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Book Review of Robin T. Popp’s Too Close to the Sun

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Too Close to the Sun

I picked Robin T. Popp‘s romantic space opera, Too Close to the Sun up off of the KDP free list. At the time of posting it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
Hunted and on the run, galactic smuggler Angel Torrence stole a ship to escape capture, not realizing until too late that the ship’s computer, not she, was in control. With its disembodied voice, arrogant, bossy and sounding very male, it blared out of the Icarus’ control panel, not to thank her for rescuing him and his ship from the terrorist attack, but to instruct her to set a course for the most perilous planet in the known universe. 

On the riskiest mission of his career, Colonel Nicoli Romanof had allowed his life essence and his physical form to be separated. And the Harvesters had taken the bait; his body. Now he needed the cocky pilot who’d stolen his vessel to help him retrieve his person and destroy the deadly race of aliens. Then he discovered the young pilot was a woman and he kissed his chances of success goodbye. 

When Nicoli refused her assistance because of her gender, Angel would have moved heaven and earth to prove she was up to the task. But she never expected the colonel’s physique to be so magnificent or his heart to be so courageous. When a passion she couldn’t deny flared between them, she wondered if they’d found love or flown…Too close to the sun

Review (with slight spoilers):
This book was all right. It had some things I really liked and some that I literally scoffed at. On the plus side, Angel was independent and fearless. She was a heroine in her own right. There were some really funny little side comments in the book that made me laugh. Nicoli was a sexy, honor-bound male who was more than willing to put his life on the line to do the right thing and protect those he cared about. You have to appreciate that. The book also presented an interesting take on what it means to be ‘free.’ Thus, the title of both the book and Nicoli’s ship is clever.

On the negative side, this is a case of insta-love to the extreme, initially based on NOTHING more than appearances. I mean NOTHING. In both cases, they (Nicoli and Angel) fell irrevocably in lust with the body of the other when it wasn’t even inhabited by their consciousness or life essence and without knowing it was the other person. So literally just their naked body. But the reader is led to believe that true love could bloom from this very quickly. I found that a little hard to swallow.

While Angel is a strong-willed heroine who rescued Nicoli as often as he rescued her, she never had to rescue him because he had simply put himself in pointless danger or done something stupid. Example: lose her way in the dark (in her own home world), step in a crevice, and twist her ankle. Really!? That move alone almost negates enough respectable heroineness to put her in bimbo territory. Lastly, everyone has a happy ending. I know, that should be a good thing right? But how realistic is it? Examples: The antagonist has been working toward his carefully laid plan for a very, very long time, and then he suddenly lets it all fall apart for no apparent reason. He suddenly can’t keep his cool and does irrational things in public, giving himself away. Why, or rather why now? Then after Angel and Nicoli defeat this bad guy (or rather are present when he defeats himself) a benevolent leader takes over. But there is no mention of what happened to the previous leader, who wasn’t the big bad. I can’t imagine he just suddenly decided to peacefully pass the reigns to another….mysterious happy ending. Plus, everyone pairs off perfectly. It’s all just a little too clean for me.

The writing was fine, and the book ended with a teaser of the next one, Dark Side of the Sun. It looked interesting enough to be worth reading. So, all-in-all an alright read.

Review of P.L. Parker’s The Chalice

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Some time ago I won a copy of P.L. Parker‘s The Chalice from Laurie’s Thought and Reviews.

Description from Goodreads:
Decimated by the savage Deg’Nara and teetering on the brink of extinction, the last surviving males of the once great Chiagan-Se embark on a quest to salvage what is left of their civilization. They send their remaining seeker ships into the void, searching for genetically compatible females. Time is running out, but in the far reaches of the universe, on an obscure and primitive planet, a match is discovered.

One thousand panic-stricken women awaken two hundred years in the future, captives aboard an unmanned alien spacecraft bound for parts unknown! How had they gotten there and why? 

The males thought they came willingly. The females believed they’d been kidnapped. Full of hopeful expectation, the Chiagan-Se prepare for the arrival of their new mates. Terrified and furious at the inexplicable abduction, the women prepare for combat! And when the two sides meet, the battle commences.

Even though I won a copy of The Chalice way back in June, I put off reading it because I honestly hate the cover. It makes me think of bad Swedish porn. (No offense against the Scandinavian porn industry. I’m sure they have some good porn too.) And come on, lets face it, the plot-line of a ship full of females bound for a the arms of a wholly male populace is rife with the possibility of cheap bow-chica-bow-wow moments. It could easily go bad very quickly. But I wanted to support the author and appreciate the winnings so I gave it a chance.

I made it 45% into the book before there was even a hint of a kiss and a good 250 pages before there was a sex scene. (It was only the first of two and fairly mild to boot.) Relief, not porn then. What it was instead was funny. Now, I don’t mean the trying to take itself too seriously, forcing you to laugh derisively at it funny. No, I mean the genuinely and intentionally humorous type of funny. Danesha, or ‘Dread’ was a whole ball of fun all by herself. Never have I encountered such a bitter and pessimistic character that makes you love her so much. No matter how dire the circumstances you could count on her to think of something worse and lighten the mood. Then there was a little bit of slapstick and all of the basic misunderstandings that one would expect to encounter when two sentient species are forced to interact. I laughed out loud a lot.

Some of the characters were a little stereotypical. Dread was after all a foul mouthed African American from the Detroit ghetto who was always ready for a fight. Then there was the stiff lipped Englishwoman who always kept her cool, the whinging Irish woman who kept wailing ‘I dinnae nooo,’ the busty blond Swede, and the placid Japanese ninja-type. They were a lot of fun though. A little more thought seems to have gone into the male cast. Parker painted them as contradictorily strong, hot-blooded warriors who also happened to feel like lost little boys. I really enjoyed seeing the women take charge. I also enjoyed that there was a plot outside of the romances. In fact I would have liked to have seen a bit more of the smoldering bits. I especially wanted to see how Shagal won his mate over…or was won over. Hard to tell on that one.

On the downside, to say the book head hops would be an understatement. It not only leaps unexpectedly from one person to the next, but from one scene to the next. One moment you are in Kara’s head on a transport shuttle, then the next you are with Tegan on the bridge of the ship, with nothing to indicate you have moved. I often had to reread passages or just keep going until I found a clue to reorient myself by. It was a challenge. Despite this I was pleasantly surprised by the book and look forward to reading more of Parker’s writing.