17 posts tagged “space opera”
Doubleblind is the third book in the Sirantha Jax series:
Book 1: Grimspace (review: LJ | vox)
Book 2: Wanderlust (review: LJ | vox)
The Premise: Sirantha Jax is finally on Ithiss-Tor, feeling way over her head as an ambassador for the Conglomerate. The Conglomerate needs her to bring the bug-like aliens, the Ithtorians to their side because they need an ally against increased attacks by the Morgut (a species of violent, frenzied eaters that see everyone as food). The Ithtorians are the only species the Morgut have ever respected. A "jumper" and former party-girl, Jax doesn't feel in her element as someone responsible for such an important task, and March, who has always been at her side isn't himself to help her.
Excerpt of Chapter 1
My Thoughts: I would have finished this much faster if it weren't for those pesky things like parents coming to visit, going to work, eating, sleeping, blah blah. All I wanted to do was read this book. I love space opera and science fiction romance. This is one of my favorite series. I think I've been anticipating it so much that by the time I got it I was getting lightheaded with giddiness and enthusiasm and I had a feeling that perhaps I was talking too much about it. You know that feeling where - internally you're saying to yourself, why are you still talking, you idiot, now they know you're crazy and Ann Aguirre will run away from you?! Yes, that was me on twitter this week. Ahem. So instead of doing what I briefly considered (just writing "SQUEE" in big, bold, underlined letters as a review), I'm going to try to be rational.
The thing is, it is so hard to stay quiet while reading this book, because there's these elements you just want to talk to *someone* about. For me it was character development and the twists in the plot. I think Ann Aguirre has an evil streak. First of all, she wrote Wanderlust and ended it the way she did Iif you read Wanderlust, you know what I mean). What she puts her characters through has me looking around desperately for someone so I can discuss what I just read.
First of all, you would think that by now, the third book, March and Jax's relationship would be stable. But Aguirre did something that was the equivalent of pressing the "reset" button, and it is delicious. Neither March or Jax are the same people they were at the start of this series. In fact, I'd say that what they've been through has pretty much reversed their roles, although their old selves are in there somewhere. The first half of the book had me hanging on to every word or gesture between the two of them. I kept saying "intense", because that was the word to describe it (besides "AHHH!!"). It was kind of torture, yet I was happy. It was well worth going through the wringer in Wanderlust and here to come out the other side. There was one particular scene early in the book where March and Jax talk that had me completely involved and.. well I just don't have the words.
Aguirre seems to excel at character growth. Since we're on Vel's home planet and diplomacy is the reason for being there, Vel has the biggest role besides Jax, who is the narrator. I was really interested in finding out more about Vel in Wanderlust so I was pleased with learning more about him through Jax. The others were around less often (they weren't needed for all the negotiations that Jax attended), but everyone in Jax's circle is multi-faceted, and you catch a glimpse of inner depth in Jael, Dina, Hit, and Doc. If you're familiar with Ann Aguirre, you know these aren't always happy people either. Jax has a past full of scandal and self-preservation, and March is a psychic and soldier who had to do horrible things.
One of my favorite tropes is a stranger in a strange land or a culture-clash story, which we have here as Jax navigates the Ithtorians, some of who don't consider humans very smart. They remember an earlier delegation which had disastrous results. There are many Ithtorians who would like Jax to fail in her talks, even enough to kill her. That's why Vel is so important, explaining to Jax subtle gestures such as meaning to a bow. The story also covers what foods to eat, what markings on caripaces mean, and Ithtorian politics. I loved this. I also liked the description of the lush, tropical world the Ithtorians' surrounded themselves in, which is nicely illustrated on the cover by Scott M. Fischer.
Overall: The best installment yet. If you read Wanderlust, you really *need* to read Doubleblind. And if you haven't read this series and you like space opera/science fiction romance, I think you should pick it up. Every successive book is better than the last.
Buy: Amazon | B&N
Other review:
Genrereviews gave it 4 1/2 pints of blood (I thought this review was spot on).
- A Red: is an "adapted" human. Basically, human genes were manipulated to create a super soldier who is faster, stronger and better at surviving harsh conditions, but they were also taught to obey and treated as second class citizens, like animals. Usually they are grown in batches and raised in a creche where they all undergo some behavioral imprinting.
- The Sargasso Sea: A world where spaceships disappear into when they misjump. Most of it is covered in water, gravity follows strange rules, and no one can figure out how to get out. To me it sounded like the inside of a very large egg, but don't ask me where the sun is, I still don't know.
Lilly is the princess of an agricultural paradise of a planet (named Oasis), who is at war with it's neighbor, a desert planet that squandered it's environment and is now after Oasis' resources. Hoping to ask for help from the galaxy's governing body, Lilly is on a transport ship headed towards the Senate when her ship is suddenly attacked. She escapes with Shaun, a prisoner who was in a cryogenic chamber on the same transport. Shaun is an mystery; a man with rare grey eyes who can communicate mentally, something that before only Lilly and the women of Circe could do.
The cover: I just had to say that I think this book has possibly one of the worst covers of any book I own. It's awful.
Overall: I'd put this down as an average read. The writing had a stilted quality to it and the story was predictable, but if you want space opera, this certainly qualifies. Stargazer jumps at a dizzying pace from one location in the galaxy to another, from swamp planets with prehistoric lizards, to mining planets where everyone lives underground. I kept feeling like it was vaguely familiar and I realized that a lot of things remind me of Star Wars and of Dune. We have a princess needing help from the Senate, a prisoner in a cryo-chamber, and a male with powers only women had before among other things.
Despite sometmies feeling deja vu, there were some moments that stood out. My favorite part would be the when Lilly and Shaun finally arrive at the Senate. Here there seemed to be some time spent on describing some of the culture of their enemies. The reader sees how the Circe women treat their men as slaves, shuttling them around with neck braces that inhibit their will, and the gladiator games that went on there showed the dark underside of the galaxy. I felt like this was the most absorbing part of the book for me, but unfortunately most of the book didn't seem to have the same focus on world building as this section did. I wanted things to slow down and have more context. For example, I thought Lilly and Shaun were in Oasis at one point only to be informed they were somewhere else, without any transition or explanation that that's where they were going. And for about the first third of the book I started wondering when they slept. I know that on the transport Lilly had to go into a sleep chamber, but after escaping, all space travel afterwards seemed to take no time whatsoever. There were other places like this where missing details threw me out of the story.
Another issue I had was the predictability. I could tell from the first 10 pages what the big reveal was going to be and it's not hard to guess from Shaun's grey eyes. Yet this is kept a surprise for a long time. It was also not hard to guess what characters were going to do because hints would be dropped beforehand.
Maybe this can be attributed to it being the first book for the author in the genre. I'm still willing to keep reading. Oasis' enemies have been stopped for now, but they won't be down for long, so the ongoing intruiges and plotting will continue. Shaun's devil may care pirate friend Rubin was a major player here so I wasn't surprised to find he's the hero in book 2, Shooting Star. The trilogy concludes with Star Shadows.
I've been keeping this book in mind ever since I was recommended it by calico_reaction based on my love of space opera romances. I think she made the comment on one of my Linnea Sinclair reviews that I should read this book. Finally I broke down and got it, but only the hardcover copy was available when I did. Now, I love the book, but I want it in soft-cover, so I'm going to buy it *again* in paperback, and I want to give away the copy I read to someone who will enjoy it. I'm the type of person who uses bookmarks and gentle handles the book while reading, so the book is practically new, comes with the dust jacket, and it's a really great read. If you don't care that this book isn't completely new, I'll be hosting that giveaway in a few days.
First of all - isn't this a great cover? It's pretty cool and unearthly - conveys outer space, a female main character, and the colors are fantastic. I believe the second book in the series (The Stars Down Under) has a similar look.
Lieutenant Jodenny Scott is an officer whose last ship, the Yangtze suffered massive fatalities when it blew apart. Scott was one of the few survivors, a hero who helped save many crewmembers on that ship. At the start of this novel, Jodenny is bored from being forced to spend months planetside recovering from the disaster, so she pulls some strings to board the Aral Sea as it's newest crewmember. Unfortunately she is put in charge of Underway Stores, the most troubled department in the ship - rumored to be full of incompetents, criminals and misfits. Past supply officers in charge of Underway Stores are either missing or had mysterious accidents, and Jodenny has to confront suspicious activities going on with her division and elsewhere in the ship. All of this is set against a backdrop of a military with Australian origins, and odd mystical things that seem rooted in Australian folklore also happen.
Overall: I think if you are a fan of Elizabeth Moon you will like Sandra McDonald's books, particularly because of the military aspects. If you like Linnea Sinclair and Ann Aguirre you may like this as well. The author was an officer in the U.S. Navy and her knowledge of the day to day workings of he military seems to really show in this novel. In The Outback Stars Jodenny has to deal with a mix of personalities both below and above her in the chain of command. Not everyone is a hard worker and trying to get the bad seeds working in harmony with everyone else is a challenge. However, it was refreshing to see Jodenny tackle the challenge with creativity and toughness, which didn't always help her make friends, but did make me respect her. She's a very competent character who knows her job and is good at it. I also liked seeing how she reserved judgement on people until she saw things for herself - particularly with Terry, an accused rapist. It was also interesting to read a book where the main culture was Australian, not American (even though the writer is American!), but there was a also a big mix of races and religions and ethnicities on the ship too. The romance itself was satisfying to read - it wasn't the main focus, and is slow-building. The tension comes from the fact that Jodenny is interested in a subordinate, which is a no-no within the milirary, so she spends most of the book supressing her feelings. I sighed a happy sigh at the end of this book. Although it seems like it will continue in The Stars Down Under, this book ended in a good place, without cliffhangers. I didn't feel like major strings were left undone, but there is enough undiscovered territory to keep me wanting to read book 2.
Links:
Reviews:
Burndive has been on my TBR pile for about a year and I liked the first book of the series so much (Warchild), that I am not sure why this book was there for so long. Too many books is the likely reason!
Each of the three books of this space opera triology has a different protagonist in the same universe. In this case the story focuses on Ryan Azarcon, a blond, blue eyed celebrity with famous parents. He's very different from Jos Musey, the main character in Warchild - he's more sheltered and protected by his connections, but even those aren't enough for him to stay unaffected by war. While Ryan is on EarthHub, he witnesses a bombing, which affects so deeply the only way Ryan knows how to cope is through self-medication - drugs. And things don't get better when he goes home to Austro, he witnesses more violence in the form of shooting at a nightclub. With his mother the top PR person on Austro and his father an infamous starship captain (who was introduced in Warchild), life is complicated for Ryan, and only seems to get worse. Even the friendship Ryan has with his bodyguard Sid has complications.
This book seemed to start a little before Warchild ended, on a parallel storyline, and then continued where it left off. We meet characters in Warchild like Jos and Warboy, but they are secondary ones. Compared to Jos, I thought that Ryan was 'softer' than him, because he's been lucky enough to be kept apart from the horrors of war by his parents, but Ryan had other skills because of his fame. It was interesting to see Jos and his father through Ryan's eyes though - his upbringing taught him about reading others.
Overall: I recommend these books if you like well written world-building and character driven development. The writing is top-notch, and despite the background in space, it focusses on individuals. I really like the way the characters interacted, especially Ryan and his father and Sid. I wish Lowachee would write a book about how Cairo Azercon was adopted by his parents, I was curious about his background, though some of it was revealed throughout Burndive.
Cagebird is the third and perhaps last of the series. I went to check the author's website and didn't see anything about further books, but I did see news about a new trilogy starting Fall/Winter 2009 which orbit books described as "Victorian era steampunk...in the style of Philip Pullman taking us from the Arctic North to steeped rooftops of civilization and the savages to the east." The first book is The Gaslight Dogs.
This cover continues the "couple in the middle of space" theme that all Sinclair's books have now. I noticed that there is nothing on the cover to let the reader know that this is the continuation of the story that started in Gabriel's Ghost. That information is inside in the acknowledgements, and not everyone reads those. I know this isn't the author's fault, so why is this, publishers? I don't see how this can help but antagonize people who don't know and buy a book to find that it's book 2.
This review may have spoilers for Gabriel's Ghost.
My review of that is here - livejournal | vox.
Shades of Dark does pick up right after Gabriel's Ghost leaves off - Chasidah Bergren, ex-Fleet officer and her lover Gabriel Ross Sullivan are fugitives trying to clear their name and fight a corrupt Empire. There is some backstory explained at the beginning, but I hadn't read Gabriel's Ghost in a while so even I had problems remembering who was who just from the names. It took me a little bit to get back into the world, but throughout the book I still couldn't remember all the enemy factions - Darius Tage and Hayden Burke, Sheldon Blaine and the Farosians.. so it's worth making a little chart:
Enemies:
1. Darius Tage - bigwig in the Empire, xenophobe who is willing to breed jukors (mindless killing beasts) to have a weapon against the Ragkiril (usually Stolorths with telepathic powers, but Gabriel is a human one). In cahoots with Burke, has Emperor Prew's ear, and has been manipulating him to his own ends and destabilize the Admiral's Council (which controls the Fleet).
2. Hayden Burke - Sully's cousin. Playboy, in cahoots with Tage. Interested in discounting anything Sully does for their family's sizeable inheritances, wants power, also involved in breeding jukors.
3. Sheldon Blaine - claims he is the rightful heir to the emperor's throne (currently held by Emperor Prew). Is imprisoned in the planet Moabar, where Chaz was sent to at the beginning of Gabriel's Ghost. He is supported by a small group of Farosians.
4. The Farosians - Terrorists. A small faction on the side of Blaine, who want to free him from capitivity and take over the Empire. Call themselves Sheldon Blaine's Justice Wardens.
5. The Emperor/The Fleet - Because of the mechanisms of Tage and Burke, Sully and Chaz are considered terrorists and are on the run. Anyone on their side is on the wrong side of the law, dispite the powers being corrupt.
6. Purity Englarians - fanactical faction of Englarians who follow Abbot Eng's teachings and believe Takas are to be "guided" by humans and Stoloroths hated - and all Ragkiril's should be killed. A big problem for Sully and Chaz in the first book.
7. Mutunious crewmembers - Certain members of Sully's crew are not happy that there is a Stoloroth on board (Ren), who they think is a Ragkiril. A possible enemy within.
Do you see? How this is complicated? There's a lot of things going on despite much of the story taking place on Sully's spacecruiser, the Boru Karn. The book isn't short - 410 pages because of all the things going on. And besides all the intruige and incidents that happen in space because of their enemies and because they are wanted people, Sully and Chaz are also dealing with Sully's gifts as a Ragkiril. This is a darker story due to this. Sully has so much power, a power he feels is growing and which could corrupt him. Actually, it made the love story more complicated and interesting because of what Sully is going through. Now he and Chaz are ky'sara and ky'sal, they have to learn about it as they go along. Pushing matters further along, they meet Del, an exiled Stoloroth prince who wants to teach Sully, but who makes Chaz uncomfortable (I found him really creepy and sexual harassment sprang to mind).
Anyway, overall, I think this is a darker toned book that Sinclair's previous ones. I prefer the lighter stories, but this was more realistic because of the dark parts. There are a couple of shockers in here regarding some decisions Chaz makes in order to do the right thing. No spoilers, but things got really interesting in the last 30 or so pages. I didn't find the book as uncomfortable a read as some reviewers did, but I was disturbed by some things. The more I think about that, the more I liked this being part of the story.
It also felt like there were two distinct parts of the book that both focus on problems that are related to Sully's gift, like there were two big plots revolving around certain enemies, and because of them Sully is forced to deal with his Ragkiril nature. Once one major plotline was done with, the other one started, but both involved the darkness that comes with Sully's power. The only problem I had was that this book was pretty long, and there were lulls in the action. It that had to happen, but those parts felt slow to me. From the other reviews I see, I'm the only one who noticed though.
ETA: ALSO I noticed a lot more sex scenes in this book than any prior Sinclair novel. FYI.
This story continues in Hope's Folly, which is out in February 2009. It will focus on Chaz's ex-husband Admiral Philip Guthrie as he heads ex-Fleet, now-rebel forces in combat against the current Fleet. There's a teaser for this at the end of Shades of Dark, and it looks good.
Other reviews:
This is book 2 of the Sirantha Jax series, book 1 is Grimspace, which I reviewed here.
In this series, our flawed heroine Jax is a jumper, someone with a special j-gene that allows her to navigate ships through grimspace. As with all jumpers she's addicted to the thrill of grimspace but knows that her life expenctancy is low - her next jump could fry her mind and be her last. This has made her rather devil-may-care and self-serving until she is the sole survivor in a horrific crash, and March finds her under arrest by the Corp.
In Wanderlust, Jax is past much of the problems she dealt with in Grimspace, but, as her luck would have it, she runs into another set. Now she discovers that because she was briefly declared dead, this lead to her accounts being frozen and right now she's broke. This means she needs a job, and what's being offered is an ambassadorship to Ithiss-Tor. That's the planet Vel, her would-be assassin-turned-friend came from - where the inhabitants are human-sized insects that can produce a camoflage layer of skin to blend into other societies. Jax and her motley group of friends decide to take the job, but there are other groups around them with hidden agendas. Some want Jax to go and do a good job, some want her to go and fail spectacularly, and some just want to kill her. Action and space opera ensues!
I found a good review of this book, which I agreed with (that also has more detail about the plot, so don't click if you don't want to know) , here at LJ's genrereviews community.
Overall, I found that this book was slower-paced than Grimspace in a good way. Things feel like they take the right amount of time. I don't think the story needs to have constant action, and it was good to have some lulls (resting between battles, a non-eventful space trip once in a while, more planning, more quiet moments). There is still plenty going on of course, lots of suspense and action, its just not all of the book. This was a good thing.
Besides Vel, March, and Dina who were introduced in Grimspace , a couple new people join their crew - Hit, a skilled fighter and pilot, and Jael, an ex-mercenary. Both with complicated pasts, as with everyone in Jax's circle. Hit and Dina get along very well, and there are hints at a blossoming relationship between the two women - I really liked how this was written - like they fit together easily, without much fuss or fanfare, but still it seems like something special. Meanwhile March and Jax's relationship continues to evolve, and it's not easy for them. Aguirre throws an interesting wrench into things, and I'm waiting to see how it gets resolved in later books. I've been quite pleased with the writing in terms of the snappy dialog between people, and the growing friendships in the crew. The characters in the book all intruiged me, not just Jax and March. Even Jax's personal assistant 245 interested me! So - I felt totally satisfied after reading this book because - I still want to know what happens next, which is what you want to have when you know there's another book coming along. And I think my interest will probably last until the next book comes out. Plus, it felt like a great escape to read the book. Good space opera fun.
Wanderlust comes out on August 26th, 2008.
Here's an excerpt.
Book 3 and 4 are contracted and tentatively (?) will be called Doubleblind and Killbox. I believe there is going to be a book 5, but that has no title yet.
Aguirre also has an urban fantasy series in the works, about a woman who finds missing people with her ability to touch things and know what it's history is. The first book is Blue Diablo and is out April 7th, 2009, and book 2 is Hell Fire, which comes out sometime at the end of 2009.
