Tag Archives: Indie

Perfection Unleashed

Book Review of Perfection Unleashed, by Jade Kerrion

Leave a reply

Perfection UnleashedAuthor, Jade Kerrion sent me an ecopy of her Sci-fi novel Perfection Unleashed.

Description from Goodreads:
Two men, one face. One man seeks to embrace destiny, the other to escape it. 

Danyael Sabre spent sixteen years clawing out of the ruins of his childhood and finally has everything he wanted–a career, a home, and a trusted friend. To hold on to them, he keeps his head down and plays by the rules. An alpha empath, he is powerful in a world transformed by the Genetic Revolution, yet his experience has taught him to avoid attention.

When the perfect human being, Galahad, escapes from Pioneer Laboratories, the illusory peace between humans and their derivatives–the in vitros, clones, and mutants–collapses into social upheaval. The abominations, deformed and distorted mirrors of humanity, created unintentionally in Pioneer Lab’s search for perfection, descend upon Washington D.C. The first era of the Genetic Revolution was peaceful. The second is headed for open war.

Although the genetic future of the human race pivots on Galahad, Danyael does not feel compelled to get involved and risk his cover of anonymity, until he finds out that the perfect human being looks just like him.

Review:
I have to admit that there was more to this book than I expected. Not only was there an interesting science fiction plot, there were also some interesting social questions raised about the morality of genetic modifications, as well as a mild romantic subplot and plenty of action. I’d argue too much adventure, it’s a subjective thing, I know.

While on one hand nonstop action is a good thing, it’s never boring, but it also means that the reader is never given a moment to breathe. The main character, Danyael, is hit with one thing after another until he is so exhausted he’s about ready to pass out. This is actually how he feels from the first page to the last. I mean, three completely unrelated baddies came after him one after another (more if you count the attacks on the group he was with as opposed to him specifically)!

This constant fragile, borderline helplessness made him feel very child-like, which tended to counter his badass alpha empath status, though it did make him really easy to empathise with. I liked him a lot. I liked his cronies. I loved the strength of friendships represented without being tarnished by unrequited love, or lust, or some past betrayal. Pure, strong friendships can feel hard to come by in fiction sometimes. I really enjoyed finding one here. I also liked the opposing military factions, though I strongly felt X-Men’s influence in the two mutant factions. I just really wish there had been a few less irons in the literary fire.

The repetitive plot additions left me feeling exhausted too. There were just too many invested parties vying for Danyael in some fashion or another. Really, what’s the likelihood they would all come to culmination at the same time? It left the book feeling rushed as it leapt from one crisis to another. Despite this one rather significant complaint, I really enjoyed the story and the characters in it. I have to admit being irked at the cliffhanger ending I’m not a fan of them, but I’d be interested in picking the sequel up at some point.

Forgotten In Darkness

Book Review of Zoe Forward’s Forgotten in Darkness (Scimitar Magi #2)

Leave a reply

Forgotten in DarknessI grabbed Zoe Forward‘s Forgotten in Darkness (Scimitar Magi #2) from the Amazon free list.  I read and reviewed book one, Dawn of a Dark Knight last year.

Also of note is the giveaway currently running on Goodreads to win your own copy. Can’t really beat that.

Description from Goodreads:
After an unjustified two-century stint in purgatory, Scimitar Magus Dakar returns to the human realm, renewing his eons-old curse. Either he or the woman he loves must murder the other within days of meeting in each new lifetime. To break the vicious cycle, he must kill her before she strikes her deathblow, something he’s never done in the past.

Archaeology grad student Shay McGinnis suffers a near-death attack in pursuit of a piece of Scimitar Magi lore. But did the magnificent warrior who pinned her to the wall injure her or the daemon he fought? In her search for answers, she draws the attention of both an ancient evil sorcerer and the warrior Dakar. The attraction between her and Dakar is instant, and for Shay confusing. She wants to be with him, but intuition equates him with death. Not random death. Hers.

Will this be the lifetime they break the curse before they are murdered by an age-old enemy or worse kill each other yet again?

Review:
This is a fun continuation of the Scimitar Magi series. We meet up with all of our old friends from book one, see some change in a couple of them and then meet a few new ones.

Shay and Dakar make a fun couple. Shay is pretty much fearless and, though Dakar was supposed to smoulder  what I enjoyed most were his lost-little-boy moments as he tried to acclimate to modern times. I also have to say ‘thank you’ to Ms. Forward for the formula-breaking new addition to the team. I can’t wait to see them interact with the crew in future books.

I did feel like everything was a little too easy for everyone though. The addition of Bochnori seemed to provide a boost that could solve any problem, the Gods popped in more than I would expect, and Shay’s final bluff worked a little too well to feel realistic. I can’t really imagine the big bad demon feeling enough affection about ANYTHING to compromise. But that might just be me.

All in all, I enjoyed the book. It was well written. I didn’t notice any editorial issues and the cover is a vast improvement on book one. Again, I’ll be looking forward to the next book.

 

Book Review of Linda Boulanger’s Dance With the Enemy

Leave a reply

Dance With the Enemy

I grabbed Linda Boulanger‘s Dance With the Enemy from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
The time has come for Elenya to meet the man she’s belonged to since she was three, the man whose blood flows through her veins. In the midst of the maidens, the King’s warriors are released; each forced to find the woman chosen for him through her scent, resulting in a half-mad frenzy that heightens already aroused animalistic needs. Elenya is terrified, especially when she realizes what the warrior searching for her does not – that she’s been marked with the blood of her family’s enemy.

As the leader of the King’s elite forces makes his way toward her, she ignores the pull of the marking and darts out into the night … into his territory. She has to get to the Masters so they can right this wrong. A mistake must have been made. Surely fate would not force her to dance for a lifetime in the arms of her enemy. And if it did, would his blood flowing through her veins be enough to unite their hearts?

Mildly Spoilerish Review:
I thought that this book seemed fairly well written, if you like the sort of thing. I generally liked all of the characters and even the plot, in the broadest sense. However, there were just some very basic aspects of the story that I personally disliked. I acknowledge up front that these are personal preferences and plenty of people won’t share my opinion. Some will probably even be like, ‘are you kidding me?’ But I’m giving the book 3 stars, because though a lot of it made me cringe and grind my teeth I’m not claiming it’s a bad book in any fashion.

In some ways this is a fairly cookie-cutter piece of fluff. Young, innocent virgin is forcibly (in this case socially) claimed by a hardened warrior. His beastly heart is then melted by said maiden’s (and yes she is referred to as a maiden) genuine, open heart, fiery temper and guileless sensuality—absolutely predictable.

Where Boulanger tried to add a little variety was in the cultural necessities that brought Elenya and Tahbruk together. I can appreciate the effort here. It’s and interesting idea. But I hated the incredibly sexist patriarchy created. Women seemed to hold no value beyond breeders and whores—glorified whores, courtesans even, but whores all the same. This sexism was highlighted, at least partially, to provide a challenge to be overcome. Again, I get that. But I still had to read 300+ pages of it. Conversely, since the marking ceremony was exclusively for the nobility, I was left wondering how men who weren’t noble warriors, say a baker, found wives. This was never addressed.

Now, here’s the Catch-22 that meant I was just never going to be the right reader for this book. Part of the plot was that some of the characters thought these same ceremonies, leading to this mistreatment of women, were out-dated and needed to be abolished. A good thing, yes? No. Not for me at least. I mean it is, but…one of my literary pet peeves is watching socially or morally superior characters, especially outsider characters, declare otherwise accepted cultural practices wrong. It’s one thing for a whole society, or even a portion of society to be struggling for the improvement of the laws and practices that affect their lives. It’s another to see one person telling the same society it’s doing something abhorrent. How arrogant is that? Even if that character is correct by modern western standards, do they really have the right to judge others? And when such social change is easily affected the anthropologist in me wants to cry.

The, admittedly contrary, result was that I enjoyed neither the existing social setting of the book nor the stories attempt at improving society. It just struck me as baseless optimism. There was no social push for improvement, just one or two individuals who apparently decided everyone else was socially stagnant. What’s more, I could have done with a little more world building outside of the mating rituals. For example, many characters pray to the ‘good Lord’ but religion is never touched on. So who is this deity everyone keeps calling on?

Add those big personal no-no’s to any number of smaller irritants, like my dislike of seeing otherwise good men driven to dastardly deeds by the loss of a platonic love, and this book and I just never had a chance. Again, I’m not calling it a bad book. The writing was fine. I don’t remember any editorial issues. The sex wasn’t gratuitous, which was actually surprising since I started the book thinking it was erotica, and despite being the first of a series, the book actually ended. So, not a bad book, just a bad book for me.