Tag Archives: sci-fi romance

The Glass Admiral

Book Review of The Glass Admiral, by Kit Smart

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I won an  e-copy of Kit Smart‘s The Glass Admiral through Goodreads.

Description:
Cavalry officer and master horse trainer Lt. Megarheri Saverna, doesn’t have much use for males of the two legged variety beyond an occasional one night stand. She is, therefore, less than pleased to be dragged off-planet, away from her horses and assigned as batwoman to Space Fleet’s most notoriously difficult hero. Even if he’s gorgeous, witty, unexpected and quite possibly the sexiest man in the universe.

Admiral Sen Kosuri has never seen himself as anything other than what he is; a severely disabled, half Recessive fleet officer; an admiral in name only. Relegated to a desk since the mutiny that left him disabled, he never thought he’d see a field command again and now that he has, he is determined to keep it even if it means making use of his reluctant ‘batwoman’ for however long she lasts.

Tough, funny, beautiful and more than able to handle anything he throws at her, Lt. Saverna is a revelation; one that soon sparks a sexual attraction that triggers his Recessive mating impulses and has him seeing beyond what he is to what he could be and hoping that she might last forever.

Warning: The Glass Admiral is a sci-fi romance featuring a disabled hero and strong female lead that contains sexual situations and several graphic descriptions of intimacy. Intended for mature readers.

Review:
This was almost a lot of light weight fun. There was never going to be any bulk or seriousness to it, but for a fluffy read it almost made the mark. It started out well, with the two meeting and then immediately finding themselves attacked by pirates. But then she tried to seduce him in an access hatch in the middle of mortal danger (15 minutes after meeting him) and I grimaced. It was too fast. But even then, it still might have just been a little bit of erotic fluff to read. But it didn’t manage that either.

The editing is a mess. (At one point I passed a paragraph I thought might actually be a left over plotting note. The paragraph didn’t fit where it was and didn’t make any sense to the story.) And information is dropped willy-nilly. For example, toward the end she states she wants to claim him because she’s a dragon and I stopped and went, “Wait, does she mean that literally or is that, like, her unit in the Calvary?” The book has no ending. Of course it ends, and I knew it wasn’t stand-alone, but nothing wraps up, there’s no build-up to anything, there’s nothing to mark a logical break between books. It literally just ends out of nowhere. It’s too precipitous to even be called a cliffhanger.

All of it added up to a mess…but a mess that you could see good bones in. Given to a competent content and developmental editor this could be good. But it’s not there yet. And none of this touches on my biggest problem. I chose to read this book because I thought it might be a fun read, but also because it had a lot of elements you don’t often see. She was the more experienced sexual partner and that alpha-type male was disabled, living with chronic pain and injury. Plus, given the cover, I assumed he would be black. (And though the word isn’t used, by his description his was.) But then, as the only notably black character, he’s referred to as a Recessive (whatever that is, his race I think) and was subject to a very public sexual maturation in which he apparently had a prolonged raging hard-on he couldn’t control among other things, which was followed by years of doctors taking liberties with his body and a loss of autonomy. I was very, very uncomfortable with the implications.

Learning to Want

Book Review of Learning to Want, by Tami Veldura

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I think I picked Tami Velbura‘s Learning to Want up in a Instrafreebie giveaway. It was certainly something along those lines.

Description from Goodreads:
Khoram is an enforcer, a bodyguard, but his boss has just betrayed him. Now he’s stranded on a desert planet he’s never heard of, chained to the only other human around.

Atash grew up in the cracks of Dulia’s complex social structure, where dominance and submission are a man’s worth. He’s struggled for years on a lower caste but Khoram could be his ticket to a better life if they can find common ground.

Atash wants to teach Khoram the art of submitting by choice and maybe make a name for himself along the way. Khoram, however, isn’t here to play Atash’s political games. He’s going to escape, if his former employer doesn’t see him killed first.

Review:
So, I found my experience with Learning to Want mixed at best. Picking up a book about a master/slave relationship (and not one in which characters play master or slave, but a real one in which one is actually owned by the other) is always an iffy proposition. Add to the mix that the enslaved character was a free black man, even if the enslaving character is black scaled (he’s still of the dominant, slave owning culture) is an uncomfortable echo of recent Western history. Though, if this was just the authors attempt to include some diversity I have to appreciate the effort.

There was just a lot of squink around the edges of the story. Even the Ohiri, the perfectly bland race that entered enslavement willingly and was supposed to be an example of unproblematic slavery, were raised from birth to submission. There willingness was coerced at best and they’re completely dismissed in the book. Background fodder, basically.

But my main issue is that, with the exception of transport in the beginning, which we’re told was 20+ days, but we don’t see, the whole book is about a week. In that time a free man was captured, molested, sold at auction, fondled some more (with some dubious consent), introduced to BDSM (which was really JUST SPANKING), come to NEED it, fallen in love, accepted and appreciated his ‘collar and cuffs’ (a euphemism of slavery), performed a perfect power-play sex ‘scene’ in front of hundreds, formed a soul bond and lived happily ever after (as a slave). And I was just like, “Ummmm, uh-uh. No way. We have skimmed over some major trauma here.”

Some books have a magic peen, where someone has sex one time and everything is magically perfect in the plot. This book had a magic paddle. One spanking and Khoram released all his guilt over being a drug dealing slaver in the past and accepted his lot as a sexual slave, craved it even. NO. Big fat No.

This book seemed to want to have both slaves and consent in the same people. In fact, that the slave must consent is stated more than once by characters in the book, seriously stressed even. And that just can’t work. It can’t. Veldura tried real hard, but IT DOES NOT WORK.

The writing is fine. In fact there are the occasional turns of phrase that are really beautiful. And the editing didn’t stand out as problematic. But the plot did. It is too rushed and the ‘free and consenting slave’ is an impossibility that Veldura failed to make feel anything but icky. As fluff, ok it’s fine. I could even like it. But think even the smallest amount about the plot and the whole thing collapses in on itself.

In his majesty's service

Review of In His Majesty’s Service, by Elizabeth Silver & Jenny Urban

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I received a copy of In His Majesty’s Service, by Elizabeth Silver & Jenny Urban through Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
Everyone in the Drion Collective knows that finding your match—the one person in existence with the same soul mark as yours—is the best thing that could ever happen. But the last thing Lord Anders Hawthorne is thinking about when he boards a ship to Drion for the king’s funeral is finding his soul mate.

Captain Zachary O’Connell has the perfect life—his ship, the stars, and no emotional entanglements. When heat sparks between him and Lord Hawthorne, Zach gleefully dives into a no-strings arrangement. He doesn’t expect it to last beyond arrival at Drion, any more than he expects trouble along the way.

Trouble quickly finds them, however, and it soon becomes clear that Lord Hawthorne is not only not who he says he is, but also that he’s the target of a deadly plot. With danger all around them, Zach and Anders must work together to save the Collective. Meanwhile, Zach must come to grips with losing everything he always thought he wanted, to have the one thing he never dreamed he needed.

Review:
Sooooo, this was not very good. There was WAY too much sex, given the length and amount of plot. It seriously suffered from lack of subtlety or buildup. As an example, the first time the two men met was over a dinner at the captain’s table. The only conversation was about the steak, and it’s barely a conversation. There was no indication that these two men had any interest in each other. Then on the next page, they were jumping into bed and the pet names and ‘this is special’ starts. The whole book was like that. The authors don’t give anything time to develop, just lobbing stuff at the reader out of no where.

Mechanically, the writing is fine, except for some repetition. They seemed to do nothing but rub noses and fall into bed. But the book is just too long. Half of the petty squabbles could have been cut and we’d still understand they were struggling to get to know one another. As could half the sex scenes. They were fairly repetitive anyway, always doing the same things. I just didn’t enjoy it and have no interest in continuing the series.