J.S. Fields

Author & Scientist

Review: ONE LAST STOP by Casey McQuinston

Genre: science fiction: modern time travel

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis bisexual, cis (butch) lesbian, trans man

Warnings: this book is freaking adorable

Review

Twenty-three-year-old August has just moved to New York City, intent on finally finishing her degree and carving out a life away from her obsessive mother. Frequent rides on the subway keep her running into a mysterious woman in late seventies fashion. Jane is the butch of August’s dreams, but has a little bit too much of the unknown about her. The more August unravels about Jane, the more she comes to doubt not only her understanding of physics, but her understanding of her own family. Jane may be the key to finding August’s long-missing uncle, but she may be the key to August’s heart, too.

I’m not usually a contemporary reader. I did like the author’s last work, the m/m RED, WHITE, AND ROYAL BLUE, and so an f/f pairing, with time travel, sparked my interest. Overall, ONE LAST STOP is a cute, if overlong, ‘meet cute’ book. The sci fi elements are deeply downplayed in favor of extensive character work. Found family abounds, deep introspection is the norm, and there’s a lot of NYC atmospheric elements that help bind the book together.

The romance between August and Jane is the strongest part of the narrative, and all the make out and sex scenes are tight with tension, longing, and butch/femme dynamics. They are unfortunately couched between what sometimes feels like endless friendship discussions with August’s roommates–all of whom are entertaining, but all over the top in one way or another. One or two would make the narrative richer. Five or six make the narrative overwhelming.

ONE LAST STOP would make for a great airplane travel book or comfort read on a long, rainy day where you still have some things to do. Imminently interruptible, it’s a soft, cozy love story about subway romance with easily skimmable fluff filler.

With that said, the narrative voice is strong and August’s voice in particular is distinct. Some examples include:

 

“Yikes,” she says, gesturing at August’s shirt, where the coffee stain has soaked in and spread, which is the last possible reason August wants this girl to be looking at her boobs.

 

August can feel her face glowing red to match the scarf, like a giant, stammering, bisexual chameleon. An evolutionary mistake.

 

And the writing is rich with lesbian courting dynamics I seldom see written down, even in contemporary romance:

She lowers her eyes finally, and when she cuts them over, August forgets she ever asked a question. Or what questions are. Or the entire process of speech. “What brought you here?”

“Um, school,” August says. The lighting is already unflattering, so it can’t be helping the shade of red she turns when confronted with significant eye contact from butch girls in leather jackets.

 

There are also a few delicious pop culture references. My favorite:

“August, I love you very much, and I want you to be happy, and I’m very confident that you and this girl are, like, fated by the universe to finger blast each other until you both die,” she says. “But honestly? I am in this for the sci-fi of it all. I’m living a real life episode of The X-Files, okay? This is the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me, and my life has not been boring. So, can we go, Scully?”

 

Grab yourself a subway card and see if you can find your own time traveling butch girlfriend by buying the book here.

Review: Isle of Broken Years by Jane Fletcher

Genre: science fiction – time travel / fantasy – lesbians on boats (pirates)

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: rape taunts (it IS a pirate book after all)

Review

Like all of Jane Flecther’s books, please pay ABSOLUTELY NO ATTENTION TO THE COVER. This book is GOLD and so help me I will pay for the next cover myself can we please get this woman covers that properly showcase her work!?!

Ahem.

Catalina de Valasco is on a galleon, headed for the Americas to meet her rich husband (whom she has never met). Pirates attack! The cabin boy of said pirate ship is Sam, our dashing tomboy lesbian love interest, cleverly disguised (or so she thinks). Anyway. The crew is slaughtered but finding a lady in a fancy dress, they realize hey, ransom! Sweet! So they change course and head for the Bermuda Triangle (stay with me).

So it’s hard, right, being a pirate that likes ladies? I mean, you’ve got one ON YOUR SHIP but your captain won’t let you rape her because they she isn’t worth as much money. Not all the crew agree with this financial plan, and several attempts are made, which Sam cleverly foils with chickens. We are not yet to the major plot twist. Hang in there. They sail through the triangle as they try to go somewhere that will pay ransom for an annoying, high-bred Spanish lady. There is weird weather and there is a mutiny etc. Sam, Catalina, Catalina’s (very gay) manservant Alonzo, and some of the would-be-rapists are stranded on an island where robots try to kill them. Yes. Robots. Strap in.

Welcome to ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME without the BS colonial narrative and obvert racism. The few that survive the first robot attack are found by other island survivors and taken to a safer location, where they learn that the island is (wait for it) a Greek/alien invention (Catalina reads Greek, conveniently!) and moves through time. The current refugees come from different cultures, times, and places, and make for a fantastic back up crew. The goal – to get off the island without being killed by robots, or minotaurs, or weather. Secondary goal – can Sam get together with Catalina, or will Catalina’s crushing upper class eighteenth centuries Spanish morals get in the way? And why is Alonzo trying to kill Sam? How would you expect a meeting of modern day lesbian millennial to go with said eighteenth century closeted lesbian?

WELL YOU GET TO FIND OUT.

Catalina is….kind of over the top and it’s kind of perfect:

Catalina tightened her jaw and drew her shoulders back. The blood of kinds ran in her veins. She was a true daughter of Spain, who could trace her ancestors to El Cid, and beyond. Whatever else, she would not let this rabble see fear on her face. They deserved nothing by contempt, and that she would grant them, in abundance.

Sam is the standard ‘my dad didn’t know what else to do with me so he dressed me as a boy and took me to sea’ trope–pirate with a heart of gold, loves the ladies, etc. The ‘pirate’ part makes this difficult, of course, noting Catalina’s attitude towards pirates, per above. As a fun twist, the pirate crew all think Sam is a ‘backdoor man’ because he doesn’t visit the whorehouses with them. In a +10000 for Fletcher, Sam’s gender reveal does not come from her shirt being torn open. Instead, the more modern people on the island have no trouble seeing she’s a woman dressed as a man and just flat out ask her. Sam has no issue adopting this very upfront attitude:

She turned to Sam. “And you are?”

“Sam. Sam Helyer, I was cabin boy on the Golden Goose. The ship has sunk, and I’m the last survivor.” Sam hesitated, as if making a decision. “So I’ve missed my change to tell my cremates I’m not a boy. Probably just as well. I don’t think they’d have been happy about a cabin girl.”

While people around her laughed, Catalina needed long seconds to be sure she understood what Sam had just said. But there could be no doubt. She was dimly aware of Alonzo at her side giving a low growl. Mostly, Catalina just felt her jaw drop open.

Per usual, I have quibbles with how the binder is addressed:

Babe picked at the band Sam had wrapped around her breasts. The binding had been necessary when she was passing as a boy, and she had kept it for comfort when running and jumping.

If every author could just come and sit next to me for a quick second – IF A BINDER IS TIGHT ENOUGH TO PROPERLY CONCEAL BREASTS, IT IS NOT COMFORTABLE. Maybe for a few hours. DEFINITELY not for running. Those shits constrict the HELL out of your lungs. Running in a binder that tight is a good way to pass out. ASK ME HOW I KNOW.

Okay, binder grump aside, you should buy this book because, at the very end when they’re trying to battle a robot minotaur, they have to use lightsabers.

Yes. You heard me.

“The only thin we have that stands a chance of hurting the Minotaur are these plasma blades.”

Uh huh. Call them ‘plasma blades.’ We all know what’s going on. Time Island has alien tech and LIGHTSABERS. LESBIANS WITH LIGHTSABERS WHO WERE PREVIOUSLY ON BOATS.

you are welcome. It has a happy ending and no lesbians are eaten by fish robots.

Get your own lightsaber and try to find Atlantis by buying the book here. Don’t feel bad if you have to rip the cover off to keep it on your bookshelf. Still very much worth it.

Review: Alice Payne Arrives by Kate Heartfield

This review is for the first book in the series. To read the review for ALICE PAYNE RIDES, click here (will post one week after this review).

Genre: science fiction (historical/time travel)

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian, cis bisexual

Warnings: none

Review

The year: 1788. A mysterious highway bandit called ‘The Holy Ghost’ haunts a small section of road, attacking scoundrel men. The woman behind the mask is Alice Payne, indebted daughter to an aging father, desperate to pay of his debts, keep her childhood home, and the interest of inventor Jane, Alice’s ‘companion’ at Fleance Hall.

The year is also 1889, where Major Prudence Zuniga, a professional time traveler and meddler, is attempting to alter the course of human history by keeping Prince Rudolph alive. Of course, to Zuniga the year is also 2145, her year, in which two groups of time traveling bodies (the ‘Farmers’ and the ‘Guides) war to ‘fix’ humanity’s past and keep its future from combusting.

During a standard robbery of one asshole Earl of Ludderworth, who enjoys pressing his advantage on serving girls, a shimmer in the air catches the Earl and flings him into the future. Determined to not let the Holy Ghost be known as a murderer, Alice (with the help of Jane) tracks down the shimmer and finds herself in 2070…and also finds Major Prudence Zuniga. Having completely fouled up both the past and the future at this point, Zuniga takes the earl and Alice back to 1788, where Alice can be used as a pawn in the time wars. This all looks good from Alice’s end–Zuniga has promised her enough money to pay off her father’s debts (thereby ensuring she can live on at Fleance Hall with Jane for the rest of their days)–but time travel never seems to work the way one expects.

Zuniga’s continued meddling leads to a cascade of history changes, each worse than the last. In the end it is only an adventurous highwayman and her inventor-lover that can save Major Zuniga, and humanity’s future. Along the way the reader is treated to steam-punk like automatons, Victorian silliness, an endearing love affair, and a host of strong, three-dimensional women.

The book is short-only 168 pages in the print version, and a quick, engaging read. Keeping track of the various dates isn’t really necessary as the voice of the characters are each distinct. The pacing is excellent for a novella, though the worldbuilding is sparse (though, again, novella). The cover art is gorgeous and for that alone the book deserves a spot on your shelf–though I think most readers would be delighted to revisit Alice Payne on reread.

Readers familiar with the US political landscape of 2016 (and who can block out the horror of 2020) will enjoy the numerous jokes about Zuniga having to go to 2016 to fix history there:

“But 2016 is completely fucked,” she says, trying to keep her voice even. “You know that. Sir. We have to go back earlier.”

I have only two quibbles with this book. The first is that the inventor, Jane, gets very few chances to shine and she is by far, to me, the most interesting character. Brought to Fleance Hall by Alice’s father, Jane is the ward of Alice’s father’s cousin (follow that??), and also the builder of Alice’s accomplice automaton for the highway robberies. She is quick to put Alice in her place, rational, and endearing, and really deserved at least a few POV sections.

“Sometimes I think you see me as a great experiment, that you say things to get satisfaction from my shock. Little Jane, poor and plain, small bubbies and a big brain. That’s what the boys used to say, to shock me. You could try it, rather than declaring your intention to disappear into some other time and place and carry out some unknowable scheme at a stranger’s behest.”

The second is that I think I’d have preferred an novel almost entirely about Alice and her highwayman tendencies. Zuniga is a fun character and time travel is always awesome, but splitting between the two meant we didn’t really get to revel in how much fun it is to attack jerks on roads with your mechanical assistant built by your secret live-in girlfriend. I mean come on. Someone write this fan fiction, I’m begging you.

Grab an automaton and a cute girl and join Alice Payne on her adventure here.

 

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