J.S. Fields

Author & Scientist

Review: Paladins of the Storm Lord by Barbara Ann Wright

Genre: science fantasy

Pairings: f/f, m/m

Queer Representation: cis lesbian, cis gay, cis bisexual

Warnings: wonky feelings on skin tone and aliens

Rating: 2.5 stars

Review

Over two hundred years ago, a colony ship from Earth was knocked off course and forced to settle an undeveloped new world. Those that were asleep when the disaster struck became colonists. Those that were awake and shepherding the ship became gods with superhuman abilities. But the native life of the planet has had enough, and supernatural abilities or not, humanity’s dominion over the planet is about to be called into question.

In general

This had the bones of a good story. Supernatural humans ruling over normal humans, some in-betweens, a hint of space lesbian romance, what’s not to like? The worldbuilding was strong without being overbearing, and the interpersonal interactions generally resonated. The dynamics of the ‘gods’ on the ship, especially, were very engaging. Some great one and two-liners cropped up, too, such as this gem:

As she watched them, Cordelia thought of how humans would have called the scene love at first sight or soul mates or some other crap. Leave it to the less technologically advanced species to reduce it to chemistry.

Unfortunately, it was very had to really sink into the novel. There were innumerable POV characters that swapped out mid-chapter and sub plots that always seemed to hint but never deliver. Relationships, both friend and otherwise, settled in at a lukewarm pace and never had time to become fully realized. A number of very exciting conflicts were set up, but then the characters seemed at times to be paraded through them instead of being allowed to move organically. Much of the dialogue came across as stilted approximations of witty banter, lacking emotional depth.

Relationships

The best relationship was between Cordelia (a main POV character) and her solider/drinking buddy/general screwup Liam (a minor POV character…I think? I think he had a few paragraphs?). The damsel-in-distress pick up scene on pages 12-13 (paperback), in particular, was fantastically well done and one of the main reasons I kept giving this book a chance. The banter throughout those pages was exceedingly well done and it was very easy to empathize with all parties. That it lead to a stock bar scene on a secondary Earth didn’t matter. It was relevant, and it spoke to experience, and it was everything I was hoping for from PALADINS OF THE STORM LORD.

Dillon (god, main POV character) and Lazlo’s (god, minor POV character) relationship was the most complex of the book, skating around toxic relationship issues with solid POV moments from both characters. There were plenty of times, however, where I wanted to really stay and explore their dynamic, just to be pulled from them after only a few paragraphs. As the book progressed this became more and more problematic, until these otherwise three dimensional characters felt as flat as cardboard.

Skin tons on aliens

There was a lot of description of the aliens and their brown skin, and much less of the humans. Human characters were routinely introduced with hair or eye color, not skin tone (although that was occasionally dropped in later) but the aliens were almost uniformly presented as ‘skin tone.’ It was… othering, although it’s possible the author was trying to add social commentary via this channel (the publisher’s website does have the book tagged under POC) but personally, it left a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t know if it would for everyone.

 

Overall

The action scenes were decent and tension sustained at a moderate level throughout the book. Fans of military sci fi that has the bones of fantasy, as well as those looking for more queer inclusion outside of straight romance, will likely enjoy PALADINS OF THE STORM LORD. You can purchase the book here in ebook and here in paperback.

Review: Translucid by Zen DiPietro

Genre: science fiction (space opera/military)

Pairings: female/female

Queer Representation: bisexual, pansexual, lesbian

Warnings: none

Rating: 3.5 stars

 

Review

Emé wakes up on a space station with no memory of who she is, but a complete memory of her job as a security chief. With every part of what makes her her missing, Emé must learn to trust those around her while she pieces her life back together. It turns out, however, that the person she was before was a liar–a good one–and Emé must unravel not only her personal identity, but determine why she lead a second life on Dragonfire station…with a wife who was originally her ‘mark.’

General

Heeeey it’s space lesbians! My favorite trope! The book started off strong, with a great hook chapter with Em waking up without her self-memory but a great technical memory… and then having to go home with a wife she does not remember. Em also discovers she has some uncanny fighting skills that she’s been hiding from the entire station. There’s great tension, the pacing is reasonable, and the interaction between Em and her wife is fantastic. The only time the pacing drops is in the final third of the book, when Em leaves Dragonfire station to find her missing Black Ops friends. Even then it doesn’t drop so much as it changes. The book goes from a sweet space opera directly into military sci fi, which was a little jarring. It was almost like two books smashed into one without much transition, leaving me to wonder if the rest of the books in this (extensive) series skew to the space opera side, or the military sci fi side.

 

Writing

This is one of those times were the narrative carried the book despite its flaws. The writing could have been much cleaner and direct, and there were numerous instances of timeline conflicts (pg 89, for instance, when Wren tells Em that a friend will be visiting for dinner that night, only to have Wren and Em watch a movie and go to bed because the friend actually isn’t coming over until the next night). The editorial work on this book was not tight, but it was easy to forgive amongst the intrigue of Em’s identity and the richness of the station.

 

Characters

I was instantly involved with Em. Her lost memory and the issues surrounding her wife and living situation created strong conflict from the first page and drove the book the entire time Em was on the station. Wren, her wife, was three-dimensional despite having very little page time. There was a menagerie of secondary station characters, all of whom were fleshed out and had distinct personalities. A number of cultures were very well described as well, giving a 270 page book surprising depth.

The members of the Black Ops team were less compelling, likely because they were introduced late in the book and had little screen time. It was hard to make the transition between Em’s daily station life and her Black Ops life, especially after she left the station. I think I needed more investment in the three other ops characters before I could get on board with the story line moving in their direction. One of the main factors keeping me from picking up the next book, in fact, is the uncertainty of whether it would continue the military side with Em’s operative friends, or whether it would drive Em back to the station and her interpersonal relationships there.

In the end, TRANSLUCID is a strong addition to the lesbians in space genre. Those interested in space opera and its intersection with military science fiction will enjoy this book. Those looking for straight space opera may want to look elsewhere.

You can buy TRANSLUCID in ebook here and paperback here.

As an addendum, since purchasing this book the cover has been updated. The cover in this post is the old cover, which I adore. The new cover is…decidedly not as nice.

 

 

Review: Ruin of Stars by Linsey Miller

Genre: fantasy (sword and sorcery) (YA)

Pairings: nonbinary (genderfluid)/female

Queer Representation: nonbinary, bisexual, aromantic

Warnings: much stabbing

Rating: 4 stars

Review

Once again I had more to say on a book (surprise surprise). You can read my official review here. For more in-depth analysis, see below.

This review contains massive spoilers because it is impossible to review the book without them.

The sequel to MASK OF SHADOWS, genderfluid Sal is back as Our Queen’s Opal–ready to assassinate anyone Our Queen needs, but also hell bent on finishing off their own assassination list for the murder of their homeland, Nacea. Much like Arya Stark, Sal has a list and will do anything to cross the names off. Severed ears, missing children, rouge magic, and murderous shadows, however, keep getting in the way.

General

This was much the same as the first book in terms of plot and pacing. The start was a bit slower to get into, as there was very little rehashing and it was rough to remember all the (numerous) players in the court. I didn’t get really hooked into the narrative until page 159 (I actually dog-eared the page because I got so excited). Things got better after Sal started their quest and the character number dropped to just them and Rath, and a few additional characters. There was just as much violence and gore as the first (which was not a problem–it was very well balanced) and once again, the secondary characters really shone through. So let’s talk about…

Characters

Maud remains my favorite person in the series. She’s nuanced, complexed, and so well written than I would pay cash money, right now, for a book just written from her POV. I would read this entire duology again from a Maud POV as well. She is an absolutely delightful duplicitous servant and her devotion to Sal is just perfect. Her interaction with Sal on page 40-42 is just so quintessential Maud. There was never any doubt in my mind which team she was playing for. Please, Linsey Miller, can we have a collection of Maud shorts?

Elise gained some additional dimensionality in this book and went from simple love interest to plot-relevant sidekick. Her romance with Sal remained a bit lukewarm, but that was by design, as the two have quite the falling out about midway through.

The villains were flat out delicious. All of them. I love morally grey people (as anyone who has read the Ardulum series will know), and it was wonderful to go through their mental mechanisms and rationalizations. There were times when I could have easily sided with the villains, too. Burn Nacea! Maybe just leave off the shadow business…

To the enby stuff

Yes okay, enough rehash. You’re here for teh gay, I assume. I was pleased with MASK OF SHADOWS and its portrayal as genderfluid as just part of in-world life. Some explanations had to be given, but generally it was a non-issue. I know from discussions that the author was asked to step up the enby issues in this book, and she certainly did so. I’m not sure I like it? I don’t dislike it, but coming in the second book of the series felt a little jarring. It also only played out in the first half and disappeared again in the back half of the book. Because of all this the issues surrounding Sal’s gender fluidity, it felt tacked on instead of natural, and thus every mentioned jumped out at me, instead of drawing me farther into the book.

I want to make it very clear though, that A) I realize this is not the author’s fault and B) due to the almost complete lack of nonbinary rep in mainstream published YA literature, these kinds of call-outs to identity are almost mandatory. It’s rote for me, but not the cis fifteen year old, necessarily. So in this case, as frustrating as I found it, it has a very legitimate reason for being there.

I did really miss the emphasis on the fluid nature of Sal’s gender in this book. In MASK OF SHADOWS we got to see a lot more of Sal as a woman, Sal as a man, Sal in-between. It made the outfits fun and the titles fun and really helped to humanize Sal. We only get one of those instances in this book, on page 189:

“Lady Opal,” she said–I was but I didn’t like the way she said it, like she’d say it no matter what–and smiled.”

The subtly of this sentence is what made me love MASK OF SHADOWS, and was something I missed a lot in RUIN OF STARS, where Sal’s pronouns seem to uniformly get shoved into ‘they’ instead of bouncing between she, he, and they.

I also enjoyed the extended time with Elise and her canon bisexuality. It was only briefly touched on in the first book, but here it is a major bone of contention that actually drives part of the plot. Erlend sounds like an awful country, btw, and I’ll take a hard pass on a tour package to there, even if we get to see shadows.

The sex scene with Sal and Elise (page 372) was lovely, not only in the way it was written but in that there is no great ‘what’s between their legs’ answer. That is really the crowning achievement of this duology–Miller manages to write a three-dimensional genderfluid character without ever feeling the need to dip into the assigned gender at birth, Sal’s anatomy, or anything like that. The reader is left with absolutely no idea if Sal’s body has a penis or a vulva, and it doesn’t matter in the slightest to anyone in-world. Sure, the Erlend people want you to have one gender and stick with it, but no one appears to have an issue with genitals and gender.

So, as violent and bloody as the world is in these books, in many ways, it’s a lot nicer than our own.

 

You can buy RUIN OF STARS here in paperback and here in ebook.

 

Review: Ruin of Angels by Max Gladstone

Genre: high urban fantasy

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: trans lesbian, cis lesbian, bisexuality

Warnings: none

Rating: three stars

 

Review

Kai is called to the city of Agdel Lex, built on the ruins of Alikand, to visit her estranged sister, Ley. Once there, she finds Ley tangled up in an intricate plot to free the city from its oppressors. The sisters must find each other, however, before they can stop the multi-faceted threat.

General

Generally, this is a heist story in a high fantasy setting (urban fantasy, in that it is more modern, but high fantasy nonetheless). Like a lot of high fantasy it employs many POV characters and rich, deep worldbuilding. It is also an amazing tale of sisterhood, as well as a solid romance book. It’s everything, really, which is amazing. There is no one feeling, nor one trope, that consumes this book. Instead, it is a fully fleshed out story in a world so real you can smell it.

Characters

The characters were generally very well rounded and dynamic, but there were just so many of them. I had a hard time keeping the secondary characters straight, especially the ones where we only got to be in their heads for a partial chapter or two. The main characters were generally much more interesting, although my interest in the sisters waned as the story progressed and their friends became more dynamic. By the end of the book I was actually more interested in the tertiary characters than anyone else, and had a hard time staying invested in the plot.

Plot

While this is book six in a series, each book can function as a stand alone. This book had been recommended to me many times, and I finally just said to hell with the earlier ones, and read it. I’m not sure if the lack of backstory contributed to my confusion, but I’m going to assume it was at least somewhat to blame.

The first two hundred pages or so were very compelling, and despite not having read the previous five books, I didn’t mind being confused. The language was rich enough and the characters round enough that it was a delightful discovery. The middle of the book started to drag, however, with one mini arc after another, and with the continuing introduction of characters, I found myself lost. The end melded together a bit better, but by page 450 I had lost much of my investment.

The ending was solid, and it was worth getting there, but much like when I read any GAME OF THRONES books, I found myself skipping over POVs I just didn’t care about. So while I enjoyed this book, and it had just about every element I look for in a story, I found it generally to be too long. It would have been an amazing 400 page book, but it ran a bit long in the tooth.

This isn’t to say that lovers of high fantasy wouldn’t enjoy it! I often think high fantasy is just a bit too long, and that the stories should be tighter, but I know many high fantasy fans really want an extended ride. Any lovers of Sanderson’s work would feel at home in RUIN OF ANGELS, as would anyone who doesn’t mind juggling more than five POVs.

Additional Bonus

In terms of queer rep, one of the sisters is a trans woman. The nod to this is subtle, and no one in-world cares at all, which is amazing. This type of accepted, unquestioned queerness was so wonderful. In addition, there are two strong f/f romance lines through the book, and book were sweet and relatable. This book stands very well on queer rep and queer romance, especially for those who like a sturdy fantasy plot along with their ‘I love yous.’

 

You can buy RUIN OF ANGELS in ebook here and paperback here

Review: Island in the Sea of Time by S.M. Stirling

Genre: fantasy (unclassified)

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis bisexual

Warnings: racism, sexism, rape not advancing the plot, rape turning a woman gay

Rating: two stars

Review

The story of an allo cis het white guy on a ship, fighting to instill ‘Merican values on Bronze Age savages–except for the blonde ones from England.

Oh, wait, no. That’s the cover.

This is actually the story of a black bisexual woman on a ship…fighting to instill ‘Merican values on Bronze Age savages, but falling in love with one of the less-savage blonde ones. That’s marginally better, or at least it would be if the protagonist had been written with less emphasis on how incredibly black she was.

The Plot

Nantucket Island (which, to be fair, is really moderate-liberal white) is, for an unexplained reason, plucked from reality and dropped into the Bronze Age. Same place, just different year. The inhabitants must figure out how to feed themselves, which involves figuring out how to trade with the humans around them. They have +10 in nice ships, everyone seems to have a Japan fetish (katana! but also they never think of going to Japan…), and the usual number of people who want to rape and plunder.

The Good

It was a very immersive world. I loved the discussions of the technology and how it needed to be adapted, and loved the idea of first contact scenarios. The struggles on Nantucket between the islanders were some of the most compelling scenes, as the group worked on the hows and whys of their isolation, and how best to survive.

Noting the white guy on the cover, I was more than a little surprised to find this had a black woman lead, and that she got not only a romance line, but it was with another woman. The romance was sweet, with a good amount of sexual tension, and the sex scenes were tastefully done (sadly, not too explicit, but I’d never be mad at a book for that). So in terms of the f/f romance line, this book can have 5 stars. Pro tip though: the only people who get to write about Lesbian Bed Death are lesbians. Fight me.

The Bad

Can we just stop with the rape as a common place tool trope? Please? Nantucket Island was transported back into the Bronze Age. My suspension of disbelief is already waaaay beyond my comfort zone. Would taking a look back in time to see that oh, rape was actually not as common place as everyone thought (which is increasingly being found to be true) be so hard? If you must have rape, does it need to be titulating? (Hint: the answer is no.)

Also, you know what is bullshit? Raping a woman and then having her turn to women. That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works. If every raped woman became a lesbian, well, this world would look a lot different. Being raped doesn’t make you gay. Period. Being gay makes you gay.

The Ugly

It simply is not necessary to point out the otherness of people every chance you get. Yes, we know the main character is black. Constant discussion of how she was hard to see at night, or her black arms reaching for something, or her nappy hair (really??) just further serve the white default narrative. The only Asian character is a sado-masochist (and not in the fun ‘we use safe words’ way), and the only other black character is a caricature. The two Jewish people end up together. The two bisexual women end up together. Gay men apparently do not exist, nor does anyone outside the gender binary. With the sheer volume of people we meet in this book, that’s really impressive, especially noting that the cultures do not seem even remotely upset by the f/f relationship. If it’s common enough to be NBD, where are the other queers?

This book actually reminds me of any number of the feminist utopia books from the 1970s and 1960s. It (and they) read as one person’s myopic view of a perfect future (or past), not giving any thought to intersectionality of identities, nor of marginalized voices. How progressive, to have a land only with women (for the feminist utopias of only white women who are all straight and cis)! How progressive, to have a black lesbian as a lead (in a book that uses the word savages to discuss basically every non-white culture)!

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the attempt, but with the amount of reading and researching that likely went into this book to get the ship lingo, navigation, and Bronze Age cultures at least somewhat technically accurate, you’d think a few sociological texts could have been consulted as well. Presenting Native American peoples as wife-beaters and/or cannibals and human sacrificers, Egyptians as nothing more than slavers, ignoring every Asian culture as not developed enough to worry about, while spending time with white Bronze Age cultures that seem rustic, but oh look, they’re actually really intelligent–is absolute horse shit. And the more ‘rustic’ of the British tribes, the ones who aren’t intelligent enough to work with, get called white Apache because they are so savage.

This book was written in 1998, btw.

I really wanted to like this book, and it had some strong worldbuilding, but the racism, especially, was absolutely appalling. If you want to give it a go for the generally good romance line, or just to see a black woman kicking ass (but being reminded she is OMG BLACK all the time), then maybe hunt this one up at a used bookstore. Spoiler: the black lady lead never makes the cover on any of the trilogy books. No surprise there.

I refuse to provide buy links for this book. Those who read George R.R. Martin’s books will also likely love this series for the striking white savior / brown skinned people are savages parallels.

 

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