J.S. Fields

Author & Scientist

Review: Beggar’s Flip by Benny Lawrence

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

Genre: fantasy – low

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian, cis bisexual, cis gay man

Warnings: racism presented as in-world problem, racist language, implicit racism in the narrative. Deep misunderstanding about how fungi work

Review

In this (much anticipated) sequel to SHELL GAME, Pirate Queen Darren must return to her home of Torasan Isle and mop up the mess her father created. Darren was permanently exiled from Torasan, however, and returning, especially with a female lover, is not going to go over well.

Lynn, Darren’s ‘slave girl,’ is plagued by horrible flashbacks and nightmares of her step mother and the abuse she suffered in book one. Lynn knows Darren has to go home and become the noble she’s long tried to deny existed, and Lynn must find the strength within herself to let Darren go–even if it means losing her forever.

BEGGAR’S FLIP picks off right where SHELL GAME leaves off, once again transporting the reader onto the high seas with all their favorite crew members. Darren is still a foul-mouthed do-gooder running from her past, and Lynn is still a bossy little sub in the hero making business. FLIP forces both of the heroines to begin confronting their past trauma: for Lynn, her history as a serving girl and the relationship with her half sister, and for Darren, her exile.

The book begins with Darren learning of the death of her father, and watching her oldest brother die, in short order. She also learns of a traitor on Torasan that she is tasked with unmasking. Though initially unwilling to return, Lynn insists that she must, more to gain closure and heal old wounds more than anything else. Also, things are getting heated between Darren and Lynn’s sister on the lead ship, and there are only so many noble arguments Lynn can take.

Eventually, of course, Darren consents. We all know who is in control of this relationship.

Darren is greeted with open arms at her return to Torasan Isle by yet another brother (Milo), who has assumed control. Few of the siblings her age remain, except for one younger sister who seems particularly prickly. Darren is offered a chance to help rule (under Milo, of course), and a hand wave for past discretions. Her pirate fleet is useful, and her brother has big plans to bring Torasan back from the brink of economic and social disaster.

But people are starving in the streets. Darren’s father has bankrupted the isle and revolution is in the air. When the people rise up against the nobles and Darren is captured, imprisoned, and tortured, it is up to Lynn to once again enter into the land of nobility, save her hero, and do what must be done for her sister, her sister’s lover, and the people of Torasan Isle.

There’s a bit less swashbuckling in FLIP, and a lot more political mechanization. Romance, too, is pushed to the side in favor of character backstory development and focus on a few secondary characters, primarily Lynn’s sister, Ariadne, and her lover, Latoya. It’s still a great adventure, and a few nice BDSM lines are snuck in here and there to remind you of the flavor of SHELL GAME (and as with the previous book, there is no sex on page).

The biggest problem with BEGGAR’S FLIP comes in how it deals with in-world racism, and implicit racism. There were a few problematic elements in SHELL GAME, but they were small enough that, while noteworthy, did not substantially detract from the book. In BEGGAR’S FLIP the racism cannot be ignored, and in fact is dragged into the spotlight in several areas, where Latoya is mocked for her skin tone and size by other characters (the ‘good’ characters refute the overt stuff, it should be noted).

The issues here are more in how problematic elements are portrayed. Homophobia is presented as an in-world issue as well, yet none of the lesbian characters are subjected to anything near as pervasive and derogatory as Latoya. Lesbianism is also not called out at basically every opportunity, unlike the two characters with darker skin, who, the reader is reminded constantly, do not look like everyone else.

His saddle-brown face was flushed with anger. (note that the white characters seldom, if ever, get their skin tone mentioned. This is known as white default)

Compounding that is basically every description or scene with Latoya, wherein it is mentioned that she is black, or very tall, or very muscular, or very strong, or some combination. Or that she feels little pain. While this bias is implicit more than overt (and it is clear the author is trying very hard to give Latoya agency), it falls squarely into problematic tropes of consistent othering, magical negroes, sassy black woman, and the tropes of black people being valued for their strength and physical fitness (see essays here and here), as well as the dominant black woman trope.

I could see Latoya already, looming head and shoulders above the rest of my sailors as they cleared the decks. The coil of chain draped over her shoulder was smeared with bits of things that I didn’t want to think about.

“Sand ape.”

“You think that’s actually a woman?”

“I think you’d have to shave it if you wanted to know for sure.”

“I dunno if shaving it would help. Probably isn’t much of a difference between a gorilla and a brown bitch, once you take off the hair.”

Latoya smashed her fist down on the rail with a shattering crack, and wood splinters flew.

I jumped. I challenge you not to jump when someone of Latoya’s size starts breaking things near your head.

Some other minor quibbles came up, more dealing with a lack of research more than anything. It should be noted that placing moldy bread on an open wound is a great way to get an even worse infection and potentially die of sepsis.

“She scraped the mould off the bread, rubbed it on a rag, tied it against the sore, and then she pulled out a pallet and made me take a nap…And do you know, when I woke up, I felt better.”

The recurring discussion of using moldy bread to heal infections (instead of leeches and such) is deeply problematic, in that A) bread molds from several thousand different fungi; B) penicillin is derived from just a few species of Penicillium; C) Penicillium is a HUGE genus; D) it takes thousands of cultures of the right species of Penicillium to make enough penicillin to fight an infection; D) penicillin is a fungal secondary metabolite that is secreted by certain fungal species. It has to be extracted off a substrate. You could shove three whole loaves of moldy bread into an open leg wound and it still wouldn’t be enough penicillin to do anything. Anything.

Bows have not, nor have they ever, been made from rotten wood. Traditional bows, especially those made from yew trees, were made from the heartwood/sapwood interaction zone. Tree heartwood is dense and rigid. Tree sapwood (usually a lighter color) is springy and soft. With the heartwood on the inside and the sapwood on the outside, the bow has strength and elasticity. Sapwood is not rot. Sapwood is a normal part of the tree. Rotten wood, especially white rotted wood, does not bend–it breaks apart into mushy white strands.

“But let’s say you’re making a longbow. The best longbows come from yew trees that are rotten on one side. The other side, the good one, has to hold the tree’s full weight, so the wood there gets denser and stronger.

This is also not how reaction wood works, for the record. Wood that grows in a tree in response to lean, or stress like identified above, is actually very poor quality. Depending on whether it is a conifer or a deciduous tree, it lacks various layers of the wood cell wall and its microfibril angles are all kinds of screwed up. Reaction wood also has much more longitudinal shrinkage than regular wood. It is terrible for building anything, especially something you want to have strength.

Despite all of this, BEGGAR’S FLIP has all the fun quips and dialogue we’ve come to expect from Benny Lawrence, and is worth a read even if it gets filed under ‘problematic favorite.’ SHELL GAME remains one of my all time favorite books, and I would definitely read another in this series.

Regon liked breasts, Ariadne had two of them–relationships had been built on less.

Ah, but the best relationships are built on exactly that!

You can tie yourself to a mast of a pirate ship and hope for a very hot pirate queen lover by buying the ebook here and paperback here.

Review: The Thousand Names by Django Wexler

Genre: fantasy – military

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: rape, racism, thinly veiled Christianity

Review

An army  of white people from not-Europe who practice not-Christianity wage war against magical, less developed grey-skinned people to steal a holy artifact. Lots of people die.

In general

The book is primarily military encounters and battles in a fantasy setting that very much mirrors any number of Europe’s holy wars. The people of color are grey instead of brown or black but are still discussed as primitive, having witchcraft and magic, etc. The white people all practice a religion that banned magic (and had a lot of other Christianity touchstones for those familiar), and the grey people all practice magic. The entertaining part comes in the form of the Church wanting the grey people’s power for their own, and attempting to steal it as part of the land grab campaign.

Women
Much like ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME (amusingly, S.M. Stirling blurbed THE THOUSAND NAMES), there are some decent female characters, and lesbian female characters, amid the racist world. Though it takes a while to pass the Bechdel test as most of the armies are made of men (which, really, in a fantasy… come on) we do get three (THREE!) well rounded women. Two are masquerading as men in the army, one a general foot soldier, the other a lieutenant and one of the POV characters. The third is an informant/spy/paper pusher, who ends up having a fantastic arc.

Winter, the only POV woman, is a delight and her sections kept me reading through all the battles that I had little interest in. Her backstory from the orphanage, her love with one of the other girls who is eventually sold as a wife, made her hands down the most compelling character (and the one given the most backstory). There’s no romance for Winter in this book but I’ve been told some crops up around book five. Unfortunately I don’t know if I have another four books of war and thinly veiled racism in me. Still, Winter is an outstanding character for an otherwise male centric military fantasy, and the inclusion of her character should be commended.

With that said…

Writing women

Both of the women masquerading as soldiers bind their breasts. This makes sense. What does not make sense is the lack of discussion of how this affects their service. There are several 15 mile runs noted in the book, of which Winter participates, as well as many, many drills. Running in a binder, in the heat, is a quick way to pass out. It is also noted that Winter has been in her section of the military for seven years and only takes the binder off occasionally to quickly bathe. Long term binder use has consequences on internal organs, ribs, etc. None of this is given any discussion, which made it increasingly difficult to suspend disbelief. Winter’s aching breasts are mentioned, in fact, and of course there is a scene where her binder is ripped and breasts tumble out, but no page time is given to actually looking at what wearing a binder for so long, during active military service, would mean.

There’s also a smattering of problematic POV, such as this line:

“Beneath the spectacles, the severe hairstyle, and the mannish clothes, he guessed she was actually quite pretty.”

Again, it’s a character POV, but one that is never rebutted.

Finally, there’s a throwaway line that I’m sure was meant to elicit laughter, but came off as pretty coarse:

‘”It’s been nearly two years.” Winter drew her knees to her chest. “I feel like I’d nearly convinced myself.'”

This comes from a scene where Winter is discussing her ‘secret’ with a woman she’s rescued. And while I understand what the author was getting at, it falls into the problematic narrative that so often crops up in the ‘woman pretending to be man’ trope. Gender identity is not something one can turn on or off at the drop of a hat. If Winter is indeed a woman, pretending to be a man would not have been easy, and there is no way living like one for that long would have changed her identity unless she was already questioning. Which of course, is possible, but no hint is given of that in the narrative.

Grey skin is still a POC

The people being fought, who get very little page time and limited POV time, are the grey skinned (sometimes copper-grey skinned) people of a relatively tropical location, who hold mystic magical knowledge. Some wear loin cloths. They’re pastoral to a point and heard sheep and goats. They are repeatedly referred to as ‘heathens.’ I suspect the author was trying to showcase the problems with characterizing people in such a manner by having some of the most vile characters do the discussions of heathen natures, but the narrative isn’t consistent and the attitudes are never rebutted. One of the white leaders who allows his men to rape and murder women and children while taking a village (and the imagery is quite graphic) is defended by one of our supposedly more upstanding POV characters, Marcus, when a superior wants to fire him. Marcus standing up for him helps him be a better man…. on the backs of all the POC who were raped and murdered.

Even the POC refer to themselves using animal language on occasion, which clearly doesn’t help things.

“Jaffa sat, watching them go after each other like a couple of angry cats.”

Finally, much as with ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME, this is a decent story with a strong female lesbian lead that falls short with racial equality. The various ‘power ups’ that happen at the end could make the sequels interesting, but there is a lot to unpack in other areas for the reader. POC and trans readers, in particular, will want to prepare themselves before diving into the series.

You can contemplate problematic tropes by buying the book in ebook here, paperback here and audiobook here.

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

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: 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

 

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.

 

Review: Banquet by Adan Ramie

Genre: science fiction (unclassified)

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: racism

Rating: one star. possibly five stars. Depends on what you’re looking for

Review

Rison Ecks, prisoner aboard a transport spaceship headed for…a penal colony (I think), gets marooned on a planet. The droid she befriended on her voyage is kidnapped, and Rison risks death, out of body orgasms, and unattractive women in order to save the droid and…get off the planet? I think? I’m not sure what Rison’s higher purpose is, honestly.

Normally I would break the review down into basic elements, like plot, characters, etc., but the lack of most of these elements in BANQUET make that difficult. Generally speaking, this book has all the campy elements of 1970s era pulp sci fi (+1 for slave girls, +1 for random lesbian sex scenes, -1 for white default, -1 for magical negro, +1 for not burying your gays) without the benefit of really any form of social commentary. The only person of color (barring purple and red skinned aliens) is simply referred to as ‘the dark man’ for the first few chapters until he and the ‘ugly woman’ are captured, leaving Rison alone on a planet filled with… strange lesbians and beings that like meat a lot (which is not a gay joke, and I feel like that was really a lost opportunity there).

For some reason not specified, possibly due to lack of character development, Rison chooses to save the captured droid she befriended on the prison barge, instead of the black guy or the ugly woman. Hence, she goes on a quest to find the thing, running into (not necessarily in this order): a mirage of her dead lover with whom she has sex, a random pregnant woman, a woman who gives her another woman to have sex with, but during the sex she leaves her body to talk with the first woman, the antagonist who really likes meat, and the love interest (I think) who is a really good cook.

Also there is a cooking contest? Did I mention that?

If it weren’t for the problematic implicit bias, the lack of narrative structure, the typos, and the magical black man trope, I’d be tempted to file this book under the ‘ridiculously campy’ tab, and have it sit next to such favorites as (and really, these are some of my favorites) ETERNAL PLEASURE (they’re men with the souls of dinosaurs and they need a hot limo driver, STAT!), DAUGHTER OF THE BLOOD (magical cock rings of obedience!), and everything by Chuck Tingle. Alas, the writing fell too flat for me to tell if the book was meant to be pulp satire or not, the tropes were problematic, and I never connected with the narrative.

Sadly, as much as I love space lesbians, and as eager as I was to get my hands on this book, I can’t say that I enjoyed it. However, those looking to relive 1970s era pulp fiction, complete with its problematic attitudes but minus the homophobia, may be well served by this book.

You can buy BANQUET here

 

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