J.S. Fields

Author & Scientist

Review: Rescue Her Heart by KC Luck

Genre: science fiction: space opera romance

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian. cis pansexual

Warnings: homophobia (by a character), attempted sexual assault

Review

Captain Nat Reynolds is a workaholic space ranger. Catherine Porter is an eighteen year old down-on-her-luck waif with a dilapidated ship and not a penny to her name. Asteroids happen and Catherine gets stuck on the ice planet Hoth (not really its name but same idea) and needs some serious saving. Catherine thinks she’s straight. Nat definitely isn’t. They end up in a hotel room together. You can guess how it goes from there.

Also space pirates.

RESCUE HER HEART is romance with a light sci fi flavor, but definitely can be classified as ‘lesbians in space’ due to several space scenes. The plot follows well-established romance lines and employs a number of lesbian tropes such as soapy sex scene, age gap, and coming of age sexual awakening.

The book begins by establishing Nat as a battle-worn space ranger whose only love is her job. She’s never taken a vacation, which is critical information for her spending spree a bit later in the book.

An asteroid field strands Catherine on an ice planet and space ranger Nat comes to her rescue–a rescue that of course involves getting naked for warmth.

Nat learns Catherine has no money due to her father disappearing (and being quite the drunk) and so offers to fly Catherine to a nice planet where she can get some clothes with Nat’s money. They end up in a hotel room (cue important ‘where will we sleep’ tension) and go clothes shopping (cue ‘do you want to see the cute panties you bought me?’). Catherine thinks she’s straight and so flirts like only an eighteen year old can with a safe target. Nat’s big on consent and so things get really damn hot. Catherine eventually realizes she wants to bang and things proceed.

The second half of the book has more of the sci fi plot. Deciding to go on a pleasure cruise in a fancy rented spaceship, Catherine and Nat become prisoners of space pirates when their ship gets jacked. Then there’s lesbian space pirate drama (the best kind) and some decent action scenes.

Nitpicks

Erasing homophobia in future settings is a growing trend in queer fiction, especially spec fic. Parts of RESCUE read more like a 1980s bar encounter in terms of homophobia and sexual advances but it’s definitely important for authors to be able to see their worlds in the books they write. Many lesfic writers in particular came of age in the 1980s and 1990s, when homophobia and sexual harassment were still very commonplace. Being in this age group I can deeply relate to the events in the book, although they may ring abstract and unnecessary for younger readers.

The biggest stumbling block in the story is the tech. The book is one hundred years in the future but one law enforcement person still uses a paper printer (it’s noted as an antique). Heaters still have dials. The ‘old’ spaceship has a windshield (that gets cracked from a meteor but no one gets sucked into space) and a steering wheel that Catherine actually has to fight to keep the ship on course through the asteroid field.

(It should be noted that my partner defended the steering wheel and suggested that the old ship was made for human comfort and the inertial dampeners had been routed through the steering wheel to give it a more ‘historic’ feel.)

You don’t really read books like this for the science, however, and the problems are easy to overlook in the very well done sexual tension. The scenes and placements are sometimes silly and over the top but keep you well in the narrative and rooting for the main characters to just boink already. Example:

…Nat realized the woman was braless. Nat forced her eyes away, and with shaking hands, pulled off the girl’s boots and socks before focusing on removing her pants. It was difficult to cut through the thick fabric and knowing precious time was slipping away, Nat tossed the scissors aside and gripping the cloth, yanked with all her strength to tear the pants apart and off the girl’s body.

I mean, we laugh but really, we’ve all had this fantasy.

You can join the space pirates in ebook here, or the space rangers in paperback here. Either way, you get to bang in the shower.

 

Review: The Dreaming Stars by Tim Pratt

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

Genre: science fiction: space opera

Pairings: f/f, m/nonbinary

Queer Representation: cis pansexual/bisexual (unclear), nonbinary

Warnings: space lesbian delight!

Review

The crew of the White Raven returns! Still coming down from the high of taking out an Axiom facility, there’s some emotional cleanup to do.  Elena’s onetime friend and definite megalomaniac Sebastian has to be de-brain spidered, Callie has a funeral to attend (her own), and they all need a job. Of course said job takes them into Axiom territory where they discover the hilarious truth of the galactic overlords and what they’re doing in their stasis capsules of death and destruction.

THE DREAMING STARS is the second book in the Axiom series, and, predictably, has a slower start than the first as emotional cleanup needs to happen after the shattering revelations in THE WRONG STARS. The action doesn’t take off until the back quarter of the book when the crew finds an actually inhabited Axiom station and a swarm of murderbots that are attempting to eat the galaxy. There’s some intrigue in the ship as well, with a funny shimmer that keeps stalking Callie that no one else can see.

Although the action part of the book is at the very end, the first three quarters of the book are not wasted on filler and fluff. THE DREAMING STARS is a true middle bridge book, and spends much needed time expanding Callie’s character in particular, as well as ‘I’m-going-to-kill-you-in-seventy-ways’ Sebastian, and cyborg Ashok.

Elena doesn’t get as much screen time as I would have liked, but there are numerous scenes between her and Callie that are beyond adorable, and it is the build up of that relationship, in particular, that kept me engaged with the narrative. It’s rare in a space opera (outside of THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL, ANGRY PLANET) that we actually get to remain in romance spaces after the pair has gotten together. The pacing of THE DREAMING STARS gave the relationship between Elena and Callie time to breath and develop, and the sidebar adventure where Callie goes to her own funeral and Elena chats with Callie’s ex-husband is priceless.

As with THE WRONG STARS, there is plenty witty space opera banter that gives that television feel to the book (really, Witty Banter should be a full on space opera trope if it isn’t already). In fact, the best banter is usually between Callie and Elena, and serves to give us glimpses into their relationship. Some favorites:

(Remember: Elena is the one who was in cryosleep for 500 years)

Callie frowned. She’d heard of New York–it was a common setting in historical fiction, like Rome and Constantinople and Paris–but… “What’s New Jersey?”

“New Jersey! Just across the river from New York, but a million kilometers away culturally? Butt of endless jokes? Their state bird is an inferiority complex?”

“Huh?” Callie said. “Before my time. It’s probably part of the Eastern Innundated Area now. They do scuba tours to look at the submerged ruins.”

“Ugh. The future is the worst. Nobody gets my jokes.”

“Truly you bring us the wisdom of the ancients.”

“Ancients, huh? I am young and vigorous. You’re the one who tapped out last night.”

(and another. Remember again, Elena went into cryosleep before humanity really colonized anything outside of Earth)

“We may be eaten by space monsters.”

“Yes, but before that happens, I will get to stand on another planet.” Elena snuggled in closer. “We should have sex on Ganymede. And then we should have sex on Owain. We should collect various celestial bodies. I like collecting things.”

You can get your own access to the Axiom’s war games here in paperback and here in ebook here.

Review: Protector of the Realm by Gun Brooke

Genre: science fiction (space opera)

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: shower sex that involves too much soap–trigger warning for anyone who knows how poorly that should go (this is clearly not a real trigger)

Review

Commodore Rae Jacelon commands the Gamma VI Space Station. A very by-the-book officer, she bends the rules to save Kellen O’Dal, a hot woman in a catsuit who is caring for a teenaged boy. There’s more to Kellen than just the catsuit, however, and Rae must battle internal politics and a host of unscrupulous aliens to ensure the boy lives to see his next birthday, and that she and Kellen get to bang.

Okay soooooo here’s the thing. I picked this book up because 1) someone recommended it on Twitter, 2) it had space lesbians.

I kept reading because 1) it was campy AF and 2) it blended my two favorite tropes, marriage of convenience and SPACE

I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took me to realize it was Star Trek Voyager fan fiction with the serial numbers filed off. I am not embarrassed to admit that I ship Janeway/Seven harder than just about every other slash pairing in Star Trek, and fuck me sideways with a spoon I never in my life thought I would randomly stumble upon a published J/7 AU.

So let’s talk about Rae/Janeway and Kellen/Seven (OMG THEY RHYME).

The book starts with Rae being very stoic Janeway (“There’s coffee in that nebula!”) and then BOOM! some sort of space conflict that lands with her taking some decommissioned borg onto her station. Seven in this incarnation is a sworn protector of Icheb (look I don’t even remember what his AU name is… let’s stop pretending), who is some kind of Mega Prince.

In order to circumvent a mandatory ‘capture and release’ order, Janeway offers what is CLEARLY THE ONLY REASONABLE OPTION–they should get married because citizens of the Federation (called something different in this AU, obviously) can’t be extradited.

Seven is of course MUCH RAGE MUST DESTROY AND PROTECT but is also in an actual catsuit, so really, what can Janeway do? They get married and have to kiss each other at some reception or other, and then there is steamy sex and flimsy nighties and Janeway getting a bit of an anal probe. I’m not making this up.

And then Plot happens and honestly I don’t remember a lot of it because I was so damn disappointed that the sex scene(s) never involved the catsuit. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A CATSUIT IN LESBIAN FICTION IF YOU DON’T USE IT IN A SEX SCENE!?

Ahem.

So they save the day, yada yada. There are some nice fight scenes, and ships explode, and dudes get angry. Janeway has unresolved daddy issues and Icheb gets more fleshed out in this AU than he ever did in Voyager the Series. The end.

I will never not be angry about the catsuit.

Overall, it was an amusing read, with plenty of my favorite tropes (blue-skinned aliens, marriage of convenience, pew pew, etc.). The writing did a lot of showing and then telling and then TELLING, which became tedious after a while, but that pales in the delight of getting to hold an AU in paperback form.

You can get your own catsuit (but you won’t get lucky in it) in paperback here and ebook here.

 

~~MY FAVORITE QUOTES~~

On blue-skinned aliens:

Gantharians were blue-bodied in the truest sense of the word. (because other blue skinned aliens are not truly blue?)

“Of course, we’ll have to prove the marriage is for real, not just a means to an end.” It’s the future, but apparently marriage still has to involve romance and/or sex. I blame Lwaxana Troy.

“You once saw the blueprints of this vessel?”

“Yes, my father managed to obtain the blueprints for the prototype before he died, and I hid them and all of his other possessions in a secret vault on our estate. He showed me the ship’s weak spot–the node that, if hit by a torpedo, would relay the impact to wipe out their weapons and communications array.” This book also contains a death star, so it’s important to note that Seven used to bullseye womprats in her T-16 back home.

Review: A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

This is a review for the second in a series. To read book one, A LONG WAY TO A SMALL, ANGRY PLANET, click here.

 

Genre: science fiction (space opera)

Pairings: none

Queer Representation: gender fluid

Warnings: none

 

Review

Picking up right where THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL, ANGRY PLANET left off, Lovey, the sentient AI, is in her new body and not having a good time. We follow her journey to understanding herself and her new housing, along with her friends/guardians Pepper and Blue.

As with LONG WAY, there isn’t an immediate through line to this book. Instead, we hop between (mostly) Pepper and Sidra’s (Lovey’s new name) POV and their day-to-day interactions. Sidra learns about being human and being limited by having just two eyes and a limited memory, meets a gender fluid alien who kind of gets her, has a disastrous tattoo experience, and really fleshes out the struggles of Lovelace in book one.

Most of Pepper’s POV is from the past, wherein we learn about Pepper being raised by another sentient AI, Owl, on a craptastic world. Pepper is a genetically engineered girl–only one chromosome–and was bred to sort scrap in a factory and never see the sky. Her compelling backstory (my absolute favorite part of the book) sets the stage for how she interacts with Sidra, and allows for a plot to finally coalesce in the back quarter of the book, where the four characters–Blue, Pepper, Sidra, and Sidra’s new friend Tak–break into a museum to try to steal Owl out of the ship that has become her tomb.

This book didn’t have the same level of science in it as did LONG WAY, but the mod speak and pseudo forum-Discord-chat board lingo is spot on. As with LONG WAY, the characters are dynamic and three dimensional, and you can’t help but love all of them. Chamber’s hallmark is character development and character interactions, and both shine through in ORBIT.

As always, there is plenty of solid queer rep. Tak (an Aeluon, a species with four genders) is particularly well done, and the discussion of how Tak changes genders, and the hormones and cultural norms around that and Tak’s entire species, is utterly fascinating. Pepper is a nice inclusion for intersex rep, though hers comes through genetic engineering and not biological diversity.

The strongest parts of the book are the human(alien)/AI interactions. Pepper’s relationship with Owl is completely child and mother, and absolutely breathtaking as Pepper tries to navigate isolation and survival and puberty. Pepper’s relationship with Sidra walks that awkward friend/caretaker role, but Pepper’s compassion for AIs, stemming from her upbringing, is organic. Their arguments pull the reader from both sides, and the resulting tension keeps the book moving forward without any need for a plot.

Some other fun notes

It’s the attention to detail that always makes Chamber’s books stand out. A CLOSED AND COMMON ORBIT includes in-text AI user manuals, chatroom dialogue, and a bunch of other fun snippets that build the world:

Yes, you can have sex! You’ve got all the parts for it, and unless you’re coupling with an expert physician who spends a lot of time looking at your bits under good light (hey, to each their own), no one will be able to tell the difference. But before you get to it, please do plenty of research about health sexual relationships and proper consent. Ideally, ask a friend for advice. Similar to the recommendation about hand washing, you should also practise good hygiene and disease prevention practices for the same of your partner. There’s no guarantee that xyr imubots are up to date.

Which leads me to my next favorite part – the use of ‘xe’ and ‘xyr’ when you don’t know someone’s gender, or when they are not a ‘he’ or a ‘she’. Fantastic neopronoun, and used perfectly in text.

The Big Bug Crew. I just… the sims and their descriptions and Pepper’s connection to them are just so perfect. I know The Big Bug Crew. After reading this book I would play that sim and buy those toys. That’s how deeply affected I was by Pepper’s reactions to and time with the sim.

While the first book in the Wayfarer series wasn’t a strong favorite, A CLOSED AND COMMON ORBIT was an easy and emotional read. It can be read as a standalone or as the second in the series, and is a must read for lovers of character-driven space opera.

Get your own sentient AI system (illegal, of course, but still cool) here in print, here in audio, or here in ebook.

Read the review for the first in the series, THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL, ANGRY PLANET, here.

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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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