Tag Archives: sci-fi

Light of Kaska

Book Review of Light of Kaska, by Michelle O’Leary

Light of KaskaDespite its horrible cover, I downloaded a copy of Michelle O’Leary‘s Light of Kaska from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Escaped convict Chase Stryker is on the run from the Collectors, an agency that tracks down criminals and brings them to justice. Hiding on a drowsy farming planet seems ideal, but murder and mayhem follow him wherever he goes—in an ironic twist of fate, he’s blamed for a murder he didn’t commit and sentenced to death by flame without a trial. Rescue comes in the form of Sukeza bet Marish, an unlikely champion whose unassuming, fearful exterior inspires his contempt. But there’s more to his little rescuer than meets the eye, starting with the fact that she’s not part of the farming community and the secret they’d kill to protect. His reluctant fascination begins when he discovers that she smells like sunshine, tastes like nectar, and can offer him everything he never knew he needed.

Review:
Very middle of the road read, for me. It has good points and bad. On the good side are some interesting side characters, a sexy alpha hero, a HEA, older main characters (40ish maybe), and some really cute scenes when Chase basically freaks out over finding himself the recipient of kindness. The writing was also fine and the editing wasn’t too mistake laden.

On the bad side was some major repetition. Apparently, Sukeza is small and Chase is big. This fact is reiterated about a bagazillion times. Apparently, little bitty Sukeza can’t imagine a big, dangerous, predator-type man would be interested in her and big, dangerous Chase can’t imagine a skittish slip of a woman would look twice at him. Again, we’re told this about a million times.

The romantic plot line is stretched far beyond reasonable limits based on nothing more than misunderstandings, jumped to conclusions and refusal to communicate. This is frustrating and unpleasant. Plus, all the sex scenes were about as effective as a snapped rubber-band, as Chase pulled away, away, away and then gave in and pounced back, again and again.

Sukeza’s character is inconsistent. Roughly halfway through the book she has a personality 180. The author tries to explain it away by saying it’s because she’s come home, but it doesn’t work. The her at the end is irreconcilable with her at the beginning.

The book is too long. The first half of the book feels very disconnected from the storyline of the second half of the book and there is a large lagging bit in the middle, where Chase and Sukeza aren’t even together. It’s essentially useless to the rest of the book. Though, to be fair, Harle and Chase’s bromance is BY FAR my favorite part of the book.

So, in the end I’m calling this ok, but not great, with the caveat that the beginning is better than the end.

Best scene in the book: when a chained up, intimidating Chase is forced to ask Suzeka, with complete incredulity, “Are you petting me?”

Book Review of Bacchus (Phantom Warriors #1), by Jordan Summers

BacchusI grabbed a copy of Jordan Summers‘ erotic sci-fi novel, Bacchus, from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
Bacchus is a desperate Phantom warrior. Saddled with the quest to find a sexually compatible female race for his people, he stows away on a ship bound for planet Earth. There he discovers a world teeming with women, but there’s only one way to determine if any of them are a biological match. He must pick one and mate with her. Sex sounds easy enough or it would be, if Bacchus weren’t from the Blood Clan. Where on Earth can he find a woman who doesn’t freak out at the sight of three-inch fangs?

Dog breeder Carrie Rittner has had a rough year. Between a broken engagement and her emotionally distant brother, Buzz, she’s ready to throw in the towel. The last thing she needs is a sexy ‘psychiatrist’ trying to charm her pants off.

It’ll take more than Bacchus’ chemically charged pheromones, dominant nature and forked tongue to convince Carrie that they’re made for each other. He will have to release all his animal instincts and give her the ultimate love bite.

Review:
Ah man, it took me forever to choose a book to read. Nothing struck my fancy. I’d had a hum-dinger of a day and was feeling the lingering after-effects of a torrential crying jag. I was emotionally wrung out, both physically and psychologically—the puffy eyes, the sniffly nose, the hollow, washed out sensation left in the wake of the intense flood of adrenaline (or whatever) that drives an angry, hurt, psychic upheaval.

This is where I was when I tried to pick out a book to read and nothing seemed to appeal. I finally settled on this one because it looked ridiculous enough to drag a chuckle out of me and, failing that, maybe a little hot sex would improve my mood. (Certainly, it would have in real life, if only hubs hadn’t been the focal point of the problem in the first place.) It should be noted, of course, that I didn’t go in expecting serious and high brow literature, which is good because I sure didn’t get it.

Even starting this book with no more expectations than to get to laugh at the always pleasantly cheesy ‘Mars Needs Women’ trope I wasn’t satisfied with this read. Ok, yes, it had all the elements and some of them were presented in such a flat way as to be funny. (You know, like when someone says something patently ludicrous with a straight face.) But there was just no depth to anything in this book. And, again, I’m saying that even having opened it not expecting much.

For example, and this is a bit of a spoiler, so be warned: Bacchus arrives on a ship bound for earth (so his planet already has access to earth, so no idea why he’s the first to mate an earth women and why he has to sneak to do it), he randomly chooses a man on the beach to absorb his memories so he can understand earth customs. He then falls in love with the memories of this random man’s sister. He then goes to her house, looks in the window and falls into insta-mating-lust, he meets her and within about 2-3 hours they’re in bed, he’s imprinted his DNA into her and they’re off to his home world. Once there, since she was a herpetologist on earth she was able to immediately become the clan healer.

Seriously, on a planet of 7+ billion people (assuming there hasn’t been a population increase) and a galaxy of who knows how many he meets his destined, biological mate through the first human he interacts with! And, am really to believe that space fairing, blood-dependent, bipedal, humanoid aliens with minor snake-like characteristics are actually closer to reptile than human and there are so few differences that no one on their original home-world was better suited to fill the healer role than a non-practicing earth herpetologist? WTF?

So I didn’t get any fun searching for his mate scenes or getting to know that mate ones either. Just BAM, there she is. And the mating included as transfer of memories, so no need to get to know one another either.

Sex was just as abortive. His pheromones made her pliant and aroused, so no need for for-play (despite his massive cock, apparently). It was basically, stick it in and slam it home, BAM, we’re done here.

Then there were all the just plain creepy things that happen. He spies on her through her windows, then slips into her house and watches her undress and shower. Creeeeepeer. Then he used his pheromones to make her willing, remaining just this side of dub-con based on his intent and wish to have her come willingly. And come on, getting aroused over watching two dogs mate is just weird.

So, I was looking for a fun, cheesy, erotic sci-fi romp. This had the cheese, but failed on just about every other front. Writing was passable; editing could use a little work.

Towers

Book Review of Towers, by Matthew Bryant

TowersAuthor, Matthew Bryant, sent me an ecopy of his novel, Towers. (I’ve also seen it on the KDP free list.)

Description from Goodreads:
The next job, the next fix, the next thrill has been the mindset of Heath Fallows since the day he abandoned his broken home for the harsher call of the streets. But being a homeless thief in a conglomerate society will only get you so far, and he soon finds himself surviving by skirting outside of business infrastructure. 

A career of breaking and entering and drug-peddling is brought to a screeching halt when a successful job leads to being chased down by a supernatural entity and left for dead. 

Working outside of his traditional networks, Heath is forced to dig deeper into the underbelly of society, locked closets of high culture, and the deadly unknown beyond the district boundaries to uncover what he overlooked and the truth behind the towers of corporate dominance.

Review:
I don’t often use star ratings here, but I think, in this case, it will help me make a point about how I feel. I’m really torn between a three-star and a four-star (out of five). Certainly, the writing is good enough to qualify for a four-star rating, with few editing mishaps to detract from what is just a wonderful use of language to tell a story. However, that story is somewhat on the vague side.

It’s action-packed. What feels like a good 80% of the book is dedicated running, fighting, blowing things us, etc. In all honesty, it got old. I needed something to break it up, even as well-written as it was. But all that action leaves little time for figuring out what is going on. Even as I reached the end, I was still wondering what exactly was happening and why exactly the main character took the particular, extreme actions he did. It’s not that his actions didn’t make sense, given that someone was trying to kill him, it just that there was so little time dedicated to exploring the situation that it felt like he leapt from one baseless decision to the next.

The book is a strange blend of cyber/techno-thriller and Mad Max-style dystopia. It made for an interesting world. However, that world, while described well, isn’t well developed. I was left with a lot of questions about it, like, for example, what the ‘ancients’ actually are. I did appreciate its harsh grittiness and some of the gender perverting that happened around the Barron Junkers, but as with everything else, I felt cheated of the details.

All in all, this is a true 3.5. Giving it a three feels like I’d cheat it of well-earned praise, but a four feels like an inflated score. *sigh*