.

The emotional and plot-based twists and turns in the last third of the book had me questioning how all of the issues were going to be resolved. There is no simple bow tied up on an “I love you”; while a few things are left by the wayside (perhaps to be picked up in the next book in the series), all of the major issues are addressed head-on and the end is as exciting as one could hope for a futuristic space opera. I am going back to read Beyond the Rain, the first in the series. B+

~Shuzluva

This is a trade paperback published by Berkley. It is not available in digital form that I can find except for in the iBookstore.

REVIEW: An Uncommon Whore by Belinda McBride

SarahF — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:12:03 +0000

Dear Ms. McBride.

The excerpt of this book on Loose Id really intrigued me. I liked the writing, I even liked the space opera set up. I was excited to read it. But the book itself is a book of missed opportunities. As I read it, all I could see was the idea struggling desperately but fruitlessly under the execution and that made me sad.

Pasha is a slave who can’t remember anything of his life and is alternately content as a slave and whore but also constantly trying to escape, to what he knows not. His reptilian owner (literally, not metaphorically) takes him to a space port to pimp him out and he sees a man he knows he has to connect with. Pasha’s owner plays cards with him while Pasha gives him a blowjob, and the man wins Pasha’s services for a night. The man, Griffin, reveals that Pasha is actually Helios Dayspring, the priest king of their displaced and war-ravaged people. Griffin, of course, has been looking for Helios for five years, ever since their people were exiled from their planet and Helios went missing. Now that Griffin has found Helios — and of course they are former lovers, too, and immediately restart that relationship — they do a little roaming around the galaxy for various reasons, including finding a way for Helios to get his memory back from under the control of the implanted slave microchip in his brain. They eventually make their way back to their new planet, where Helios takes his rightful place as king.

The plot is fine. The plot is all there. The plot is a little naive when it comes to interplanetary politics and the probable actions of vast mining corporations. The new planet on which Helios and Griffin’s people settled has vast resources of a crystal that can power cities. I find it very difficult to believe that this wouldn’t have been noted when the planet was first discovered. I also find it very difficult to believe that once this IS discovered by the rest of the galaxy, that the pastoral, idyllic vision of the future at the end of the book is at all believable. But the plot is…solid, with a few tweaks.

And the characters are great. Helios and Griffin have to get to know each other again, and have to negotiate the power dynamics of their relationship together. Helios has been changed by his slavery, but he also knows that he can survive pretty much anything. He knows that there is power in submitting (although this book is NOT a BDSM book at all), and power in companionship and he brings his new understandings to his new relationship with Griffin. I do NOT like, as I never do, that their exchange of “I love you” comes early, leaving little emotional conflict for the rest of the book, but their relationship dynamics are still interesting and well-thought-out.

In fact, everything’s well thought-out. It’s the execution that…is just boring, ordinary, meh. The idea is amazing! OMG, so interesting and brimming with possibilities. You could say incredible things about issues of slavery and power and companionship and loyalty. You could delve deeply into the minds of these men. They’ve suffered some truly awful things and have come out stronger and better and more realistic. But the execution is…throwing words on the page to tell the bare bones of the story. This book should be about 400 pages. Instead, it’s 122. This book should be an epic space opera with huge responsibilities. Instead it’s an erotic romance with a nifty premise. You could even KEEP the erotic stuff in. In fact, the erotic aspect of the story is perfect and integral to the plot and it would be a deep disservice to the story to get rid of it. But….oh, it’s like you’ve got this phantasmagorical image of a beautiful woman. It sparkles and shines in its beauty and depth and complexity, but it’s completely see-through, just air and dreams. And in front of you, all that is “real” of the woman’s beauty is a skull, bare bones and foundation, with no indication of the true beauty of the woman except for a haunting melancholy of loss and regret. That’s what I feel when I read this story, because it could be so brilliant but really, your writing is just not up to the task.

I love these characters. I love this idea and the possibilities of their story. But I’m so disappointed with this book.

Grade: C-

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased at Loose Id.

REVIEW: Blaze of Memory by Nalini Singh

Janine — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:00:06 +0000

Dear Ms. Singh,

Blaze of Memory begins shortly after Devraj Santos finds an unknown woman unconscious on his doorstep. Dev is the director of the Shine Foundation, an organization that assists the Forgotten and protects their children from those who would exploit their psychic powers.

For those who haven’t read the earlier books in the Psy/Changeling series, the Forgotten are the descendants of Psy who dropped out of the net that psychically links the members of that race. Those Psy intermarried with humans, and their descendants manifest psychic gifts that are frequently different from those of the Psy. Some of the high ranking Psy view the Forgotten as a threat, which is why they persecute them.

As director of the Shine Foundation, it is Dev’s role to put the Forgotten first at all times, and to do whatever is necessary to keep them from harm. Dev has a cold and ruthless side to his personality partly because of that, and partly because of his psy ability, which remains shrouded in mystery for much of the book but is said to involve metal. But despite his hard edges, Dev feels protective of anyone who has been abused, and the woman he finds on his doorstep clearly qualifies.

When she wakes up, the mystery woman does not remember anything, even her own name. She is also malnourished, and her amnesia appears to have been brought about by psychic tampering. But she is quickly identified as Ekaterina Haas, a former colleague of Ashaya, the heroine of Hostage to Pleasure.

Katya, as she renames herself, begins to remember bits and pieces of the psychic violation that has altered her and left her able to experience emotions. The visions come to her in nightmares, and she is not always able to retain the memories. One such nightmare reveals to the reader, but not to Dev or to Katya, that Katya is a sleeper agent whose mission is to infiltrate Shine and gather information on the children of the Forgotten and their abilities. After she has done so or attempted to do so, she is to kill Dev.

But although neither of them knows the exact details of her mission, both Katya and Dev are keenly aware that she may be programmed to do something treacherous. Katya asks Dev to kill her before he allows that to happen, and Dev agrees. It is in fact something he has already planned on, but Katya’s courage earns his admiration and makes the prospect of killing her even more painful.

Once Katya is well enough to leave her hospital bed, Dev insists that she come with him to his house in Vermont, since he can’t trust her not to harm the children he has sworn to protect. Although Katya knows that she may in fact be a sleeper agent, she feels a compulsion to head north. Katya is angry at finding herself an effective hostage when Dev denies her the freedom to leave. She is also offended by the fact that Dev distrusts her even when she is being completely honest.

But despite the tension between them, Dev and Katya can’t completely resist their growing attraction to one another, especially when Katya’s nightmare memories leave her in need of Dev’s comfort. They are uncertain about what the future holds for either of them, and everyone who observes them feels that their love is doomed.

Katya and Dev’s storylines are interspersed with hundred-year old letters written by a mother with Psy powers and addressed to her young son, Matthew. The letters chronicle the lives of the writer’s family through the implementation of Silence, the protocol that keeps the Psy from experiencing emotions but also prevents them from committing horrific crimes.

Also interspersed are logs from a place called Sunshine Station, where something bad happened, and scenes that involve the members of the Psy Council, some of which are becoming aware of a dark patch forming in the PsyNet, something that may prove dangerous to all the Psy.

The first third of the book was slow to engage me for the following reasons. First and foremost, Katya and Dev’s story felt a bit repetitive early on since their budding relationship keeps running into the wall of Dev’s justifiable distrust. I felt that in that section of the book, they were essentially arguing in circles.

Secondly, much of the information in the letters to Matthew is about the inception and early implementation of Silence, and this terrain has already been covered in earlier books in the series, albeit not from this perspective. I realize that some readers won’t have read the earlier books leading up to Blaze of Memory, but for the reader who has, there isn’t much that is new in the epistolary storyline.

Third, like the main plot, the subplot about the Sunshine Station takes a while to kick into higher gear. And lastly, we don’t visit much with the changeling characters until later on in the book. I have grown attached to those characters, and before they appeared, I missed seeing them.

However, in the second half the book really gathers momentum. Since to go into the details would involve spoilers, I’ll just say that the Sunshine Station subplot eventually grabbed this reader by the throat, changeling characters from previous books play a significant role in the second half, and most importantly, Katya and Dev’s relationship turns around. Their arduous, star-crossed path to a happy ending makes their relationship richer and deeper, and that makes reading about it very satisfying.

The ending of the book is very emotional, and although I’ve begun to detect a pattern in the endings of your last three books, it still got to me viscerally. I think I may have cried harder toward the end of this book than I ever have while reading your books.

While this book isn’t up there with my favorites in the series, Caressed by Ice and Branded by Fire, I still felt it was worth reading and would not hesitate to recommend it to readers. B for this one.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony on November 3.

REVIEW: Blade’s Edge by Val Roberts

Jane — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:00:07 +0000

Dear Ms. Roberts:

I am trying to climb onto the futuristic bandwagon so I was excited when I saw this book released from Samhain this week. While the story had potential and I found it readable, I ultimately came away disappointed.

Blademir, the Crown Heir to the throne of Barian, was sent on a diplomatic mission to Zona, a matriarchal society that had closed itself off to the rest of the planet. Zona grew out of a pleasure slave to Barin (how she grew to have her own culture I never really understood). Zona refused to advance technologically causing people living in its outer sphere to conduct raids into Barian land. Blade has been sent to Zona to convince the Matriarch that a little cooperation and trade could increase the standard of living for all Zonans.

Taryn Penthes is a Zonan Silvergard Commander. The Silvergard are the elite fighting squad charged with defending the Zonan. She is to escort the Bariani diplomatic team to the Lady Palace. The team gets ambushed and two members of the diplomatic team are killed and so is the Crown Prince’s Prime. Taryn recognizes she only has a few options. She must first spirit the remaining Bariani to the Jags, a rugged part of Bariani that borders Zona and she must make herself disappear. Once it comes out that she has killed the Crown Prince’s Prime, the only thing she will face in Zona is an execution squad.

Taryn Penthes is actually the twin sister of Talyn Penthes, the Crown Prince. Talyn was announced the heir presumptive at birth and to ensure her crown, Talyn attacked Taryn when they were 16 leading to a knife scar on Taryn’s face. Taryn left her family home and entered the Silvergard.

Blade was supposedly an intentionally dumb hero but this was one of the biggest plot disappointments of the book. Much can be down with the faux slow hero and yet here it’s just told to us in a series of accounts by Blade’s siblings to their father about how brilliant Blade really is.

The plot and character development was dropped down like a hammer. The Matriarch of Zona didn’t want her daughter, Taryn, to fall into the hands or be seduced by a Bariani for fear she would become a pleasure slave. Blade’s father, ruling of Bariana, didn’t want his son to fall in love with Taryn because Blade’s mother had been a Zonan woman who abandoned the family once it was revealed that Blade’s father was to be the next ruler.

Taryn’s friend Leone, and others however, saw that Taryn and Blade mating would unite the two countries and be beneficial to the planet becoming part of the Dozen Worlds.

The world building by contrast was doled out in drips and drabs. I would have much preferred an info dump and more delicacy given to the treatment of the plot and character development. For example, I am still stumped by the fact that the heir apparent in a Matriarchal culture was known as the Crown Prince particularly when you had a Lady Palace, the Temple of the Serene Mother and the ruler called the Matriarch. I was further confused about exactly what type of planet this is when at one moment Taryn is in a medical scanning tube that can tell that she has a low grade infection and 48 hours until her ovulation, but she’s given hydrocodone for pain. I never got the full story about how Zonan, an offshoot of Barian, came about. The Matriarchy was supposed to be descended from an Bariana pleasure slave but I missed how a pleasure slave could have escaped, claimed and held land long enough to create a parallel and competing society.

The sex scenes made me wonder exactly what I was being told. The first sex scene features the twin, the ostensible villain, having sex after being intentionally drugged. Just because she likes it afterward, doesn’t make it any less of a rape at the time. The scene seems clearly written to indicate that the drugs were overcoming any negation. The very next scene after this, not the very next sex scene, was the heroine having sex with the hero after getting totally blotto on a half a bottle of liquor.

What am I being told with the juxtaposition of those scenes? That sex under the influence isn’t just for villains anymore?

I think the philosophical underpinning of the story was two fold. First, together a man and a woman are stronger than separate. Zona and Barian represented two cultures and countries that, when united, presented a formidable force but apart could not enter the Dozen Worlds. Both cultures harbored misunderstandings and mis perceptions about the other leading to long estrangement which harmed both their people on a macro level and on a more personal level, both the children of the rulers of Zona and Barian were affected adversely.

The second philosophical push of the story was that men are always under the influence of women. One character says “Men marry their mothers” and this theme was reinforced by later actions. In this, I thought perhaps I was being told that no matter the political system, women always held some amount of power over men, particularly in the form of influence.

The book turned a great deal for the better in the second half as Blade comes to recognize that the very caveman like tendencies he wanted to exert would only feed the preconceptions that Zonan women, like Taryn, had of Barian and its culture.

Ultimately, I would like to read more in this world and by you but I hope to have fewer regrets with my next book. There were great ideas in this story. C

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at Books on Board in ebook format or other etailers.

Tuesday Midday Links:

Jane — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:00:14 +0000

I have to go to the dentist today for an aching tooth. Yes, my hardliving consisting of peanut m&ms and Mountain Dew is catching up with me. That’s some real news I know you all were dying to read.

DNAML, a company with more consonants than sense, is selling a PDF to ePub converter. This would be great if we knew how well it worked but alas, DNAML doesn’t believe in trial versions of its software. It’s $99 if you want to take the chance.

Laura Benedict explores the advantages and dangers of the free giveaway.

Technology gives us the ultimate democracy. Ultimate freedom. Anyone can be an artist. Put the work out there and you, too, can be judged in the marketplace of ideas. As long as you don’t plan on making a living at it.

Rupert Murdoch has begun to charge for the Wall Street Journal’s mobile content. In an interview, Murdoch sounds positive about the future of journalism.

Almost in every property at the moment [there is] a slight lift," Mr Murdoch said. "It’s very much better than it was a couple of months ago. It’s everywhere," he added, highlighting an 8 per cent fall in revenues at News Corp’s television stations in September, compared with an expected 20 per cent decline for the year to date.

Murdoch is convinced that moving to digital will reduce costs because there will be no unions (the printing unions are apparently killing him), no paper, no printing plants. I’m not as convinced as Murdoch that the costs of journalism will decrease so dramatically but it’s nice to see him have a positive outlook, right?

Ariana Huffington will be launching a book section to the Huffington Post and a new book club. It’s highly unlikely that romance will ever star in Huffington’s new book club. In a bid for legitimacy, the only appropriate action is to condemn the genres and go straight for the literature books with a capital L. Huffington will be partnering with New York Review of Books. The editor of the site is Amy Hertz, a Penguin editor for the Dutton division.

Gizmodo links to an article on Transhumanists and their opinion of the future of sex. Basically virtual reality will destroy physical relationships. The future is either full of woe or WHOA depending on your point of view.

REVIEW: Beyond the Rain by Jess Granger

Jane — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:00:35 +0000

Dear Ms. Granger:

I didn’t have Beyond the Rain as a recommended read this month just becauseit was a science fiction romance but it did play a part. There are few of these types of books published within the genre. You did a great job of creating not just one different culture but two and allowing those two cultures to provide the conflict for the romance.

Captain Cyani is on her final mission for the Union. She is to rescue the Union soldiers and when she returns to her planet, Azra, she can resign and live a life of isolated meditation. Yet even as Cyani longs for peace, she is conflicted about being alone. The portrayal of Cyani as a loner was a bit odd given that she had been part of an elite military team and had devoted troops under her. ”She’d done her best to keep them safe in the five years they’d fought together.” Did she not consider her comrades as friends, brothers and sisters in arms?

As Captain Cyani gathers up the soldiers, one other unknown prisoner is found in the compound by her pet and scout, a fox named Vicca. Cyani can’t leave until she gets Vicca because Vicca’s collar holds sensitive information. Upon entering the far part of the compound, Cyani finds a naked man chained to the wall, obviously the subject of great torture. She finds that she cannot leave him there to suffer further torture at the hands of the Garulen. According to her com, the life form is a Byralen. The com has sketchy information for her. Byralen have dark stripes on their shoulders and arms and have hair streaked with different shades. Contact is to be avoided if possible because prolonged contact with a Byralen can lead to “altered states of consciousness.”

Soren was captured years ago, so long that he cannot remember, and held prisoner of the Garulen. He has been drugged with stimulants, almost constantly, so that a hormone that his body produces can be harvested. The hormone is the basis of a drug the Garulen manufacture, a highly addictive drug. The Byralen produce this hormone when in physical contact with their spouse or mate. It makes them fertile and is part of their natural reproduction methods. Because Soren has been drugged and unnaturally producing the hormone, without the drug, Soren’s Byralen body will fail him.

More is learned about the Byralens as we progress into the book. In fact, part of the mystery is who and what they are and how Soren came to be abducted.

World building strongly affected the conflict. Cyani was from a warring nation but a peacekeeper, nonetheless. Her lifestyle was completely different than Soren’s, a people of nurturers, healing, and growth. Cultural differences are great sources of discord and can provide both emotional tension but also comic relief. Her advanced technology tells Cyani a few things about the Byralen people including that their eyes can hypnotize you and that they emit sexual pheromones that contain highly addictive properties. When Cyani begins to have a sexual response to Soren, something she’s never felt before, she believes it is because of his pheromones and when she can’t stop thinking about his body and the way that he feels, she believes that she is becoming addicted to him. It was interesting and amusing to see how the incomplete intelligence her people had on the Byralen kept leading her to wrong assumptions (and convenient excuses). It also showed how incomplete intelligence could create massive misunderstandings between disparate cultures in a much more dangerous way.

There are only a few sex scenes in the book but I really loved how intricately they were intertwined with the storyline. The first sex scene was quite beautiful given that it is a revelatory experience for Cyani who had not experienced the loving touch of another being for so long.

I did think that the book moved a bit slow at times as you carefully detailed the world. I would have liked a bit more action and less introspection. While I appreciated the specificity of the different cultures, I think it was almost too descriptive at times. Further, toward the end, a secondary character was introduced and this tangent was clearly for sequel building.

I was disappointed at the ending. She had been a warrior and I know that she sought peace and tranquility after years of fighting but I felt that she was defanged a bit. This was due, in part, to the fact that her desire for peace and a life away from battle wasn’t emphasized enough in the latter chapters. That goal that seemed prominent in the introduction fell away with part of the suspense and seemed at odds with her instinctive desire to protect and defend, particularly given the revelations that come to light.

This is an accessible science fiction romance and for those who love in depth world building centered around a romance, it’s a good read. I wish it weren’t in trade so that it would be financially more accessible to others. B-

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at Amazon. No ebook yet.

REVIEW: Pleasure 2035 by Cameo Brown

Jane — Mon, 25 May 2009 18:23:52 +0000

Notice: The whole review is really a summary of what the fuckedness so if you plan to read the book and don’t want to be spoiled, click away.

Dear Readers:

I can’t remember who chose this book for me to read during #RRTheatre (wherein I roast bad porn) but the premise was “have sex or die.” We thought that the plot promised some hijinks at least. Grammatically this Ravenous book wasn’t as poor as previous titles, but the editing was still abysmal. I had a feeling that this was supposed to be some kind of campy send up of futuristics but because it lacked any coherency, it was just a mess inducing unintentionally hilarious moments.

The basics of the worldbuilding that I could glean from the story is this. There was a Great Fall and society split into Blacks and Blues. Blacks were more technoliterate and Blues had more money. There was a renewable energy source namd pilox that was the subject of much dissension between the Blues and Blacks. There is a revolutionary group that no one knows about and there is the ability to infect someone with vampirism as well as the ability to cure it by creating a serum from a pregnant woman, although it destroys the fetus.

The story opens with our heroine (and I use this term very loosely as there is little heroic about these characters), Mayflower, in a three by six foot box designed for pleasure bots. Mayflower is pretending to be a pleasure synth. She is awaiting Klyper Corporation to pick her up and return her to her warehouse where she can return to someone named “Dime”. While she is waiting, the door of her unit opens and a man wrenches her out. He informs her that she will spread her thighs for him or they’ll both be dead.

Jovinius Markus Artinuous doesn’t buy Mayflower’s acting job and warns her “if you don’t do as I say when my clients get here, I’ll rip your fucking head off and shove it up your ass. Do you understand, Synthia?” There is no real explanation for why Mayflower is in this box designed for pleasure bots or why it is attached to Jove/Mark’s apartment. There is no real explanation for why Jove/Mark is a male prostitute/gigolo. Nor is there any real coherent worldbuilding. It is important that I lay out these precepts early on so that farther into the review when readers might ask “why”, they can answer their own query with “It’s RRTheatre”.

Mayflower is both excited and terrified by this assault. Her terror stems from her mistaken belief that Jove/Mark might be a synthbot. A synthbot is characterized by “his strength, his unusual good looks, his large cock, the freaky name, and his bad manners.” But Jove/Mark is not a synthbot. He is something else and when he kissed her jugular, her “pussy twitched” in response. She gives her tacit agreement to perform for these clients of Jove/Mark’s with the proviso that he not show them her “tits.” Mayflower, you see, has only one nipple.

Mayflower and Jove/Mark engage in sexual congress in front of Jove/Mark’s clients, the Dostens. Dostens are lithac traders. Lithac is a potent, addictive drug which apparently turns people into mindless children. Witness, for example, the behavior of drugged out Mrs. Dosten:

“I want you to lick her pussy, then fuck her “til she screams,” Janis blurted, ending her words with a giddy giggle.

and

“I’m horny! I’m horny!” she chanted, her head rolling this way and that as if she alternately searched something on the ceiling and all four walls.

Despite actually being at Jove/Mark’s place for watching and then having sex, Mr. Dosten is thoroughly disgusted with his wife and proceeds to slap her. This pushes Jove/Mark to get on with the show. He realizes that his instincts were correct when he smells her arousal.

She’d almost convinced him, but pussies don’t lie. They don’t cry either, unless they’re excited, and hers wept.

Pussy wept. Good thing that Mayflower responds to threats of violence and enjoys fucking strangers for voyeurs. Pussies aren’t the only thing that weeps. “Mr. Dosten’s erection dripped.” “His erection dripped down her thigh, eliciting a burst of her own woman’s cream.” “A burst of her woman’s cream spilled down her thighs…” “…come filling her and dripping between them onto the sheets.” “Mark erupted inside her, his come gushing down her thighs.” “…as more cream dripped from her swollen pussy.” “Mayflower’s body ached…her pussy dripped.”

Mark/Jove are so good together that Mr. Dosten cannot wait for his turn. This enrages Mark/Jove and he physically prevents Mr. Dosten from touching Mayflower. A scrap ensues wherein Mrs. Dosten jumps on Mark/Jove’s side and then he feels a “creamy liquid cascading down his side.” This description made me think that Mrs. Dosten may have leaked all over Mark/Jove. Someone on twitter suggested that it was blood and that Mark/Jove may have had different colored blood. This was dispelled by a later passage that described his blood as “ruby”. Make of this what you will. (Screencap).

Mayflower saves the day by pushing the Dostens into the Synthbox and pressing “WASH” which essentially kills them. The only concern Mark/Jove has regarding this is the bodyguard of the Dostens. Mayflower whisks Mark/Jove away to her warehouse by calling an ambulance and then getting the ambulance to leave them at her warehouse. I know that this might raise questions but I’m telling you to refer to previous paragraph in which I explained that there is no explanation for many of these things.

Mayflower has to give a blowjob and have sex with someone she has watch over her friend “Dime” who is called “Dime” because “Well, they used to joke about how Dime’s thoughts were worth at least nine cents more, hence his name.” Dime is a mentally challenged young man whose dialogue consists of “”Maaaaaaaaaafloooooooooooer,” Dime screamed in one of his random outbursts”. Don’t feel bad for him though because Dime gets to have sex and Mayflower even peeks at his sexual activities with maternal pride. Mark/Jove can tell that Mayflower is just faking her orgasm with this other person because she isn’t using her nails to scratch her john like she did when Mark/Jove and she were having sex.

Mayflower and Mark/Jove eventually go to a revolutionary camp. The revolutionaries are gearing up for a battle to bring peace between the two warring factions of Blues and Blacks. “He recognized Rocky, Melanchor, and Selena, leaders of the hard-fought revolution that no one seemed to know existed.” INORITE? A revolution that is so ineffective no one knows it exists? It gets better. When Rocky, Melanchor, Selena go off to battle, they return after three hours because a peace accord had already been worked out between the Blues and the Blacks. The revolution was for naught. !!!!! !!!!!

The book ends with Mayflower revealing that her left nipple was excised “per policy” when she was attacked and left for dead. The nipple stores all the information from her attack. Mayflower put her nipple in a necklace which she then gave to Dime. Yes, she gave her nipple in a “smooth silver box with rounded edges” to Dime to wear around his neck. Fortunately, they were able to reattach her nipple and all her memories were restored. This leads Mayflower to realize that her death was setup by her sister and exhusband. She returns to the Blue side to confront her sister, have sex with her ex-husband so that she could capture his DNA, and obtain revenge. Yes, hair or saliva samples aren’t sufficient, only sperm in one’s box can achieve perfect identification.

There is so much I left out in this review like the fact that Mark/Jove is a “Return”, a vampire cured of his vampirism but I leave you with my favorite line of the book:

She could tell the real man in front of her wanted her, because he told her so. “I want you,” he whispered (Screencap)

Best regards,

Jane

You can purchase this book at Ravenous Romance.

REVIEW: Promises in Death by J.D. Robb

Janet — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:00:34 +0000

Dear Ms. Robb:

I have had an up and down relationship with the In Death books since the series went hardcover. Happily for me, Promises in Death marks an upswing, an effective blending of the police procedural and personal aspects of Eve Dallas’s life and a particularly moving storyline featuring everyone’s favorite ME, Morris.

When Eve is called to a homicide scene in an apartment basement, she is shocked to find fellow cop and current Morris squeeze Amaryllis Coltraine the victim. Stunned to death with her own weapon, stripped and divested of her ID and weaponry, and left on the cement basement floor of her own building, Coltraine offers very few clues about what happened and why. Was it a rat? Was it someone she helped put away? Was it another cop? No matter who ended Coltraine’s life, her death is particularly difficult for Eve. Not only does she have to tell Morris what happened and pry into their relationship for clues, but she also has to look at other cops as possible suspects and deal with the resentment of Coltraine’s own squad, who are shut out of the investigation, except as subjects for questioning. As Eve works to unravel the answer to this mystery, she is under the additional pressure of hosting Louise’s bridal shower at her home, which will involve a slumber-party invasion of virtually all the women in Eve’s circle, including the dreaded Trina. And since Roarke will be accompanying the men to Vegas for a bachelor party, Eve will be on her own for the shower. Which makes it a toss up as to what is scarier: not figuring out who killed Coltraine or playing hostess for a girly-girl party.

One of my difficulties with some of the more recent books in this series has been the integration of the police procedural aspects and the personal aspects of Eve and Roarke’s life. Or the lack thereof. In Promises in Death, though, I felt that there was a nice balance between these two elements of the book, perhaps because the involvement of Morris created a natural bridge between the two. Because of Amaryllis’s relationship with Morris, and because she was a cop, Eve feels particularly invested in this case, and she finds herself having to work as cop and supportive friend simultaneously. It is a sign of Eve’s growth as a character that she does not run screaming from the more human aspects of her work here, even as she flails a bit in trying to offer comfort to Morris:

“God. Oh, God, it was horrible. The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. It made me sick inside, just sick to knock on his door. To know I was about to break a friend in two. I have to find the answers for him. It’s more than a job.”

Eve’s struggle, though, strikes true to the short time she has been circulating more deliberately in the world of human emotion, and I appreciate that, because I am one of those readers who is wary of rapid progress in Eve’s character. Since my reading timeline for the series is close to Eve and Roarke’s relationship timeline, I am not in a hurry for Eve to get it together and settle down into marital normalcy. I like the fact that she’s still kind of clueless emotionally. For example, when Coltraine’s death brings up the issue of safety, Eve is shocked to find out that Roarke is afraid for her nearly all the time:

“I’m careful.”

He gave her a look filled with amusement and frustration. “You’re smart,” he corrected, “you’re skilled. But not always as careful as you might be. I married a cop.”

“I told you not to.”

While I realize that not all the books in the series will allow for this kind of interweaving, it really works here, because so many of the core issues between Eve and Roarke are implicated in the investigation, and Eve is beginning to understand how her independence affects Roarke in ways she cannot really change but that are important to recognize. By the same token, the balance of power between them relative to the care-taking is more overtly confronted, with Eve trying, in her own way, to pay Roarke back for his attentiveness.

“I was going to do it – get dinner, I mean.   One of the fancy things you like, because – Hell.” . . .   “I can’t pay you back with sex or salt-crusted sea bass or whatever because you’re too busy taking care of me.   So now I’ve got this black mark in my column against the bright shiny star in yours, and – ”

He tipped her head up.   “Are we keeping score?”

“No.   Maybe.   Shit”

“How am I doing?”

“Undisputed champ.”

“Good.   I like to win.”

This gentle sparring, the natural competition between Roarke and Eve, is characteristic to their relationship from the start, and it is effective here, as well, because it allows them to work around some of the deeper emotional issues between them without creating too much discomfort. That discomfort is commonly associated with Eve, but in Promises in Death we are seeing some of Roarke’s issues more clearly, too – his need to remain in control, the compensation for his fear of losing Eve, the logic behind his sometimes not so gentle coercion of Eve, the man who hates to lose at and to anything, including his wife. Although I wish more of Roarke’s psyche would be mined through these books, I think we are getting to see more pieces of his character, balancing out some the idea that Eve is screwed up while Roarke is perfect. I have never found him to be perfect, and have always felt he was pretty controlling, so I am glad that we are starting to see this part of him more clearly addressed.

One other thing that Promises in Death does really well is that it allows for the secondary characters to move through the book without too much artificiality. The hilarity of the bridal shower, complete with Peabody’s “party pajamas,” bellinis, a drunken comparative analysis of the sexual satisfaction McNab, Leonardo, Dennis Mira, and Roarke can deliver, Mavis’s baby, and even the scary Trina, seems totally unforced. For a moment, Eve even thinks that she and Trina might have a shot at a civilized relationship as Trina gives Louise props for being able to fall in love and marry a former LC:

Just as Eve relaxed, as she considered there might be some skinny patch of common ground here, Trina turned, and her eyes went to slits.   “Now what the fuck have you done to my hair?   Hacked at it, didn’t you?   Just couldn’t let it alone or call me in to deal?”

“I didn’t – I only.   It’s my hair.”

“Not once I put the scissors to it, sister.   You’re lucky I’m a genius and a humanitarian.   I’ll fix it, and I won’t shave it bald down the center to make my point.”

Even Summerset has some good moments that transcend the standard bickering with Eve at the front door. And despite the lighter moments in the book, the elements of the story involving Morris are touching and emotional without being maudlin. Eve does not do sentimental well, and in this book, there is a good balance between fostering her emotional growth and not pushing too hard for her to be more open. I must confess that I skipped the two (I think there were two) sex scenes between Eve and Roarke, because I always feel I’ve read them a hundred times, and the language just tends to get a little too purple for me. I started to read the first one and realized that it was better if I just closed the door on the lovers and left them to their privacy.

As for the murder plot, I guessed the who and part of the why pretty early on, but I don’t really hold that against the book because I see the series as Romance with a side of suspense and don’t expect to be surprised by the killer’s identity. However it was interesting in this book, because a name from Roarke and Eve’s past emerges in a way that adds another layer of personal importance to Amaryllis Coltraine’s death, and there were some solid tie-backs to several earlier books and plot lines, creating a nice sense of series consistency. Eve is still dealing with the implications of a choice she made in an earlier book, and since I saw that choice as uncharacteristic, I am still not comfortable with the way this scenario is playing out. In the same way that Eve is making slow progress in shedding more than 20 years of trauma, I find it hard to believe that she was able to shed a similarly embedded belief in the law as the final arbiter of justice. It is this part of the series, the way in which Eve is still negotiating the grayness of Roarke’s moral code with the black and white nature of hers that I find to be the most problematic, the most un-nuanced aspect of her character evolution. Also, it feels more and more like Eve is virtually unchecked in the authority she has, despite the involvement of Cher Reno in securing warrants and making the case stick. To me, one of the uninvestigated conflicts in the books emerges from Eve’s commitment to the rules and the sometimes seemingly absent checks in the In Death world of law enforcement.

However, none of that was not enough to ruin my enjoyment of Promises in Death, which provided me with an extremely satisfying sojourn into the world of some of my favorite fictional characters. With a big dose of sorrow and a large dollop of celebration, this book worked the whole emotional gamut and made some nice connections to past books. A definite B+ for me.

~ Janet

This book can be purchased in hard cover from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.

REVIEW: Mercenary by Trista Ann Michaels

Jane — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 21:00:40 +0000

Dear Ms. Michaels:

I think I bought this book because I wanted to read a science fiction space opera fantasy romance thingy or I may have bought it because someone recommended you, as an author, to me. One of the two. I’m thinking it was the latter because as I re-read the blurb at Fictionwise, it didn’t really match how I perceived the book.

Kiley, the daughter of King of Shaba of Delnista, is a very spoiled and headstrong young princess who manages to get herself captured and her chaperone killed by a sex slave trader. Kiley is about to be auctioned off when Lucien, Captain Amanpour, is requested to go and save her as a favor to Kiley’s father. Kiley’s planet is a peaceful one and doesn’t have a military force that could be deployed to save her and Delnista is forced to seek the services of a mercenary. Lucien pretends to buy Kiley but her attitude fires Lucien’s desire. He likes a little resistance to overcome and Kiley looks like an enjoyable battle.

Initially, Kiley bothered me because she showed little remorse for her actions nor did she show much of a significant emotional injury from having her chaperone killed because of Kiley’s own reckless behavior or for what she believes is her sale into sexual slavery. Instead, Kiley is turned on, albeit against her better judgment by this man who treats her as if she exists to pleasure him in all the ways he orders her to.

Lucien is excited by her anger, her resistance and intentionally acts in a manner designed to be provocative and to generate the kind of response he wants from Kiley such as her incensed responsed when he left her a slave collar to wear. Lucien’s enjoyment is heightened by sharing Kiley with his first mate, Syeer. They three of them enjoy a number of dom/sub games on the way to delivering Kiley to Delnista.

The emotional conflict arises because Kiley is a princess and Lucien isn’t currently of a status to marry her. There is an assumption that takes place, without exploration, that Kiley can only marry a royal. This allows Lucien’s abdication of his right to his own throne to be a powerful impediment to Kiley and Lucien being together.

I did feel that the first mate, Syeer, wasn’t well integrated into the love story. He was like an extra, with as much emotional involvement as a sex toy, really, which makes the threesome story seem gratuitous. (As an aside, I wondered why Syeer had such an odd name but not the principals: Lucien and Kiley).

As for the space aspects, so much of the time is spent in the bedroom, that we don’t really get a good sense of the worldbuilding. It wasn’t wallpaper exactly, but it wasn’t a fully integrated space fantasy either.

Kiley did appear to grow over the course of the book, accepting that her actions had consequences which imperiled her planet. She learned what her sexual preferences where and how to exert her power as a submissive over Lucien. Lucien had a sardonic mien which made his dominance less overbearing than the ordinary alpha male. His dom position was less of a necessity and more a role that he enjoyed playing and one that fired him up. The sexual parts of the book was good and the plot, while a bit thin, was serviceable. Overall, it was an enjoyable romp but one that didn’t have much of an emotional impact. C

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased in ebook form from Fictionwise.

REVIEW: Feral by Nathalie Gray

Jane — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:00:21 +0000

Dear Ms. Gray:

I can’t recall why I wanted to read a book of yours. Was it a comment you made? Somewhere? It’s hard to say. I mentioned one night on Twitter that I was going to buy one of your books (Damnation) but my friend, Nicole of BlogHappy, twittered back that I should try Feral. So I bought both books and here are my somewhat incoherent thoughts. I have to admit up front that I don’t know how much sense my review will make because I was hardly able to articulate why I didn’t love this book.

First, this book is a space opera in the vein of a Linnea Sinclair or perhaps, Ann Aguirre. Spy and assassin, Eva Grigorevna Serova, is sent on a mission to retrieve a digital transmission. She doesn’t know what is on the transmission, only that she should find it and bring it to Prime Minister Vonatos of the Global Alliance of Nations. Oh, and she should eliminate the entire team that she is working with once the digital transmission is recovered.

The team is comprised of a number of lycanthropes. Lycanthropes are deemed to be viscious, sub-human types.

Poor buggers. And all because of some long-dead mad scientists’ dream of creating tougher humans for the harsh environments outside Earth. She wondered if they’d lived to see their "creation" become a hush-hush weapon, a state shame. And now a menace.

Despite Eva believing that these lycanthropes were a mad scientist creation that she deems to be “poor buggers” she has no problem recognizing that the lead of the team, Dex Solomon, stirs her libido. This seemed a bit off to me. If Eva believed, had a bias against lycanthropes, as equal members of society, would she really be so willing to shed her clothing and engage in the beast with two humps with the science created animal? I know I am supposed to believe that Eva is without conscience, but wouldn’t she have some hesitation to being physically attracted to a lycanthrope?

In any event, Eva finds the time to bed Solomon, find the chip, and then face the dilemma of executing her orders. In the same space of time, Solomon discovers there is a traitor in their midst and while he is off humping Eva, the mission is going to hell in a handbasket.

Eva, ironically, is more feral than Solomon. Initially she’s willing to do anything for survival but she is in no way heroic from the start. After all, she is willing to accept any assignment regardless of how morally bankrupt it is and not for any reason such as patriotism or revenge, but just because. It’s not that I found Eva to be dislikeable, but that her amoralness is so suddenly transformed. And her amoralness never really fit with being part of a structured governmental outfit. Did she have any belief or direction? Was she merely an automaton? a weapon of female destruction? I couldn’t get a fix on her other than she liked her sex to hurt.

As for Solomon, he was standard hero issue. A big bad alpha who didn’t like to hurt women. Seriously, his entire character arc was devoted to his fear of hurting Eva, particularly when they were sexxing it up when he was shifted, even though there was plenty of evidence that Eva liked it when he went shifted. Eva, with her moral ambiguity, was far more interesting than Solomon, a hero who has starred in an overwhelming number of romances before.

Another thing that I found curious was that there were quite a few action scenes in this book but I found myself bored. I struggled to explain this to even myself so I don’t know how much success I’ll have here. I felt disconnected to the fight scenes and many times, I wasn’t even sure what had taken place, only that after the smoke cleared Eva and Solomon would run off to burn up their adrenaline.

Nicole really enjoyed this book and it seemed to have all the elements of a story that I would like too. I’m still reading Damnation since I already bought it and everything. C

Best regards

Jane

This ebook can only be purchased at Ellora’s Cave.

Thoughts About Futuristics Poll

Jane — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:11:27 +0000

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

I have a not very well thought out irk that I wanted to throw out there. One issue I have with futuristics, particularly ones that depict the end of our current civilization due to various reasons whether it be war, natural resource depletion (which would likely lead to war), population overcrowding (probably linked to natural resource depletion), disease, etc., is the governmental formation of these future worlds.

If they are post Earth, what is the likelihood that these governments would be democractic in any way? Wouldn’t it be more likely that future worlds formed after the demise of “earth” would actually reject the way in which the First World countries ran things (i.e., some form of democracy) due to the belief, rightly or wrongly, that the “old” form of running things led to natural resource waste, failure of population control, and so forth?

I guess this should be some form of poll question, but it seems to me that the way in which the government/ruling class of futuristic, or even paranormal or high fantasy, should be addressed in regards to why/how it is different. Lois McMaster Bujold once called the SFF genre as being a political fantasy. Is that important to you as a reader?

REVIEW: Dark Light by Jayne Castle

Jane — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 17:00:33 +0000

Dear Ms. Castle:

>I haven’t read all your Harmony stories but I admit to enjoying them quite a bit even though, at times, I have felt like they were futuristic lite. Maybe I was just in a good mood when I read this one, but the story worked for me this time.

Sierra McIntyre, daughter of the wealthy McIntyre family, moved from Cadence to Crystal City in order to leave behind a somewhat checkered past and lay low. Sierra got a job as a tabloid journalist and becomes intent on exposing the Guild secrets. The Guild is an order somewhat akin to a feudal type system. The Guild has financial power and military might via the ghost hunters that are part of the Guild. At the head of a Guild is a Guild Boss who has climbed to the top via physical might or political prowess or a combination of both. The newest Crystal City Guild Boss is John Fontana. Sierra is granted an interview of Fontana to investigate the Guild and the suspicious death of the Guild’s previous boss.

Fontana has investigated Sierra because her tabloid exposes about the Guild actually hit very close to the truth. She knows something about a Guild run drug operation and he needs that information. He wants her to join forces with him to ferret out the distributors/suppliers. When he meets her, a sense of urgency strikes him and he recognizes in her something that connects fiercely with his own core. He tells her that she can get exclusive but only if she enters into a Marriage of Convenience.

Sierra can’t deny the magnetism of Fontana nor can she turn away from the opportunity to obtain information regarding the secret Guilds. As with any drug operation, though, there are individuals who don’t want their money stream to be cut off which means Sierra and Fontana must be eliminated.

Before I go into any analysis of the book, let me first admit that I have complained in the past couple of weeks about the sameness of some of the books I’ve read. Certainly, these Castle novels and all Quick/Krentz/Castle books feature a similar formula with mostly the same protagonist archetypes. I’m not sure I can articulate why one book from an author works and another does not. For example, my response to Ghost Hunter was so apathetic, I had no desire to read Silver Master, last year’s Harmony release. After reading Dark Light, though, it encouraged me to look in my TBR to see if I had Silver Master.

This is standard Krentz fare and for long time readers of Krentz, they’ll recognize Sierra as the familial misfit. Her family is quite wealthy and all very successful. Sierra, however, has flitted from job to job, not finding the right niche until she comes to the tabloid. Fontana is related to a powerful family too, but he is the bastard and therefore an outsider in a different way. The attraction that Sierra and Fontana have is instantaneous and identified with the help of their psychic powers. Perhaps these psychic powers are akin to the wolf true mate theorem.

I’ve had some dilemma as to assessing the world building. At times, it feels that the paranormal details seem to be more of a backdrop even though there it is implemented at nearly every stage such as the social structure, to use of colloquial epithets, to customs and nature of the individuals. It is, like the JD Robb series, more really a futuristic culture based on human/earth mores than an entirely new and different world.

It’s hard to grade this book. It’s competently written, entertaining, with a tight plot but very little character development. I don’t feel like there’s a lot of growth in the writing, i.e., I’ve read this book since the early 90s under titles like Sweet Fortune, but the book was a quick read. If I had never read a Krentz book before, I think I would grade it a B-.

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or Powells or ebook format.

2001 Space Odyssey Author, Arthur C Clarke Dies

Jane — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:42:16 +0000

Possibly one of the most famous authors of our generation has died. Arthur Clarke, author of the short story Sentinel which spawned the Kubrik collaboration, 2001 Space Odyssey, died in Sri Lanka today (tomorrow in Sri Lanka). Related posts: Pulitzer Prize winning author Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. dies Long Time Harlequin Author Dies International Author [...] Related posts:

GUEST REVIEW: Grimspace by Ann Aguirre

Jane — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:00:29 +0000

Dear Jane,

Thank you for inviting me to write this review of Ann Aguirre’s Grimspace. After reading your review last month I was eager to read this and even more delighted to win one of the 20 ARCs you gave away. I am happy to report that I enjoyed the book as much as you did.

As you know, this book is written in the first person, from heroine Sirantha Jax’s POV. Generally speaking, I prefer a book written from multiple POVs. Maybe it is just what I am used to. But I have to say that this book works very well coming from Jax’s POV. Despite that "limitation" there is a very real sense that all of the characters grow and change as a result of what they go through together. And this ultimately is what makes Grimspace succeed for me. Ms. Aguirre is able to give us a strong sense of the other characters, especially March, even though we are not inside their heads. In your review you pointed out that Jax is not “loveable … [or] particularly honorable.” But, she is honest. During periods of introspection, she analyzes her actions and admits that some of those actions have had negative consequences. Jax grows and learns from her mistakes and eventually she comes to a point where she is able to refer to herself as the "new Jax." She likes herself better, and I as a reader liked her better, too.

As I read this book I was really struck by Ms. Aguirre’s earthy use of language to help us understand Jax’s personality. It is not "nice" language (although it isn’t excessively crude or rude either). The language reinforces the idea that Jax has gone through life with a cocky, devil-may-care attitude, and despite her new-found sense of responsibility, that attitude is still very much a part of who she is. It made her very real to me. There is also some wonderful description that put interesting pictures in my head. Your review referred to the description of grimspace as an "orchid unfurling." My favorite description was this one:

They say you never forget your first glimpse of Gehenna. Over the tall buildings the sky swirls with orange and red, true titian, a feature of the unique atmosphere. Of course that same air would kill human beings; hence they built the entire city inside a dome. Eternal sunset, that’s why the place is so wild. You know the feeling you get just before full dark? Sundown makes you feel like the world burgeons with possibility, and that’s Gehenna for you. (ch. 37)

It really got me wondering what it would be like to see such a sight.

Going in, I was a little worried I’d be able to buy into the romance. While I do enjoy SF/F, I needed the romance angle to work if I was going to be happy with this book. We know right from the start that Jax’s pilot and partner, Kai, died in the crash that is being blamed on Jax. Jax tells us how much she loved Kai. I needed to see Jax grieve for Kai and then set her grief aside believably before she became emotionally attached to March. Fortunately, this part of the book worked very well since it took place over a several month period. Ultimately I found the romance to be very convincing and satisfying. March is a man with unusual psychic abilities. He can read Jax’s thoughts and when they’re together he reacts to most of them with a word or a look. So while we don’t have his POV in the book, we still get a good sense of it through how he reacts to Jax. I really liked how this was done by Ms. Aguirre. Finally, March is not a perfect man. He, too, makes a costly choice. But that saves him from being a stereotypical hero and thus he is a far more interesting character.

I’ve already read the excerpt from Wanderlust (found here) and I’m eagerly awaiting its release in September so I can read more about Jax and March. I see Dina will be back and I hope we see more of Velith (a secondary character who appears late in the book) too. Meanwhile I do recommend this book, especially to those who enjoy adventure and space opera, or to anyone who wants to try something a little different.

Thanks again, Jane!

Phyl

***

Phyl won this book as part of our DearAuthor giveaway. We have another giveaway for Sherry Thomas’ book, Private Arrangements. Other reader opinions for Grimspace:

Teri, Writer Unboxed
Bettie Sharpe, Sharp Words
Tumperkin, Isn’t It Romance?
Shara, Calico Reaction
Bernita, An Innocent A-Blog
Leslie, The Good, The Bad, and Unread
Azteclady, Karen Knows Best
Shannon C, Flight Into Fantasy
Wendy, Kicks & Giggles
Michele Lee, Michele Lee’s
Caitie, eHarlequin
Anime-Babbble, Anime-Babble
Keilexandra, Eschewed Obfuscation