J.S. Fields

Author & Scientist

Review – Princeless, Book Two: Free Women, by Whitley, Higgins, and Brandt

This is a review for the second volume in a series. To read the review for the first volume, click here.

Genre: fantasy (comic)

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: none

Review

Book two picks up right where we left off, with the all female crew of Raven’s pirate ship off on their first adventure! In this collection the crew sails to The Island of the Free Women–an island Raven’s grandmother set up decades ago to beat back the patriarchy. Unfortunately now it’s just a wretched hive of scum and villainy, as these things go.

The crew are still getting to know one another, and as they split into teams to get the supplies they need to beat Raven’s brothers, the brothers strike first and Raven must go head to head with her family.

While the series still has my attention, I felt like this volume wasn’t as well done as the last. There are too many characters and we’ve not spent enough time with most of them for me to remember their names, much less their backstory. It makes their peril less interesting to read about, and the action scenes harder to parse.

The font also seems to be smaller in this edition (or my eyes got worse in the… two months? between reading volume one and volume two), or there was just too much going on in the panels to focus on the words. Whatever it was, reading this volume gave me a headache and I actually put it down for a few days. Volume one I read to cover to cover in one sitting, so enthralled was I by Raven and her crew.

This volume might have had more punch if it had a contained arc to it, which volume one certainly did. In this one we spend a lot of time on character building (and yet somehow still not enough, since there are so damn many characters) and only get action with the brothers at the very end. As that action ends mostly unresolved, I was left with a ‘that’s it?’ taste in my mouth at the end of the volume. I don’t mind being along for the extended ride, but I need touchstones and progress markers, or I’m going to wander.

Regardless, it’s still a lot of good solid lesbian pirate fun. If you’re like to get back with Raven’s very diverse pirate crew, pick up the next volume here.

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Review: The Adventure of the Incognita Countess by Cynthia Ward

Genre: uh…. science fiction? maybe? pulp SF?

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: none

 

Review

British intelligence agent and half vampire Lucy Harker takes an assignment on the Titanic to protect the plans of the Nautilus. German spies are everywhere and a lovely vampire countess whom Lucy should  kill but she’s just so damn alluring, keeps getting in the way.

Also Tarzan. (Is Lord Greyborough the rumored peer raised by apes? Yes, Lucy. Yes he is)

I uh, don’t really know if I have the right words for just how weird this book is and how much I really really enjoyed it. It’s written like an old pulp scifi, but mercifully easing up on the racism, sexism, and homophobia (these elements are discussed and firmly shot down in-world, which I appreciated). The author clearly took great delight in adding in every pulpy character from the time who would conceivably be in England, hence Tarzan, a reference to Dr. Watson, and of course, Lucy who is the daughter of Dracula and a mortal woman.

The way the book is written isn’t tongue-in-cheek. It takes itself seriously while presenting one after another ridiculous elements, such as the Titanic being outfitted with Martian technology, namely heat-rays, to melt icebergs.

Yes, I said Martian ray guns. See passage below:

Since the failed Martian invasion of England in 1902, our government has devoted enormous resources to unlocking the secrets of the alien technology. It’s only in the last few years that we’ve mastered the heat-ray; the rest continue to elude us.

And since the writing style is so serious and so tight, every instance of absurdity is that much more amusing.

This book is solid. It’s written in first person present but the elements of weird and period and science fiction are very well balanced. It’s everything I’d want in a pulp novel and actively removes everything I hate, like random bigotry. The romance between the half-vampire and remorseful full vampire is smooth, delicate, and delicious. The Titanic history adds an extra element of tension to the book, and the random elements just make for a delightful ride.

The book is just… well it’s just good fun.

Since I don’t want to give away ALL the weirdness, I’ll just suggest that to prepare for the Martian invasion and/or a rabid Tarzan, purchase THE ADVENTURE OF THE INCOGNITA COUNTESS here in paperback and here in ebook.

 

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Review: Mutiny at Vesta by R.E. Stearns

Note: this is the second book in the series. A review of the first book, BARBARY STATION, can be found here.

Genre: sci fi space opera/military

Pairings: f/f, enby/m

Queer Representation: cis female, nonbinary of many flavors, cis gay

Warnings: Sequel review. Will contain spoilers for BARBARY STATION

 

Review

Buckle up kids, it’s time to kick off the YEAR OF SEQUELS!

It is hard as hell to get your sequel books reviewed, especially the farther you get into a series. Most small review sites and blogs flat out won’t even consider them. Hence, this year I’m dedicating to sequels and series, as well as trying to finish up my list from last year that I didn’t quite make it through.

Top of my list for sequels for 2019 was MUTINY AT VESTA, the sequel to BARBARY STATION. BARBARY introduced us to long-term couple Adda and Iridian, who have turned to piracy as a way to pay off their sizable student loan debt. Excellent hook. Everything goes awry when they get trapped on Barbary Station with a rouge AI bent on killing them, the pirates, and a mess of civilians.

Eventually of course they manage to deactivate the AI and escape Barbary. MUTINY AT VESTA picks up not long after. Adda and Iridian are now fully members of Captain Sloane’s pirate crew. Unfortunately they don’t get to do a lot of fun lesbian pirating, as they are almost immediately blackmailed into working for a mega corporation with no soul… as these things go.

The rest of the book contains a series of short adventures as the crew do the bidding of the corporation while also trying to get out from under its thumb. Adda and Iridian are just as adorable as ever, Pel is back with his flamboyant, youthful earnestness, and there are a ton of explosions. Added to it are four sentient AIs that may or not be evil. No spoilers.

Like BARBARY, MUTINY had a lot of nitty gritty detail. Lovers of every movement and minute action described will find the blocking perfect. It’s easy enough to skip over if that sort of stuff bores you, too. The book truly is a blend of space opera and military sci fi, and consistently wriggles between the crew interactions and feeeeeelings, to command structures, heavily explained tech, and A.I. workspaces.

The A.I.s though, that’s the real reason to read MUTINY. AegiSKADA, the rouge A.I. that tried to murder everyone in BARBARY, is back (although rebooted), along with all the other awakened A.I.s from the end of book one. Adda ends up trying to train all of them, which inevitably puts a strain on her relationship with Iridian and the rest of the crew. The detailing of her artificial dreamscape/workspace remains incredible, and the A.I.s are as fully fleshed out as any character.

As Sloane’s crew become more and more tangled with mega corporations and further from their dreams, it’s impossible to not root for the A.I.s turning into contributing members of the pirate crew. At times they even seem the most straightforward of the characters, which of course, is all part of R.E. Stearns’ plan.

While it might not always be the most straightforward romp, MUTINY AT VESTA is a worthy sequel to BARBARY STATION. From the ending it looks like there might be a third in the series, so here’s hoping.

You can buy MUTINY AT VESTA in ebook here, print here, and audiobook here.

 

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Review: Open Water by Pol Robinson

Genre: contemporary romance

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: none

 

Review

As I’m sure readers have noticed, I’m not the biggest fan of contemporary romance. I often find it lacks greater plot outside the ‘how will they get together,’ which I enjoy, don’t get me wrong, but I like it with a healthy side of pew pew, too.

I picked up OPEN WATER on a whim because I had a lot of traveling to do and the author is also a scientist. I was very surprised by the content: excellent pacing, strong characterization, solid but not overbearing use of tropes (evil girlfriend especially…come on, we all have one), all set against a thrilling Olympics setting.

Even readers unfamiliar with rowing sports will be swept away by the description and competition. The romance is slow and sweet, with no sex scene but great emotional payoff. The ‘chase’ is just about perfect, with plenty of twists and turns.

There are a few POV switches that appear to perhaps be unintentional, as the book is mostly third limited with a few forays into omniscient, but it doesn’t really detract from the story. The editing is clean and the cover more than reasonable (especially for small press).

OPEN WATER reminds me a lot of CHASING GHOSTS (so no surprise I like it) in its focus on a greater plot over romance. Like CHASING GHOSTS, the characters have rich external lives. Unlike CHASING GHOSTS it doesn’t have a sex scene, but really the romance and build up was more than sufficient in this book.

 

You can buy OPEN WATER in paperback here and ebook here.

 

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Review: The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt

Genre: sci fi (space opera)

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: gay, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, nonbinary, asexual, aromantic

Warnings: none

Rating: 5 stars

 

Review

Callie, captain of the salvage ship White Raven, stumbles upon a derelict ‘Goldilocks’ ship–one of many vessels sent out of the solar system some 500 years ago in the hope of finding new worlds to seed. The one remaining passenger (in cryosleep of course) awakes with tales of aliens, and not the kind humanity has been interacting with for the past 300 years.

What follows is fast paced, seductive tale of two women whose worlds collide in all the right ways at all the right times as they unravel a galaxy-wide conspiracy about some unruly ‘gods’ and their plans for the universe. If this sounds a lot like the overarching plot to ARDULUM, you’re not wrong, but the books are actually really different in execution.

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OMG. Just… OMG. I’ve had a lot of good books come through my TBR pile in the last few days but this one just blew me away. The ‘just on the right side of the law but okay with going over the line’ crew, the hot tension between Callie and Elena who have a bit of an age and power differential (but not enough to be squicky), the quirky crew, the tech, the creep AF aliens, it all worked so well together. Space lesbians at their finest, with a great plot to boot.

The queer representation too, is top notch, hitting most every end of the spectrum (and naming almost every iteration on page). Trans characters, on-page bisexuals whose histories are not erased or minimized, nonbinary characters with nonbinary pronouns, all seamlessly integrated. The book also misses the binary gender trap so many space operas fall into, and the aliens have multiple genders, sexualities, and ways of reproducing (I think at one point the book says the Liars have seven sexes). It’s really neat, too, that the humans don’t really understand their genders or reproduction, so despite being heavily complex, Callie’s max understanding of the Liars is:

“His” wasn’t really accurate–Liars didn’t exactly fir into human gender categories, and when it came to biological sex, Liars either reproduced asexually or had multiple sexes or cloned themselves, depending on which group you were talking about…

The banter, in particular, was very well done (pg 23 of the print version being an excellent example). The aliens are both familiar yet creepy and very well fleshed out. The brain spiders are suitably terrifying, the plan for galactic domination both deliciously evil yet somewhat understandable, and the ending satisfying while still leaving room for sequels. Every explosion makes you whoop with excitement and every plot twist leaves you bug eyed and frantically turning the page.

Hands down, I would put THE WRONG STARS in my top three books I read this year, right next to STARLESS by Jacqueline Carey and BARBARY STATION by R.E. Stearns. I bought the sequel immediately after finishing book 1.

You can buy this delicious space lesbian adventure (complete with sexual tension and discussion of ‘straps’) on ebook here, paperback here, and audiobook here.

 

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