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reviews science fiction romance

Her Cyborg Awakes – SFR book review

Her Cyborg Awakes (Diaspora Worlds, #1)Her Cyborg Awakes by Melisse Aires

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m not 100% sure how to rate this book. I was quite excited to read it because the premise is interesting and I’m writing my own similar robot sfr right now. The first half is probably a 4-4.5 stars for me due to the interesting set-up, but unfortunately the second half drops to 2 for execution.

Our heroine Sabralia is one of the neglected young wives of an evil dictator. Because she never gave him an heir, he has decided to turn her into a sex worker to service his military officers at the next banquet. She concocts a plan to escape that fate by tricking her dumb cyborg servant (a spy for the harem manager) into reporting that she is meeting a fictional officer on the beach, away from any witnesses.

Then (view spoiler), as advertised, her cyborg awakes.

The beginning is quite engaging. Sabralia is a very sympathetic character. She wasn’t schooled beyond sixteen, when she was given to the dictator in a treaty to protect her home world. She has survived okay in the harem by completely isolating herself, and even though the schooling issue bothers her, she still manages to make smart choices that control her destiny.

There is some yummy sexiness right at the beginning in the shower with the cyborg, but it’s also sweet and sad because she’s so lonely and he’s so clearly not sentient.

The rape-threat trope, which usually really bothers me as a trigger point, didn’t this time because (view spoiler)

Her cyborg is actually a warrior prince named Kaistril. He prefers hard, dangerous military women, not sweet, soft Sabralia. While they get to know each other as people, he teaches her useful skills (how to pilot and maintain a space ship, for example) and she begins to blossom.

However, then there is the second half of the book. Spoilers!

(view spoiler)

Except…the jewelry dealer asks no questions (?), she lifts her chin to dissuade the lawless young men who may or may not look at her one time, the agent who arranges her hotel stay sends her to a nice hotel in a nice part of town run by an honest, moral family who help them out, and the ship’s sale just goes swimmingly. The bad guys go to the wrong hotel room a few times and murder other people. She doesn’t find out about it until later. Nobody asks any questions. Nobody looks at them twice. There’s this build-up for danger and then nothing happens.

This part is probably only ten pages, but I swear, it felt like a thousand. I started skimming trying to get to the point.

The problem with it is that Sabralia demonstrates no skills. Things just happen to her. She gets lucky that her hotel people are honest, and that her agent wasn’t in the pocket of some local warlord. Luck is not interesting unless it’s bad luck. Where was the smart woman who figured out how to use her limited powers and resources to outwit the evil dictator and his harem manager? Wherever she went, it was apparently not to this station, which seems extremely law abiding and safe actually. 🙁

Then Kaistril’s brothers show up to save them. They become the new villains when they decide – without questioning Sabralia, based on practically no evidence – that she is a security risk and needs to be sent back to her home world. The consequences of this will be that she will put her home world at risk if her evil husband survived the coup, but they don’t know because they never conversed.

Now, when Kaistril wakes up, he correctly freaks out. But what seriously bothered me about this was REALLY??? It was such a stupid choice on his brothers’ part that I feel concern about their ability to fight a war. Don’t they have smarter people advising them? It’s a miracle they haven’t already been wiped out.

Sabralia’s smart self returns and she manages to avoid her captors (yay!) and make alternate plans (double yay!). Unbeknownst to her, she has an ID transmitter that is leading the bad guys to her. (Note: Why didn’t this lead the bad guys to her earlier in the hotel? There may have been a plot reason that I read at the time. I can’t remember now, even though I finished the book yesterday.) Kaistril and his brothers redeem themselves by saving her.

Then, instead of racing back to the ship, she and Kaistril are instructed to go sight-seeing (?) which they then translate into returning to her rooms (!!!!) to get her stuff and actually to have reunion sex.

The sex is nice, but my mouth was hanging open. How do they know there’s only a few bad guys? How do they know that her new hotel room hasn’t been compromised? How stupid are the bad guys?

Answer: Apparently as stupid as the brothers.

That is what really bothered me about the second half. In the first half, she’s a victim of circumstances but she pluckily rises above them. In the second half, she possesses stolen jewels, a stolen ship, and valuable security intelligence against the most powerful intergalactic dictator of their time. He may be dead, maybe not. But if there is enough organization left in his military to chase after one little ship, aren’t they going to do it right?

An editor once said that the smarter and more powerful you make your villains, the smarter and more interesting your heroes must become to rise to the challenge. This book really demonstrates that truth. Unfortunately, the villains are absent or half-assed, so the heroes just kind of float to the ending without facing any real challenges. And, since so much was set up (Lawless space station! Evil dictator! Disabled hero + vulnerable heroine!) it was really disappointing to see all of the hot water evaporate away, leaving only a tepid few inches that the protagonists easily splashed through. (hide spoiler)]

So, I liked this book okay, but since it had the potential to be so much more, I finished it with a lingering sense of disappointment. I will probably give the author one more chance, but maybe not at full price.

FYI- there are a few spelling/formatting errors, but nothing that would really detract from my enjoyment of the story.

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freebie science fiction romance

Freebie: Her Cyborg Awakes

Start the weekend with a cyborg science-fiction romance. And did I mention it’s free? Click the cover to get it from Amazon!

Check out my review on Sunday to see if you agree!

Categories
reviews science fiction romance

C791 – SF erotica book review

C791 (Cyborgs: More Than Machines, #1)C791 by Eve Langlais

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First of all, what is up with cyborgs and sexual trauma? This is the third cyborg story in a row I have read where the heroine (and sometimes also hero) have been trauma survivors (usually still under threat) battling their former abusers. Strangely, none of them have had actual hang-ups because desire for the hero has wiped away the physical trauma for the terrible acts somehow. Whatever. Not so sexy.

My trigger issue aside, this was a well-written erotica, and so although this review is full of complaints, overall it was an enjoyable experience full of pages and pages and pages of hot sex.

The military is running a puppet government. They discovered that the cyborgs they had made out of brain-dead soldiers were starting to regain their autonomy, and tried to wipe them out. But, the soldiers rebelled and have now successfully created their own society elsewhere. They hate humans – except for the women they steal for sex – and want to discover the secret of their origins and creation so they can learn more about who stole their humanity, why, and how to procreate to sustain their separate society.

(Note: Wouldn’t babies made from these unions be human rather than cyborg? I guess that’s another reason they want to know their origin, so they also know how to create more. Technically I have contacts and a tooth implant, so I guess I’m already one of them. *g*)

On one of these reconnaissance missions, hero cyborg Joe discovers feelings for human lab technician Chloe. His solution is to kidnap her for sex.

(view spoiler)

The military general who viciously abused her is the one leading the assault. Just when defeat is complete, the cyborgs use their super powers to imprison the general. They intend to get the secrets out of his head once they get to their home world.

Although Joe promises to love Chloe no matter what, the other cyborgs are not so thrilled about the unnecessary deaths of all their friends. Their accusations accidentally drive her under power of the general once more. During the escape, the general gives her back her horrible memories. This somehow circumvents his control and she murders him with her bare hands.

At the end, it is revealed that eleven more women were made into cyborg sex bots. The other named main characters determine to find and rescue them. (hide spoiler)]

Although it is glossed over in this book, one of the more disturbing asides concerns the treatment of humans in the cyborg society. Joe states that they will kidnap women for sex, and the elderly or handicapped for parts. This could be dismissed as a threat to scare Chloe early on, but he later thinks about the women again when he is grateful that Chloe doesn’t scream and fight during her abduction (as others have done) and she doesn’t try to escape or hate her captors. Apparently the cyborgs believe all they have to do is give their kidnap victims good sex and they should forget their former lives. There is a risk that if Chloe doesn’t adapt to her new life, Joe will have to wipe her mind and turn her into a personality-devoid human sexbot.

Yikes.

This makes me believe that the kidnapping of the other vulnerable populations for parts is also a true statement, which is double-yikes! They also steal the women’s kids. Honestly, I would not want my children to be kidnapped with me in a society like this! I would never know when they might decide that one of my children had a hangnail and had to be parted out or something. Jeezus.

I expected at least the hypocrisy with women to be dealt with in this book, but I now wonder if that will be the subject of a future book instead. Ie, that the cyborgs are no better than the humans for stealing innocent people, treating their bodies as commodities, and destroying their humanity and their lives.

This is pretty dark stuff in comparison to the rest of the book.

I’m not sure whether the rest of the series, which I suspect will focus on other trauma victims, is going to be my cup of tea. Maybe I will read an excerpt of the next novel and see where it is going. I’m also not a huge erotica reader and I get bored the tenth time I read a sex scene in the same novel. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the standard 90s Harlequin Blaze of three hot scenes per book instead.

If you like that stuff, though, you will find this book well-plotted and quite a decent read.

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blog tour Excerpts robotics faction science fiction romance

SFR Monday spotlight at Jessica E Subject blog

Today I’m spotlighted at Jessica E Subject’s blog. Check her out!

She’s got tons of SFR recommendations and is a great place to find your next read. She’s also a sexy/erotica SFR author so her books are much hotter than mine. If you think that mine don’t have enough of the good stuff, give hers a look! She’s got free reads to get you started.

Jessica E Subject – Jessica Subject is the author of contemporary and science fiction romance, ranging from sweet to sexy. In her stories, you could meet clones, or a sexy alien or two. You may even be transported to another planet for a romantic rendezvous…

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reviews science fiction romance

Ynyr – sexy SFR book review

Ynyr (Tornians, #3)Ynyr by M.K. Eidem

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Okay, so, this wasn’t quite the same grade of crack that was Grim (Tornians #1) but it still hit my craving and left me wanting more. I’m about to go buy the one about his parents because I cannot get enough of this series.

Once again, a small Earth female manages to steal the heart and soul of an alien Tornian male and wrap him around her little finger. As before, she is completely right and only does good things with this power, bringing improvement and enlightenment to the land. When anyone disagrees, she explains why they are wrong, and everyone realizes the truth. God, I love this series!

The spelling and grammar was much better in Ynyr, but I thought it had a lot less going on. This is because it takes place over a few days rather than over the weeks that it took in Grim. It feels like a much shorter novel. There was still good action and sex, especially in the beginning, but not as much of either. There’s only two major sex scenes and then they are too busy to get together. In Grim, they have sex (and Lisa sends her kids to bed or to get dinner) like every other scene, so it’s definitely a big difference.

I was completely blindsided by the twist with the heroine! I don’t get surprised too often by books these days, so two thumbs up for that.

So, altogether fewer plot points, sex scenes, and a smaller story overall made this feel like half the book of Grim, but it still had all of the elements that made me enjoy the first book so much.

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Excerpts liberations kiss robotics faction science fiction romance

Earl Grey, Hot!

Jean-Luc drinking tea“Earl Grey, hot!” my husband likes to say as he makes his favorite cup of tea. He’s referencing Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s order to the Enterprise’s food synthesizer on Star Trek: The Next Generation. But is Captain Picard really drinking the same thing as my 21st century husband?

Star Trek TNG takes place around the year 2364 (we are assuming it is BCE rather than “star date” – a true fan will correct me) which is approximately 350 years from today. Judging by 350 years ago, food looked somewhat different from the way it looks today. The great Columbian Exchange of agriculture from Old World to New and vice versa was still underway, countries such as the Dutch controlled spices like nutmeg, and Florida did not grow oranges. But even in 1660 if you couldn’t get a Florida orange, you could still find one elsewhere.

The real interesting thing is how different certain foods are today.

Carrots, for example, were not their current color until after the 1700s. A carrot pre-1700 had many varietals, but they were usually purple, white, or “mutant” yellow. From the mutant yellows, the now-ubiquitous orange carrot was later derived. [From the Carrot Museum – bet you didn’t know there was one of those, did you?]

Even more recently we have had surprisingly drastic shake-ups of the food chain. In the 1950s, the top banana imported to the United States was the “Gros Michel” variety. It is a richer, creamier banana but was susceptible to Panama Disease. The failure of the crop crashed the world market. The current banana in grocery stores is the blander, disease-resistant “Cavendish.” You can still get Gros Michels in places that don’t suffer from the disease, such as Thailand. I once ate five bananas in a row on a boat ride in the Philippines because they tasted so unusually delicious. I just thought they were super fresh. Now I know that I was eating an entirely different banan variety.

In my own lifetime as a Washington State resident, I have often lamented the fall of the Red Delicious apple. What was once my favorite as a very young child in the early 80s, well, changed. By the 90s I found the skin so tough and the fruit so mushy that it was literally inedible and remains so to this day.

Which brings us back to the original question. If carrots can change color in a few hundred years, bananas can change varietals in less than a century, and one apple cultivar can trade cheap beauty for flavor in a couple decades, exactly what kind of tea is Captain Picard enjoying in his cup of “Earl Grey, hot”?

I play with this concept in Liberation’s Kiss:

“You found something to eat,” he said.

“The unit is like new, so everything tastes just great.” She offered a flake of pink coconut, but he shook his head. He only needed a small amount to feed his small percentage of biological components, and he’d get weeks’ worth out of the plums he’d eaten on the boat.

She considered the pink flake. “I read somewhere that coconut used to be white.”

He made a grunt of interest.

“And hard, with a brown outer shell full of hair. And it grew on trees.” She bit into the succulent pink fruit, licking the dripping juices. “If it’s so different now, I wonder if this is how coconut used to taste.”

He could watch her eat all day. “Like how?”

“Creamy, sweet, rich on your tongue, like it’s really filling your mouth. Kind of…I don’t know. Coconut-y.” Her dreamy look gave way to practicality. She chewed the pink fibers and swallowed. “I just wonder if it tastes the same as the original.”

“The original on Rigel?”

She shook her head. “I wonder if it really did originate on Rigel. You know?”

– From Liberation’s Kiss: A Science Fiction Romance (Robotics Faction #1)

3d book

What do you think? Would we recognize food in 350 years, whether or not it comes from a synthesizer?