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leovaliquette's review against another edition
5.0
I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I began reading Leah Petersen's Fighting Gravity, but I found myself pleasantly surprised and sucked into the narrative. I can only describe it is as an LGBT sci-fi romance that made me reminisce about Piers Anthony's Bio of a Space Tyrant (remember that series?).
Of course, our protagonist, Jacob Dawes, isn't the horn dog that Anthony's Hope Hubris was -- he has a true love, and it's the emperor of a future galactic empire.
For the record, I'm a heterosexual male, and I quite enjoyed what turned to be a great story driven by characters who win you over all the more because they are real and human and flawed, and suffer for it as a result. It made me wish Torchwood and Captain Jack were still around.
But I am a word nerd -- a professional writer and editor -- and no matter how engaging a plot or a cast of characters, I will struggle to stay engaged with a story that suffers from cluttered, purple or otherwise weak prose. And don't even get me started on the sloppy grammar, spelling errors and questionable structure I often find with the titles from some small presses.
The writing here, however, is clean, lean and strong, like the strumming of harp strings. Leah Petersen is a great writer, hands down.
So if you're like me, a fellow who often goes for the traditional fantasy fare, the harder sci-fi, or even the Clive Cussler kind of stuff, and you want to give a chance to something a bit different, I highly recommend this book.
Of course, our protagonist, Jacob Dawes, isn't the horn dog that Anthony's Hope Hubris was -- he has a true love, and it's the emperor of a future galactic empire.
For the record, I'm a heterosexual male, and I quite enjoyed what turned to be a great story driven by characters who win you over all the more because they are real and human and flawed, and suffer for it as a result. It made me wish Torchwood and Captain Jack were still around.
But I am a word nerd -- a professional writer and editor -- and no matter how engaging a plot or a cast of characters, I will struggle to stay engaged with a story that suffers from cluttered, purple or otherwise weak prose. And don't even get me started on the sloppy grammar, spelling errors and questionable structure I often find with the titles from some small presses.
The writing here, however, is clean, lean and strong, like the strumming of harp strings. Leah Petersen is a great writer, hands down.
So if you're like me, a fellow who often goes for the traditional fantasy fare, the harder sci-fi, or even the Clive Cussler kind of stuff, and you want to give a chance to something a bit different, I highly recommend this book.
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