Looking For a Good Book

The ship White Raven is a scavenger, running freight, picking up salvage, and doing whatever they can to make a living. When they spot a ship floating lifelessly on the outskirts of the solar system they see an opportunity to make some money. What they didn’t expect, however, was that this salvage job would become a rescue operation. The floating ship turns out to be a 500-year-old ‘sleeper’ ship carrying passengers in a cryogenic sleep. The crew of White Raven manage to wake one passenger, Elena Oh, but they rest expire.

Elena tells her ‘rescuers’ that her ship and crewmates had intended to reach out far beyond the solar system to make first contact with aliens. She has no idea how or why her ship would be back (or still) in the solar system and she’s a bit taken aback that humans have many alien allies now.

It’s a mystery why Elena’s ship is back within reach, but something the White Raven crew finds on board could mean real trouble for all of Earth and its allies. But first Elena Oh and the White Raven captain, Callie Machedo, need to work out their lust for one another. Neither can stop thinking about the other in sexual terms, but both are sensitive to the fact that a same-sex sexual relationship might not be acceptable in the others’ world. Will we learn why Elena Oh’s ship is still in the system, but more importantly, will Oh and Machedo ever get it on?!

For the most part, I had a lot of fun here. I’ve found that I do enjoy a good space opera and author Tim Pratt does a nice job of presenting the reader with plenty of action and fun, new aliens to read about. There’s enough of a story to keep us interested in finding out what happens next and the characters are distinct enough and interesting to keep the reader interested. Character is key in space opera.

But let’s talk about the romance for a moment.

Ugh.

1. It went on way too long.  Not the romance itself, but the back and forth longing for one another without actually letting the other know about it. Unless the book is about the romance, or the attraction but not telling the other about it is somehow integral to the plot, a romance needs to be background story for character development.  This relationship demanded full attention, time and again, to the point where I said aloud, “Just do it already so we can get on with the story!”
2. Lesbian attraction written by a guy? Sorry, but this comes across as voyeuristic porn. I never once felt that either of these women had a true interest in the other. They both acted like frat boys checking out a “hot chick” at a bar. I can maybe be convinced that this is appropriate for Callie Machedo as behavioral norms may have changed significantly in 500 years, but for Elena Oh, who comes from a time much closer to our own (and who was to strike out with an intimate crew to far reaches of the galaxy), this doesn’t seem right at all.

Bottom line: it was too much and completely unnecessary and not believable. Three strikes.

Fortunately the rest of the book was interesting enough to still garner three and a half stars.

Looking for a good book? The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt is fast and fun space opera but the over-the-top lesbian attraction the two main characters have for one another drags the story down.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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The Wrong Stars

author: Tim Pratt

series: Axiom #1

publisher: Angry Robot

ISBN: 0857667092

paperback, 396 pages

I gave a really great review to the first book in this (“SINless”) series. In fact I gave a rare five out of five stars to the first book (see review here). So I am tremendously disappointed to write a review that is so significantly less than stellar.

Riko, the street-tough, rough-around-the-edges non-hero cyborg hasn’t changed too much except now every street rat who wants to raise their own status figures that the easy way to do it is to take Riko down.  But Riko is still tough as nails and she’s got some things to prove and her good name to restore … well, maybe not a good name, but she can’t afford to lose any credibility. She takes a corporate job, expecting to get shafted, and not disappointed, but she needs the opportunity and not many others are giving it to her since the murder of her lover and companion.

There’s no finesse with Riko, just in-your-face attacking, but then that’s why she’s hired, isn’t it?

The book starts off with one of the most outrageous (and shocking?) sentences I’ve come across and it really does set the tone for what will be in the book (warning…devout Catholics, you may not approve). But it instantly reminded me why I liked the first book so much (the character of Riko) and I was excited to get inside this volume.

But nothing happens.

Well, not exactly nothing, of course, but nothing worthwhile.

She swears a lot and has some pretty irreverent sex and swears some more, and flexes some muscle and swears some more and has more sex while swearing.

The character really hasn’t changed much from the last book.  She was a curse machine then too, but she was surrounded with purpose and her mouth reflected her reactions to what was happening.  Here her mouth is what is happening and that just doesn’t work.  It grows tiresome quickly when there’s not much else to read about.

In the first book Riko was an anti-hero who had to rise above what was expected of her in order to climb out of the problems around her. Here she appears determined to remind the reader that she’s not a hero and she does everything she can to stay down among the dirt, even though she says she wants to rise above it.  It’s kind of the opposite of that first book, which is appropriate since my reaction is pretty much the opposite as well.

Riko was a fresh (if vulgar) face in Alexander’s first book in the series and I was really hooked, but this was a real let-down.  Where, I wonder, will the third volume fall…?

Looking for a good book? Nanoshock by K. C. Alexander is the second book in the SINless series and the main character is every bit as rude and ruthless as she was in the first volume but here she’s without purpose and the character wears thin.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Nanoshock

author: K. C. Alexander

series: SINless #2

publisher: Angry Robot

ISBN: 0857666274

paperback, 432 pages