Tag Archives: sci-fi

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.

Earthrise

Book Review of Earthrise (Her Instruments #1), by M.C.A. Hogarth

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I picked M.C.A. Hogarth‘s Earthrise up from Amazon when it was free. It was still free at the time of posting.

Description from Goodreads:
Reese Eddings has enough to do just keeping her rattletrap merchant vessel, the TMS Earthrise, profitable enough to pay food for herself and her micro-crew. So when a mysterious benefactor from her past shows up demanding she rescue a man from slavers, her first reaction is to say “NO!” And then to remember that she sort of promised to repay the loan. But she doesn’t remember signing up to tangle with pirates and slavers over a space elf prince… Book 1 of the Her Instruments trilogy is a rollicking space operatic adventure set in the Pelted Paradox universe.

Review:
I’m torn how to feel about this book. It’s easily readable, has an interesting universe and I very much enjoyed all the side characters (including Unpronounceably Named Male Lead). But I never came to like Reese. Not even a little bit. I understood that she wasn’t really meant to be a b*tch, but she was. She was so prickly that she pushed everyone away, even me, the reader. I kept hoping that she’d come around and settle down to likable. After all, there are generally expected arcs that such books usually follow. I sense that this series will too, but it didn’t happen in this book.

I kept thinking and being bothered by the idea that if she was a male captain, no author would have written her to be so coddled by her crew. They’re constantly sending her away when things get intense. The stress of leadership was literally eating a hole in her stomach. And she’s angry all the time, because she can’t express herself any other way.

There was also some uncomfortable language. Hogarth uses food to describe skin tones (admittedly for both black and white characters), which is understably a no-no, and Unpronounceably Named Male Lead thinks of Reese as looking exotic, several times. Which might not be so bad if he wasn’t a white man, her a black woman and they weren’t standing next to cat-people, dog-like people and a talking Phoenix. Kind of sure, being a black woman doesn’t make her the exotic one in those circumstances.

Lastly, the plotting is very linear. Reese is hired to rescue someone. She and her crew go right there and get them. Then she immediately has a medical emergency that they are miraculously on hand to fix and then they just go off on their next adventure. There are no red herrings or diverting paths to liven things up a bit.

Having said that, I appreciate there being a person of color as a lead character, even on the cover, and I was entertained throughout the book. I’d be happy to read another one.

Review of Hullmetal Girls, by Emily Skrutskie

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I won a signed copy of Hullmetal Girls, by Emily Skrutskie though Goodreads.

Description:
Aisha Un-Haad would do anything for her family. When her brother contracts a plague, she knows her janitor’s salary isn’t enough to fund his treatment. So she volunteers to become a Scela, a mechanically enhanced soldier sworn to protect and serve the governing body of the Fleet, the collective of starships they call home. If Aisha can survive the harrowing modifications and earn an elite place in the Scela ranks, she may be able to save her brother.

Key Tanaka awakens in a Scela body with only hazy memories of her life before. She knows she’s from the privileged end of the Fleet, but she has no recollection of why she chose to give up a life of luxury to become a hulking cyborg soldier. If she can make it through the training, she might have a shot at recovering her missing past.

In a unit of new recruits vying for top placement, Aisha’s and Key’s paths collide, and the two must learn to work together–a tall order for girls from opposite ends of the Fleet. But a rebellion is stirring, pitting those who yearn for independence from the Fleet against a government struggling to maintain unity.

With violence brewing and dark secrets surfacing, Aisha and Key find themselves questioning their loyalties. They will have to put aside their differences, though, if they want to keep humanity from tearing itself apart.

Review:
This was so much better than I expected. I’m just so jaded on YA lit, but this gave me hope for the genre. These girls face some real challenges and succeed through perseverance and determination, every times. Plus, the book is full of diversity and calmly breaks patriarchal norms all over the place. There are people who look different from one another and economic/class distinctions. There’s an aroace character, a pansexual character, someone who isn’t sure, a heterosexual character (they have a conversation, sexuality isn’t a big thing in the book). A gay couple adopts a child because a woman loves her child but isn’t maternal or want to be a mother and that’s ok. One of the main characters is religious and wears a head scarf. All the people in positions of power are female (even God) and no one tries to explain it away or excuse it. Romance or being slighted by a man isn’t a motivating force for anyone. Of the only significant male characters, one is inept and clumsy and one is a support worker. There is just so much to love about it.

I did think the story was dependent on the characters being given leeway that didn’t make sense and I wasn’t entirely sure what actually happened with Key at the end. It didn’t seem to fit the science of the eco rigs, as explained. But these are small complaints on the whole, I really enjoyed the book and look forward to more of Skrutskie’s writing.