J.S. Fields

Author & Scientist

Review: ONE LAST STOP by Casey McQuinston

Genre: science fiction: modern time travel

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis bisexual, cis (butch) lesbian, trans man

Warnings: this book is freaking adorable

Review

Twenty-three-year-old August has just moved to New York City, intent on finally finishing her degree and carving out a life away from her obsessive mother. Frequent rides on the subway keep her running into a mysterious woman in late seventies fashion. Jane is the butch of August’s dreams, but has a little bit too much of the unknown about her. The more August unravels about Jane, the more she comes to doubt not only her understanding of physics, but her understanding of her own family. Jane may be the key to finding August’s long-missing uncle, but she may be the key to August’s heart, too.

I’m not usually a contemporary reader. I did like the author’s last work, the m/m RED, WHITE, AND ROYAL BLUE, and so an f/f pairing, with time travel, sparked my interest. Overall, ONE LAST STOP is a cute, if overlong, ‘meet cute’ book. The sci fi elements are deeply downplayed in favor of extensive character work. Found family abounds, deep introspection is the norm, and there’s a lot of NYC atmospheric elements that help bind the book together.

The romance between August and Jane is the strongest part of the narrative, and all the make out and sex scenes are tight with tension, longing, and butch/femme dynamics. They are unfortunately couched between what sometimes feels like endless friendship discussions with August’s roommates–all of whom are entertaining, but all over the top in one way or another. One or two would make the narrative richer. Five or six make the narrative overwhelming.

ONE LAST STOP would make for a great airplane travel book or comfort read on a long, rainy day where you still have some things to do. Imminently interruptible, it’s a soft, cozy love story about subway romance with easily skimmable fluff filler.

With that said, the narrative voice is strong and August’s voice in particular is distinct. Some examples include:

 

“Yikes,” she says, gesturing at August’s shirt, where the coffee stain has soaked in and spread, which is the last possible reason August wants this girl to be looking at her boobs.

 

August can feel her face glowing red to match the scarf, like a giant, stammering, bisexual chameleon. An evolutionary mistake.

 

And the writing is rich with lesbian courting dynamics I seldom see written down, even in contemporary romance:

She lowers her eyes finally, and when she cuts them over, August forgets she ever asked a question. Or what questions are. Or the entire process of speech. “What brought you here?”

“Um, school,” August says. The lighting is already unflattering, so it can’t be helping the shade of red she turns when confronted with significant eye contact from butch girls in leather jackets.

 

There are also a few delicious pop culture references. My favorite:

“August, I love you very much, and I want you to be happy, and I’m very confident that you and this girl are, like, fated by the universe to finger blast each other until you both die,” she says. “But honestly? I am in this for the sci-fi of it all. I’m living a real life episode of The X-Files, okay? This is the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me, and my life has not been boring. So, can we go, Scully?”

 

Grab yourself a subway card and see if you can find your own time traveling butch girlfriend by buying the book here.

Review: The Galaxy and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

Genre: science fiction: space opera

Pairings: none

Queer Representation: nonbinary of many different flavors

Warnings: none

Review

The planet Gora is a desolate world with no real atmosphere, no water, no resources. Situated between two major jump points however, it has transformed over the years into a bustling commercial hub. Numerous species have made their homes there as well, most in the tourism industry.

With that much traffic and space infrastructure comes the inevitable malfunction. Spaceships are grounded, communications are cut from planet to space, and all travelers are stuck until the powers that be can fix things.

THE GALAXY AND THE GROUND WITHIN focuses on a group of diverse travelers stuck at the Five-Hop One-Stop bed and breakfast sort of establishment for the duration of the emergency. In Chambers’ fashion, the book doesn’t have an overarching plot and instead works more as an extended coffeeshop fanfic. Readers of Chambers’ previous books will be very familiar with this style of writing. Newcomers may bounce off hard while looking for some sort of established sci fi structure.

Structure is not what this book is about.

Instead, Chambers delivers intimate looks at a number of different alien species, giving the reader deep dives into culture, anatomy, politics, and love. The story focuses on three main aliens, the alien host, and the host’s adolescent child:

Roveg (a Quelin): an exiled video game designer with a warm personality and a heart of gold who will miss his child’s coming of age ceremony if the emergency goes on too long

Speaker: a methane breather without functional legs. One half of a twin set (her sister being named ‘Tracker.’) Speaker is an Akarak and while she has nowhere to be that is time sensitive, the emergency traps her away from her sister, without communication

Pei: a military cargo runner with a secret human love interest whom she will miss seeing if the emergency goes on too long. Pei, an Aeulon, featured in the first book THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL, ANGRY PLANET.

Ouloo (a Laru): is the owner of the Five-Hop One-Stop and deeply devoted to her child, as well as her guest’s comfort and needs.

Tupo: Ouloo’s adolescent child who has not yet decided xyr gender, and who is both deeply endearing and deeply awkward, as teenagers tend to be.

Awaiting him at the airlock entrance was a Laru–a large child, too young to have chosen a gender yet, comprised of angles that didn’t look comfortable and feet that didn’t match xyr body. Xyr fur looked halfway groomed, and was too long for xyr face. It hung listlessly over xyr large black eyes in a helpless manner that suggested it didn’t know why it was still growing but didn’t know what else to do.

Roveg and Tupo do have a number of fun exchanges, especially during Roveg’s visit to Typo’s natural history museum which is definitely not a geology museum.

And that’s…pretty much it. The characters spend the book slowly getting to know one another, gaining trust, and seeing each other’s ‘humanity.’ The strongest story line by far was Pei’s, who gets a lesson in agency and learns to exercise said agency by the end of the book. I was deeply engaged with all of her chapters.

Four tendays. Pei had four tendays to get this egg fathered. After that point, the window would close the egg would break down and be reabsorbed, and…that would be that. Opportunity lost. For most would-be mothers, there was only the one chance. This was Pei’s, apparently. She closed her eyes and pushed out what felt like every breath she’d ever taken.

Why now?

—

‘I trusted her. I liked her. I don’t always say that about doctors. But everything she proposed seemed safe and above board.’

‘But you didn’t do it.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I didn’t want to,’ Speaker said simply.

‘But why?’

‘Because I didn’t want to. And when it comes to a person’s body, that is all the reason there ever needs to be. Doesn’t matter if it’s a decision about a new pair of legs or how you like to trim your claws or–‘ she gave Pei a piercing look ‘–what to do about an egg. I didn’t want to. You don’t want to. That’s it.’

 

The other chapters, honestly, I frequently had to skim. The only other stand out character was Tupo, who did not really have a POV, but whose adolescent bumbling became deeply endearing.

Ouloo swung her long neck out into the room and saw that the sleeping alcove across from hers was empty. ‘Typo?’ she called. It wasn’t like her child to be awake this early. Every morning in recent memory had begun with a prepubescent war, each more tedious than the last. Ouloo felt a faint glimmer of hope arise, a fantastical fancy in which Tupo had gotten up on xyr own, started xyr chores, perhaps even cooked.

Ouloo nearly laughed at herself. There was no chance of that.

 

With even less plot than the previous WAFAIR installments, GALAXY is either a very weak ending, or a very Chambers’ ending, and I can’t decide which fits better. Fanfic readers will absolutely delight in the gentle, positive, hopeful atmosphere of the book. Those looking for the quintessential space opera space battles and intergalactic politics will want to skip this one.

Be the only human at the Five-Hop One-Stop by purchasing a copy here.

 

P.S. This is another book with cheese jokes

Review: The Anti-Quest by Angel Martinez

Genre: science fantasy

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: none

 

Review

You ever do that thing where one of your favorite authors releases a new book, so you can’t wait to read it…and then you read it right after a major surgery and have no memory of reading it?

I 100% did that with this book.

I just picked it up, excited that it was next in my TBR pile, just to find a bunch of dog-eared pages–which is how I denote where I want to pull quotes from. There are at least ten, which means I adored this book (no big surprise there) but wow can I not remember it. Hence, this review comes from having now read the book twice, although it seems the first time I was heavily drugged. You’ve been warned.

Paladin Snillek is half dragon, half human (but not with a cute mix of features. More…ferocious mix). She’s been raised off planet and gotten pretty good at fighting, which she enjoys.

Then oops, her mom the queen dies, and Snillek is the only heir.

Now she has to go be a princess to a planet she’s never visited, and to people who assume she’s going to be this cute little ringlet curled ruler with maybe just some patches of eczema. But Snillek is just really bad at wearing dresses (her muscles and tail don’t fit) and being polite and patient. Because she loves her father she tries…and succeeds long enough that the people around her think they have her pretty figured out.

Then she loses her temper, dragons-up, and flies from the castle. This should have ended her reign but the courtiers, having no concept of dragons, instead assume that a dragon has captured their princess.

What’s left to do but put back on all her old clothes, march to the palace, and offer her paladin services to slay the dragon (who is also Snillek) and save the princess (also Snillek).

It’s all very silly and hilarious and exactly the COVID read we all need. There’s some wlw action in there in the form of a scientist who wants to get a look at Tarribotia’s famed dragons, and passes herself off as a guide. She then of course ends up ‘guiding’ Snillek, and shenanigans ensue.

The university wouldn’t fund her research, and going through old drone archives wasn’t going to turn up anything new. No research, no published articles, no change in her academic standing, which then translated into being on the bottom of the pile for funding. It was a vicious cycle, and her mentor had long ago advised her to find a different area of study.

But…dragons. Tarribotia had multiple species of dragons about which scientists knew little to nothing. How could academia keep ignoring such an important part of the wild ecosystem? On a planet with dragons? She couldn’t just abandon them. Instead, she’d decided to take matters into her own hands. While no one went out into the wilds alone–no comm channels meant no one was coming if something happened–Gruyère felt that a scientist and a security-minded person could mange in a team of two.

That had been her thought, at least. Fine some hardened soul looking for a guide out into the badlands and convince them she was that guide. She didn’t think finding someone would be this difficult.

Unti she walked in.

Long, Tall, and Armored was a broody sort. She snagged a pint from the bar, commandeered a corner table, and sipped her beer through a straw rather than take her helmet off.

 

This book is +10 for dragons in dresses, court hijinks, and ridiculousness. It’s also a novella so just go buy it. You deserve it.

 

P.S. It has science nerd sex scenes:

 

Just having that big hand cupping her made her whine and twitch, Then Snillek fastened onto her nipple, sharp teeth scraping softly, and Gruyère thought she might come apart down to the amino acid level.

 

P.P.S. There are cheese jokes

Review: The Silences of Ararat by L. Timmel Duchamp

Genre: contemporary fantasy / contemporary dystopian

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis bisexual / cis pansexual (unclear narratively)

Warnings: none

Review

Paulina is a sculptor in a sort of THE HANDMAID’S TALE type dystopian future, where the ultra conservative faction of the USA has splintered off (Congress of Christian American States), elected a king, and follows ‘Christian’ teachings. Her husband, the king’s advisor, has gone missing and is presumed dead, leaving liberal Paulina only her sculpture by which to show her dissent.

Queen Hermione is everything a conservative king could want – beautiful, kind, doting, and able to hang on his every word without punching him in the face.

I have to admit, the branding of her image, combining “white” purity with womanly fecundity, revolted me. In person, though, I barely noticed it, distracted by the glimpses I began to see of an intensity I’d never before noticed. Those glimpses intrigued me. Maybe, I thought, there was something below the surface of wifely perfection composed of expensive grooming and constant deference to her husband and his most trusted advisors. Hermione was, after all, an actor. It was just possible she was consciously playing the role of the young third trophy wife and not merely following the script without noting she was doing so.

The king’s paranoia drives him to eventually accuse Hermione of adultery with his brother, and the ensuing trial and altercations result in the deaths of her two children and, as far as the public knows, of Hermione herself.

Paulina is the rescuing sort, turns out, and through using her innate magic to turn living things into sculpture, she fakes Hermione’s death, rescues the queen, and sequesters her in her own house. Romance blooms, the two women plot a delicious revenge on the king, and general emotional turmoil ensues.

The thought of her life as one of unending loneliness made me want to cry. “For godlike, love. That’s not what I meant when I talked about your needing to be strong.”

She took my hand and brought it to her cheek. “You are so good to me,” she said. “Better than I deserve.”

In that moment, Hermione’s entire attention was fixed on me in a way I hadn’t before experienced. The intimate intensity of her gaze kindled a dozen small flames licking at my skin that the sensation of my fingers on her face fanned into a blaze. To conceal what I was feeling, I pulled her close in a hug. “You don’t deserve to be lonely,” I said. “You don’t deserve to be abandoned.”

I began to pull away, only to be engulfed in confusion as her lips nudged mine and her fingers stroked my neck, feeding the conflagration of my most sensitive nerve endings. I had thought my sexuality desiccated and frozen, my heart petrified into stone. But my heart now beat so powerfully that I was suggested with heat, and the pulse in my vulva beat so strongly that I could no longer think.

Out of all the Conversation Pieces by Aqueduct Press that I have read, THE SILENCES OF ARARAT is definitely in the top five strongest installments (nothing will ever evict any of the Lucy Harper books from my heart, and the one about the girl journeying through the underworld still makes me smile). The narrative is strong and tight, with little fat and solid character development. The author spends enough time developing Hermione and the king that, when the inevitable betrayal occurs, it is both expected but still heart wrenching. The slow build up to the revenge, coupled with the romance arc, made the book a quick, delightful read.

The nonlinear narration did make the first half of the book confusing, though its a novella so the confusion was short lived. By the end of the book I didn’t mind it at all, although it makes me unlikely to reread.

For a fun dystopian with a satisfying revenge plot, you can join up with Paulina and Hermione to take down the king by buying the book here.

Review: For the Good of the Realm by Nancy Jane Moore

Genre: fantasy: classic retelling

Pairings: f/f  (not the lead though, as far as I can tell)

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: DNF

Review

An homage to Dumas, FOR THE GOOD OF THE REALM is billed as a THE THREE MUSKETEERS retelling, but with a female lead. I have not read MUSKETEERS, so my review will be colored by that lack of background knowledge.

Anna d’Gart is a skilled swordswoman who serves in a queensguard. Sent on a mission by the queen, she falls in with a witch and a few others, and is eventually tasked with protecting the Realm from an ancient magic.

The premise of the book was entertaining, and I did like the attitude of Anna, our lead heroine. Unfortunately the book utterly failed to capture my attention and I Did Not Finish (DNF) about halfway through. There’s a great story in there, buried under info dump after info dump, and agonizing scenes where the reader is told instead of shown.

Scenes that could have had great tension are summarized or skipped altogether, or, in the worst cases, are rendered tensionless by removing any potential peril:

On the following day, they were again traveling in their region where they had been attacked by the incompetent outlaws. While they were not concerned about those particular miscreants, it had occurred to them that the governor’s abuses might have caused others to turn to robbery and worse to feed their families. The forest was thick enough here that they were riding close to the main road even though they were using the small trails made by the local people when they foraged…

Being attacked by incompetent outlaws does nothing for the tension, nor do recaps of events, or summaries of current events. The narrative structure of the book kept me at a constant arm’s length from the story, and while I kept picking the book back up and trying to resume, after a few pages I’d hit another giant wall of info dump or summary and I’d have to put it back down again. There was also a repeated tendency to tell, then show, where we’d get character thoughts then we’d see the actions the character had just thought about, or that had just been summarized.

The book could have been half the length and been a really strong novella. It needed a strong editor’s hand. It’s possible the narrative style is similar to that of Dumas, but if so, I’d argue that a modern readership needs a more modern, cleaner style of writing (or at the very least, fewer summaries and info dumps).

This narrative style may work for some and hence, if feminist retellings of classics are your jam, you can buy the book here.

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