J.S. Fields

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March 10, 2018

Review: Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel by Jacqueline Koyanagi

Genre: science fiction – space opera

Pairings: f/f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: none

Rating: five stars

 

Review

All Alana has ever wanted is to be an engineer on a real live spaceship. A crippling, chronic illness for which she can barely afford medication, as well as her family’s poverty (and the general lack of ship engineer jobs), has kept her from achieving her dream. When the intoxicating Tangled Axon comes to her repair yard–dripping seduction like THE SHIP WHO SANG–Alana takes a chance and stows away, hoping that the crew won’t find her before they’re too far from her planet to make a return trip. But the crew have their own plans, including kidnapping/coercing Alana’s sister to save a dying crew member. Alana must find her place on the ship, save her sister and the crew she increasingly grows to love, all while trying to keep herself from succumbing to Mel’s Disease.

General

Noting how well the catch-line ‘lesbians in space’ sells books, I’m really surprised there aren’t more excellent lesbian space operas like this in the world. ASCENSION is evenly paced, and filled with wonder and action and all the right kinds of emotions. It’s the Star Wars we all wanted, but will never get because Hollywood would implode if someone suggested black women leads (and heaven forbid one of them be struggling with a chronic condition). The elements of magic blend seamlessly with the tech, the secondary characters are well developed, and it has multiple layers of relationships. It is the quintessential space opera, but with enough lesfic elements and shoot-em-up moments to keep any reader happy.

Relationships

There are a number of strong relationships in the book. Central to the story is Alana’s relationship with her sister, Nova (the ‘Jedi’ of the book), who is presented as a pretentious asshole with a fierce protective streak. The journey of the two sisters finding each other rang very true to sibling dynamics, and was immediately a hook for me. The second strong relationship was between Alana and Tev (the love interest), which was exactly the kind of slow burn I love in a book. The relationship develops slowly (but not so slow you want to throw the book into your window), and the eventual coming together of the characters is sweet but passionate. Tertiary relationships, between Alana and the other crew members, are engaging and do not in any way detract from the main two relationship plot threads. Every interaction pairing was intuitive and rewarding.

Parallels

Like any space opera, this one pulls from a number of familiar elements. Readers will find Tangled Axon reminiscent of THE SHIP WHO SANG, or, if you’re a younger reader, the ship from THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL, ANGRY PLANET. Star Wars parallels saturate the narrative, from the Jedi-like sister (seriously, we aren’t the fugitives you’re looking for. Look! I have a tail!) to the ‘just-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-law’ semi-fugitives, to the scruffy pilot. ASCENSION blends these elements into a comfortable, familiar yet exciting narrative with far more diversity and marginalized voices than the mainstream book/cinema has managed to ever produce (Black Panther aside, cause that was awesome).

Randoms

The engineer of the Tangled Axon is a wolf-man. Not a werewolf. A wolf-man. He has some type of wolf soul. I’m still sort of unclear on this but every time he was on page, I could only think about the ‘dinosaur souls in buff men’ book series by Nina Bangs. Full disclosure- they’re not gay at all but they’re…an experience. Yup.

 

Anyone in the mood for excellent space opera can find ASCENSION: A TANGLED AXON NOVEL here in ebook. The book is out of print (ARGH!), so if you want a paper copy, you’ll have to cough up $30 to get it used.

Filed Under: book review Tagged With: lesbian, poly, sci fi, space opera

February 9, 2018

Review: Dalí by E. M. Hamill

Genre: science fiction (space opera)

Pairings: nonbinary/female, nonbinary/male

Queer Representation: gender fluid, third gender, trans masculine, trans feminine, agender

Warnings: violence against enbies (may be triggering for some)

Rating: five stars

 

Review

Dalí, a human, third gender changling, used to be a highly regarded diplomat. That all changed when their husband, wife, and unborn child were murdered. Adrift in suicidal thoughts, Dalí gets into one too many fights and stumbles across an interplanetary conspiracy to sell other third gender changelings to the highest bidder. Dalí agrees to help rescue their fellows, but the conspiracy is much deeper than they feared, and making it out alive isn’t exactly a high priority.

Plot

A very space opera-y space opera, Dalí gives a look at a pseudo-dystopian future in which being born nonbinary is common (that’s not the dystopian part, clearly), but factions from Earth would prefer to see people ‘go back’ to just male and female. Add in a mess of aliens and Dalí’s proclivities for sexual encounters and you get an intense book filled with intrigue, sex, betrayal, and a host of uncomfortable parallels to our modern society.

Although I found some of the scenes too brutal at times (I see and experience plenty of enby discrimination in day-to-day life, so I don’t always care for it in my books), the book was very well written and the pacing, especially in the second half, excellent. I was hooked after Dalí began to befriend a ‘pirate lord,’ and I got to see more of their personality come forward, instead of the (understandable) gut reactions we got in the first half of the book.

General

This book was recommended to me so many times that I waited to purchase a print copy, instead of getting an ARC from Ninestar (also my publisher). It was well worth the purchase and while I didn’t necessarily connect with Dalí on an enby level (we’re just different flavors of enby), the struggles they faced were all too real, and the conflicts, while set in space, were very 2018. It’s fantastic that stories like this are getting published, and that enby readers have more and more opportunities to see themselves in fiction. Much like with THE SEEDS OF DISSOLUTION, it was nice to see a variety enby types, from true gender fluid, to agender and third gender, to transmasculine and transfeminine. This representation, too, is key, in helping to educate readers that nonbinary doesn’t mean just one thing.

A solid, well-paced plot, strong writing, and a memorable main protagonist made this book a very satisfying read. Lovers of gritty books, such as TRANS LIBERTY RIOT BRIGADE, will find this book especially valuable, as will lovers of queer space opera.

You can buy Dalí in paperback here and ebook here.

 

Read the review for the sequel PEACEMAKER here.

Filed Under: book review Tagged With: agender, bisexual, gender fluid, mental health, nonbinary, poly, reviews, sci fi, space opera, trans

February 6, 2018

Review: The Seeds of Dissolution by William C. Tracy

Genre: science fantasy

Pairings: m/m/f

Queer Representation: bisexual, gender fluid, nonbinary, agender, third gender

Warnings: none–but so many enbies you might have to fan yourself

Rating: five stars

 

Review

After watching his parents die in a freak storm as a child, Sam’s anxiety has kept him from leaving his house. When another inexplicable force of nature drags him out of his house, across space, and into the Nether–a place outside our universe–Sam must learn how to live with his anxiety amongst aliens while also discovering the magic that lives inside himself.

 

Plot

At it’s most basic, yes, this is a ‘white boy goes on a journey’ story. But it is so much more than that. At 400 pages, this is a high fantasy story (science fantasy, mind) with multiple POVs, a well-defined magic system (music!), and a relatable, flawed MC. The world is rich and lush, well described but never ad nauseum, the characters well rounded, and the species distinct and colorful. Tension builds steadily throughout, the ending is satisfying, and narration is easy to read. Bonus – the cover art and interior illustrations are gorgeous. I was also really pleased that Sam (our MC) does not get over his mental illness, but instead, learns coping mechanism throughout the story that help him interact more with his friends. Even at the end Sam is still gripped by his anxiety, but is able to do his part to save the day. It’s rare to find books that do not treat mental illness as something to get over, but rather, allow for it to simply be a part of a character.

 

Relationship

The main relationship is a polyamorous one, between Sam and Inas (male) and his twin sister Enos. Sam is on-page bisexual (an argument could be made for pansexual, as one line notes Sam is interested in the twins for their personalities, not their forms). He is not closeted at the start, and as his interests unfold there is no mental turmoil about being attracted to another male, or being attracted to two people at once. This was all very refreshing, and it was nice to see not only aliens being fine with canon queerness, but an actual human being okay with it, too.

 

Enbies. Enbies everywhere

I want to do a special callout to the gender representation in this book. It seems ridiculous that this is so rare in SFF, as any time you deal with new species there should never be an inherent assumption of a gender binary. And yet, SFF, especially science fiction, is rife with the strict male/female dynamic. Tracy presents species with genders of all variants, from agender, to third gender, to straight up uncategorized nonbinary, to a gender fluid main character (and no one, no one, freaking cares that they have to pronoun check every so often for this character!). None of the POV characters were outside the binary, but the world was so rich with enby characters I didn’t even mind. It felt nice, for once, to be ‘included’ in a SFF narrative without being the reason for the narrative existing, if that makes sense. Sometimes the most useful way to show your support for a group of people is to make them everyday players, and this book does just that.

 

The joy of self publishing

This book is a great example of why self-publishing can be a wonderful thing. Books like this, which walk right between science fiction and fantasy, which have a YA-aged protagonist mixed with much older POV characters, and which have a high word count (book is right at 400 pages), can be a very hard sell to agents and publishers. SEEDS is exceptionally well written, avoids the pitfalls I see with many self-pubbed books (lack of editing, unattractive cover art, lack of act structure and/or through line) and delivers a quality story. The interior art, as well, is a hallmark of Tracy’s stories and really adds the finishing touch to this novel.

 

Overall, this book should appeal to readers across science fiction and fantasy, as well as YA and adult readers. Queer readers, especially those outside the gender binary, will feel right at home in the Nether, and there is plenty of ‘standard’ fantasy fare to keep general readers interested. I’m very much looking forward to the next installment!

 

You can buy THE SEEDS OF DISSOLUTION in print here and ebook here.

 

Filed Under: book review Tagged With: agender, bisexual, fantasy, gay, gender fluid, mental health, nonbinary, poly, reviews, sci fi

December 16, 2017

Review: The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley

Genre: epic fantasy

Pairings: f/f, f/m, m/m, poly, references made to various enby pairings as well

Queer Representation: lesbian, gay, gender fluid, transgender, bisexual, intersex (sort of)

Warnings: rape, cannibalism, a ridiculous amount of death

Rating: 3.75 stars. Is that a thing? It should be a thing

 

Review

On the eve of a recurring catastrophic event known to extinguish nations and reshape continents, a troubled orphan evades death and slavery to uncover her own bloody past.

There’s more to the back blurb, but the above is the A plot line, and the one with the most depth, IMO. As with most modern epic fantasy, we are exposed to a staggering number of POVs. While I delighted in every moment of the worldbuilding in this book, especially in the queer representation, the volume of characters and their (general) lack of significant growth had this book feeling more like the wanderings of George R.R. Martin than the dynamic head hopping of the Mistborn books (well the first three, anyway).

So let’s start with what I loved.

Queer Representation

I had no idea how to even process the start of this book. Queer characters are everywhere. In fact, I’m not certain anyone is straight in this book. Lilia, our orphan girl from the blurb, has two romantic arcs with women. Roh, a minor POV character, has relations with men. There’s an assassin, another minor POV character, who is an interesting variety of intersex in which his sex actually changes by season. Some countries have five genders (assertive male, passive male, assertive female, passive female, other, although these aren’t the titles they’re given), and people are allowed to pick which fits them best. Some people are flat out gender fluid, some have ambiguous genitalia (I think? There’s some vagueness here). Queer relationships are onscreen everywhere, and no one thinks its weird at all.

How refreshing.

 

Worldbuilding

The concept of the mirrors and alternate dimensions is pretty standard across portal fantasy, but this takes the genre into high fantasy and wow, does it do it well. The viciousness of the landscape, the colors of the sky, the hopelessness of some of the people, the rage of others, it all blends perfectly into a world you could drown in.

I was engaged as well by how smoothly the author transformed standard fantasy tropes on their head. The saturation of females over males in the narrative, especially in the backdrop characters, the casual in-world rapes and power struggles, the sort of casualness of it all, the this is just how it is, served as a poignant reminder of how ridiculous epic fantasy often is. By turning the gender ratios around, Hurley manages to make an effective example why gender ratios matter, especially with background characters. Where were all the men in these worlds? Don’t know, don’t care, this isn’t their story. Don’t like it? Maybe you should look at why that is.

With all that praise out of the way, let’s get to issues.

Character development

At it’s most basic level, the characters developed. They grew up, they learned, they met new people and engaged in battles and magic and whatnot. At a more interpersonal level, we never spent enough time with any one character, never got enough real internal monologue or motivation from any one character, to really see substantive growth. The only character I ever got emotionally attached to was a minor POV character–Zezili’s husband–and his entire purpose in the narrative appeared to be titilation and social commentary. He was the only character with real emotions though. Even Lilia, our primary protagonist, failed to really engage throughout the book. Her early chapters are a reasonable hook, but the middle of the book has so much, so much POV shift that not only is it hard to keep track of who is who, but it’s hard to stay connected to any character long enough for a POV chapter of them to come back around.

Names, Places, Things

Reading this book reminded me of the first time I picked up an Anne McCaffery Pern book. I didn’t know where to start so I just grabbed one and started reading. There were so many words I didn’t know, like klah, and I thought I’d never sort everything out. I did though, by about halfway through the book. Mirror Empire has to be, what, five times as long as that first McCaffery novel I read, and by the end of it there were still words I didn’t know the meaning of, and character names I had to go…wait, who is this again? There’s a glossary at the back, which includes a dramatis personae, but I hated going back to it every fourth word. There was just too much in terms of names for me to keep straight. I’d probably have been fine if I took notes, but I hate taking notes.

 

In general, this book really scratched my ‘epic fantasy’ itch for the year, and I’ve got no complaints as far as queer rep goes. I wish I could have connected with one of the primary protagonists more. Of the main three–orphan girl Lilia, ruthless killer and domestic rapist Zezili, and Ahkio, the dead kai’s brother–Lilia was the most interesting. Her later chapters moved her into the same sort of hard emotion of Zezili though, and I lost interest. Zezili herself seemed human only when thinking of her husband (which is all sort of messed up, since she kept him basically as a sex slave), and Ahkio I never cared for.

Lovers of large cast epic fantasy, dark epic fantasy, and anything even remotely similar to Game of Thrones, will enjoy Mirror Empire. The book is a lot darker than the epic fantasy written by Sanderson, however, so those wanting cleaner, lighter epic fantasy should probably pass.

You can buy THE MIRROR EMPIRE in paperback here and ebook here.

Filed Under: book review Tagged With: bisexual, fantasy, gay, gender fluid, lesbian, poly, trans

November 26, 2017

Review: Moonshine by Jasmine Gower

Genre: fantasy (unclassifiable – semi historical, semi urban)

Pairings: m/m (but one is a fairy), nods to f/f in-world and a decent dance scene

Queer Representation: disability, gender fluidity, trans issues, pansexuality, aromantic, asexual

Rating: 4.5 stars

 

 

Review

Another book from the #DVsquad and #DVpit! Woohoo! I’m delighted that I got a chance to review an ARC. As with CITY OF BRASS, this was an enchanting fantasy with a deep connection to its time period.

Daisy is a Modern Girl in a sort of post-apocalyptic version of the Roaring Twenties, where faeries and ogres and magic all exist. Not a magician herself, Daisy has inherited some trinkets from her grandmother that are imbued with magic–not enough to cause trouble, but enough to keep soot off her clothes and hide her personage when needed. She takes a job as a clerical worker at an (unbeknownst to her) magical mana factory (all very underground, you see, because in this Prohibition, it’s magic juice that’s outlawed) and looks forward to a very average life. But working for a magical speakeasy is anything but safe, and Daisy soon finds herself the target of a hit, as well as in charge of an exiled faerie her boss may have accidentally freed. Good thing Grandma’s blood magic trinkets are still around!

The strong sense of setting was my favorite part of this book. Every image evokes a sense of yearning at an era those from the USA often romanticize, but it is if we are viewing this history through a distorted lens. There are speakeasies, but they deal in magic mana. There are hit people, but they have cannons that block magical ability. There are all the same horrible social stratifications, but here they revolve around magic users, both human and other.

The plot is a bit slow to get started, which is the only real negative of this book. At first I assumed the story arc would involve something with the underground mana business, but about halfway through the book it becomes clear that cleanup of the boss’ mess (releasing the faerie) is the primary arc. With the strength of the characters (which the author carries well) and the setting, I think the narrative could have handled something heavier than ‘return faerie to his dimension’ plot, but I was not unhappy with it. I think I just wanted more, and was upset to so quickly leave this world.

The writing was strong and even, and Daisy’s voice was easy to connect with. Her desires and goals resonated quickly with me, and I also appreciated the unique voices of the secondary cast. There was a great deal of queer diversity in the book as well, spanning gender fluidity, pansexuality, ace and aro characters, etc.

MOONSHINE is a quirky, often surprising take on the Prohibition Era of the USA, drenched in fresh fantasy elements and strong characterization. It deserves a place on every fantasy-lover’s bookshelf, and is a strong addition to the #DVsquad archive.

 

You can preorder MOONSHINE in digital here and paperback here.

Filed Under: book review Tagged With: aromantic, asexual, disability, fantasy, gender fluid, poly, trans

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