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: 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.

 

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

 

Review: Witches, Princesses, and Women at Arms, edited by Sacchi Green

Genre: low fantasy / fantasy romance

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian, cis bisexual

Warnings: racism, heavy objectification

Rating: two stars

 

Review

Western European fairy tales reinvented to be f/f, but with the same problematic issues with racism and objectification as the originals.

I really wanted to like this book. There was no reason I shouldn’t have liked this book, noting my deep love of both A) fairy tales and B) lesbian romance / sexy time. Books like these have a decent track record, too, from KISSING THE WITCH to all three volumes of INTO THE MYSTIC. So while yes, retelling of fairy tales with a f/f bend is not novel in the slightest, it is still a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, WITCHES, PRINCESSES, AND WOMEN AT ARMS (hereafter WPWA), was not fun.

General

Almost all the stories felt rushed. In the desire to have a drawn out sex scene in each (it is erotica, after all), character development was often completely ignored. Personally, I have no real interest in a sex scene unless I care about the players involved (much like with a fight scene). If I don’t care about their struggles, their passions, and their goals, why do I care what they do beneath the sheets?

In the vein of fairy tales, most of the descriptors in the book were overly purple and food-based. This was especially frequent when describing women of color, who were overwhelming described as exotic things, fruit-colored things, things to be worshipped and revered (sometimes reviled, if they were a witch), but were wholly other.

Seriously. It’s 2018. This book was published in 2017. Stop it. People of color existed in western Europe during fairy tale times, and they interacted with white people outside of ‘here is a visiting princess.’ Perpetuating this narrative has got to stop.

In other irritations…

I was surprised by the homogeneity of the stories in this collection which were for the most part, basically forcing two women into a situation where sex was inevitable (some exclusions apply, see below for story-by-story breakdown). In KISSING THE WITCH, the authors altered the stories enough that some were not even recognizable as the original fairy tale, and others were twisted enough that I was pleasantly surprised by the ending (such as with the Beauty and the Beast retelling, which was amazing).

I was also surprised that a book published in 2017 would only include Western European fairy tales. In all of the INTO THE MYSTIC books, we are treated to a range of cultures’ fairy tales, which makes for a much more exiting read. It also meant that women of color weren’t perpetually treated as exotic beauties.

As a final general comment–the very cis nature of the stories was bothersome. Women come in lots of flavors, heck, even lesbians come in lots of flavors, and the most creative the authors got in this book was a lesbian/dryad pair. Very disappointing.

Story by story breakdown

STEEL by Cara Patterson

A strong start to the book, and with a decent amount of character development. I never really felt the chemistry between Sianna and the witch, but I liked the backstory and the taming of the dragon. This story suffered from cramming a big story into a small space, and I think it would have been much better served with another twenty pages.

ROBBER GIRL by Madeleine Shade

Problematic from the start, this story lacked any real character development or plot. Noting this, it would have been better served as just a sex scene, without the attempt at plot. I was also done with it the moment our ‘dusky skinned, plum-colored nippled’ protagonist wished to look like the white love interest because she was so beautiful. There is literally a line that says “In that instant, I hated my inherited darkness…” I’ll spare you the rest.

THE PRINCESS’S PRINCESS by Salome Wilde

While I enjoyed the power dynamic in this one, I could have lived without another ‘exotic other’ trope. “…whose looks made it plain she was from a distant land.” Nope.

WOODWITCH by M. Birds

The strongest story in the book, and by far my favorite. A tomboy princess runs off to war to help her father, only to find her father is a terrible king and hey, witches are also pretty fun. Excellent atmosphere, good character development, and a lovely ending. This was also the only story that I really felt any sort of chemistry between the two main characters. I’d be very interested to read more from this author.

THE PRIZE OF THE WILLOW by H. N. Janzen

A sweet woman x dryad story. Not much of a narrative arc, but enjoyable and very comforting.

TOADS, DIAMONDS, AND THE OCCASIONAL PEARL by Emily L. Byrne

This one just seemed to wander a bit much for my liking. The premise of a princess questing to make her own destiny, and running into another princess doing the same (and breaking a curse), is solid enough ground, but the execution seemed lacking. I had a hard time finishing this one.

SWF SEEKS FGM by Allison Wonderland

A first date between Cinderella’s wicked stepmother and her fairy godmother. Great premise, and very unique writing style and voice. It was denser than I’d thought, so a bit hard to get through, but I really appreciated the quick. This story stands out in the anthology as by far the most unique.

THE MARK AND THE CAUL by Annabeth Leong

This was another of my favorites. Excellent worldbuilding. The character development was a bit rushed, but I liked the destiny trope and Sam, the plodding, do-good protagonist. The princess was also a lot of fun, and I do like that her (very) risky scheme to save Sam works out well in the end.

PENTHOUSE 31 by Brey Willows

The modern-day retelling of Rapunzel had a lot of good bones, but it never really fleshed out. The homages to the Disney version kept pulling me from the narrative (our heroine is ‘Bren Ryder’), and I didn’t understand enough about the magic involved to feel like the Rapunzel character was ever truly trapped. The story also lacked any real chemistry between the characters.

THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER by Michael M. Jones

A Rumplestiltskin retelling without much changed except the gender of Rumplestiltskin. Nothing much of note with this one. It failed to capture my imagination, but neither did it make me angry, either.

WARRIOR’S CHOICE by A. D. R. Forte

I was confused for most of this story. Having now read it twice, I’m still not quite sure what the character arc is supposed to be. There’s some character chemistry, but the world and character building seem flawed. I think this is another story that would have benefitted from another fifty or so pages.

TROLLWISE by Sacchi Green

I DNF this one. I just couldn’t get into it and honestly, I was kind of tired at this point in the anthology.

THE SORCERESS OF SOLISTERRE by Lea Daley

An interesting romance between a bisexual queen and a white witch. I enjoyed this one, especially the turning of one of the suitors into a rat, and would have loved if this was about thirty pages longer, to really give it some meat.

 

Overall, while the quality of writing in WPWA was higher than the INTO THE MYSTIC books, and about the same as KISSING THE WITCH, it suffered from too much homogeneity and some outdated (and highly problematic) writing styles. Still some of the stories were well worth the read.

You can buy WITCHES, PRINCESSES, AND WOMEN AT ARMS in paperback here and ebook here.

Review: The Tiger’s Daughter by K Arsenault Rivera

Genre: high fantasy

Pairings: f/f (cis)

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: racism, colorism, cultural appropriation, fetishized culture, misinterpreted cultural exchange, cultural misogyny

Rating: complicated

 

Review

Demons are taking over the Hokkaran Empire (a mix of Japan, China, and Mongolia, but more on that later). A corrupt emperor rules. Two girls, born a month apart and on auspicious birthdays, are fated to save the land and each other through a mix of magic, love, and epic fantasy landscapes.

I just… I have a lot of feelings about this book. I have a lot of feelings and they’re all mixed up and I’m not sure how to write this review at all. I know we can love something and still admit it is problematic, but I didn’t want this book to be problematic, because it was so beautiful. Our two main characters, Shefali and O-Shizuka, are perfectly developed. Their world is rich and lush. The conflict is present but never overwhelming, the narrative driven but never reckless. The writing is lyrical to the point of near poetry. There is love, real love, between our two main characters, to the point where the descriptive sex scene felt too coarse, like the very act of them kissing was too much for me to handle.

On its most base layer, I loved everything about this book. I loved its generic fantasy setting that wasn’t Europe (finally), I loved the casual magic, I loved the writing style. The story pulled at my heart and wouldn’t let it go, and when I found out there was a sequel, I was as breathless as I was when Shefali and O-Shizuka first kissed.

But I knew, too, as I read, that some things seemed maybe not okay. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in various parts of Asia. I used to live in Thailand. I’ve studied Chinese and Japanese in both university and from private tutors. I spent some hard weeks in Cambodia. So as the narrative built, and the animosity between these Asia-inspired groups in the book grew, I got curious and flipped to the back. The author isn’t of Asian descent. And I took a deep breath, because I already loved the book at this stage. In my head I thought, surely she had sensitivity readers. Surely Tor vetted this. Please let me be overreacting. Maybe those lines about flat faces and the very obvious taking and mixing of Japanese and Chinese culture is just…it’s going to be okay. Right? Right?

I went to Goodreads. I saw reviews. I saw the review by Laurelinvanyar in particular, and it reaffirmed what my gut was telling me. This book had problematic themes. This book had problematic tropes.

This book hurt people.

God damn it, why? WHY couldn’t Tor have gotten some sensitivity readers to clean up this almost-book-of-my-heart? I want to cry, right now, at the potential this book had, and this world, and how none of that matters one damn bit because this book hurt people.

And like, in my head I’m still trying to rationalize it. Maybe it was just really good writing and it’s the characters that are racist. Maybe it’s just that the world built here is racist (except the world is basically dynastic Japan). Maybe that’s what the author was trying to show. Maybe the flagrant use of ‘ricetongue’ is an attempt hang a hat on a problematic slur. Maybe maybe maybe…

Maybe this world was built off a role playing game, as noted in the author bio, and off of a love of Japanese anime, and not enough time was spent really learning the deeper culture, or understanding how a pan-soup of Asia could affect readers.

I just… it could have been amazing. It could have been perfect. It could have been poetry, and it still is all of those things, it’s just so damn problematic, too. That tears my heart apart.

I can’t star this book. I can’t star it because my heart wants to give it five stars, and my brain wants to throw it out so it can’t hurt someone. I remain at an emotional impasse.

 

You can buy the book here in paperback and here in ebook.

 

 

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