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Book Review: Dark Planet Warriors, by Anna Carven

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I picked up a copy of Anna Carven‘s Dark Planet Warriors as an Amazon freebie last year.

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Abbey

Some scary looking aliens have just boarded Fortuna Tau, our little asteroid mining station. Kordolians, by the looks of things. What the hell do they want with this floating rust bucket? What are they even doing here?

Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a Kordolian up close before. They’re huge and intimidating, with strange silver skin and pointed ears. They have freaky nano-armor, and they’re packing a serious arsenal. We stand no chance against them.

When I encounter their General, I find him insufferable. Arrogant. Domineering. He won’t tell me anything. I guess that’s what happens when your race is kicking ass across the Nine Galaxies. You get pigheaded.

So why do I keep running into him? Why does he keep looking at me like that? And what’s with this weird feeling I get when he’s around?

Tarak

Sucked into a wormhole during a fierce skirmish with an enemy ship. Spat out near a human mining station in a remote corner of the Nine Galaxies. Stuck with weak humans who operate with inferior metals and technology.

This mission couldn’t get any worse.

We need to fix our craft, kill the cursed Xargek, and get out of here before the wormhole collapses. I don’t really care about these humans. Their existence makes no sense to me.

So why has this strange human female captured my attention? She’s messy, awkward, and she babbles nonsense half the time. These humans are crazy. I don’t understand them at all, especially this female. Why do I keep coming back to her?

I need to leave this place before I go insane.

my review

This started out well, but I’m afraid it wasn’t able to maintain momentum. My overall impression is ‘bland.’ Nothing about this—the characters, the plot, the world, the romance, the writing—stands out as interesting in any fashion. It’s not horrible, true, but I was bored, and the author just didn’t bring what could have been an interesting story to fruition.

Honestly, I can’t even tell you what the series’ true overarching plot is. Sure, we’ve got a little Mars-Needs-Women going on in there, a little Evil Empire, and a little super soldier on the side. But what is the series really about? No idea, even having finished the 1st book.

Lastly, there’s just a little residual ick here. We have the main military general of a galactic colonizing force as the male romantic lead. Take this out of space and place it in a more familiar setting, and one begins to see some truly horrifying parallels of who is being propped up as a worthy romantic hero.

Mostly, I was just bored, though.

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Series Review (Dark Planet Warriors by Anna Carven)

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Book Review: Spared by the Monster, by Merry Ravenell

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I picked up an Amazon freebie copy of Merry Ravenell‘s Spared by the Monster.

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Welcome to the Gestalt, where Humans are forbidden and mates are sacred.

Hauling scrap to feed his family and pay for his sick brother’s plague treatments, The Twilight Scion of a Lost House finds himself in possession of a Human that somehow managed to escape the Grays.

Humans, and Earth, are strictly Off-Limits, and being caught with Chess–no matter the circumstances or reasons–will be the final destruction of his House and family. But he also can’t shove her out an airlock or abandon her at a shipyard. She’s an innocent victim, and the Grays will be looking for her. Her fate in the hands of the Gestalt authorities will be just as bad.

She’s delicate, soft, and luscious. Clearly, he’s been alone for too long if he’s attracted to a Human. And this particular Human is already spoken for, with a mate of her own waiting for her back on Earth. But Chess shines as bright as a star, and resisting her pull is nearly impossible.

There’s only one way to buy the time to keep her safe until he can figure out how to get rid of her. He’ll have to spend his family’s meager savings on the trinket that will awaken his awareness of his true mate, and present her as that mate. She’s brave enough to go along with the plan, and kinder to him than he deserves.

His brothers will be furious, the Gestalt will mock him, and she’ll need to be gone before his true mate arrives.

The little Human’s secrets are astonishing, and her courage undeniable, and when the moment comes, the Twilight Scion isn’t sure he will be able to give her up… even if it’s impossible that she stay with him.

my review

This surprised me. I went in expecting nothing more than some smutty fluff. And it is fluffy smut. But it is also not as etched out and hollow as a lot of such stories are. Maybe because it’s significantly longer and thus has more time to develop.

I liked the characters a lot. The heroine is sassy (though her reaction—or lack of reaction—stretches the bounds of credulity), and the hero is just too honorable for his own good. I adored him. The side character brothers are cute, too. In fact, I would have jumped right into book two if it had been about the second brother, as I expected (it isn’t).

I did think the book was a little overly long, owing to some repetition and the misunderstanding trope dragging out a little longer than believable. But all in all, I enjoyed this a lot.

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@thegremlinlibrarian Replying to @madsong96 think any other hot dragon aliens are single? #BookTok #Bookish #TheGremlinLibrarian #BookWorm #BookGremlin #HappyFunTime #HappyFunTimeToy #MonsterHappyFunTime #MonsterFudger #MonsterRomance #SparedByTheMonster #MerryRavenell ♬ original sound – Vyc ???? (They/Them)

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Book Review: Monsters Within, by R.L. Caulder

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I received this copy of Monsters Within by R.L. Caulder in a monthly subscription book box. (I don’t remember which one.) But I also have a Kindle copy I picked up as a freebie at some point.

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Have you ever lost yourself in a fantasy world you created?

That’s how I’ve survived the years alone in a reality where humans cower in fear of supernatural creatures hiding behind the veil.

All I’ve ever had is my pen, my notebook, and the world I created to make it through the days as a ward of the state, suffering at the hands of the real villains of the world…Humans.

The pages of my notebook hold three sinful, feared monsters. Ones that I certainly shouldn’t be pining over since they aren’t even real.

I question my grip on reality when real life and fantasy collide as my words suddenly come to life. Out of the pages climb each of the beautifully twisted monsters I created with my ink.

Dark Imaginarium Academy claims to want to help me learn about my new powers. The Headmistress says they can protect me, but I’m not so sure about that.

The one thing I am sure about? I’ll destroy the world if they try to take my monsters from me.

Because my creations aren’t just monsters—they’re my soulmates.

my review

Soooo, this simply isn’t very good. It reads VERY MUCH like a teen, self-insert fantasy romance. Which, in one manner, makes sense to the plot. Self-insert fantasy is what the main character writes to create the monsters in the first place. On the other hand, nothing feels like this parallel was a stylistic choice by Caulder, and it simply isn’t any fun to read. Both because it is boring and because the amateurish writing and plotting reinforced the teen-like feel.

Additionally, the teen-like feel clashes with the collegiate setting. It feels like high school (they have detention, set similar schedules, petty high school drama, and a most specialist, special girl who is special main character, etc.). The character is only 21 (and all the magic miraculously appears at midnight on her 21st birthday), so she would be legal, and you feel that is an monsters within photoauthorial manipulation rather than fitting the plot even a little bit. She feels 16, at most.

Add all of that to a plot that feels, at best, sketched out, rocketing from point to point with no build-up or resolutions, characters who go through major shifts in reality with absolutely no reaction or adjustment time, stock, cardboard cutout heroes, cliched, mean-girl villains, and inconsistent characterization of the heroine, and I was simply done. I finished the book to finish it, but I’m not at all interested in more.

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