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alejandra_guerrero's review against another edition
3.0
Where to start… It strikes me as absolutely arrogant when authors just make all aliens exactly like humans. Like we’re perfection and there’s absolutely no way life would have evolved any differently under any conditions. Or, as I’m inclined to believe for this book in particular, like God couldn’t have created anything different. And not just the people, the animals too. There’s some religious ideology permeating the story, it’s hard to miss. The strong nationalism is hard to miss, too. The aliens are all that the US isn’t (yes, the US, these people came from there, not Earth, nope, because just Americans have the intelligence and resources to do space travel, no one else). This book was so US-centric. And oh, so white! All the characters were white, even the freaking aliens, there was one ONE! latino character, he’s mentioned, he curses in Spanish, then he disappears, and I assume he dies a couple chapters later, since his unit was killed. Yeah. Oh, and Sarah’s foster mom, who is dead, was black. Her foster sister is a horrible person. They met because she and her friends almost killed Sara in the school bathroom. Not a very good rep.
Sarah is poorly described physically, I kinda thought she had long hair until in the middle of part three (there are four parts) it’s mentioned she’s got short hair. How short, who knows, just “longer than she used to wear it” (whatever that means). The love interest is constantly brushing it out of her face, and tucking it behind her ears, so, it couldn’t be that short, could it?
Finally, it felt way too long. There were a couple chapters that could have been shortened, and in the end there’s way too many things happening at the same time.
Despite everything, it was an entertaining read. I liked Sarah’s personality, and I was laughing at the way she tries (and, for the most part, succeeds) to rail the aliens and make them lose their cool. She is an empowered woman, fierce, and resourceful. Fyn is a bit bland, not much in terms of personality, and, even when it’s mentioned a couple times how dangerous he is, it never shows.
Sarah is poorly described physically, I kinda thought she had long hair until in the middle of part three (there are four parts) it’s mentioned she’s got short hair. How short, who knows, just “longer than she used to wear it” (whatever that means). The love interest is constantly brushing it out of her face, and tucking it behind her ears, so, it couldn’t be that short, could it?
Finally, it felt way too long. There were a couple chapters that could have been shortened, and in the end there’s way too many things happening at the same time.
Despite everything, it was an entertaining read. I liked Sarah’s personality, and I was laughing at the way she tries (and, for the most part, succeeds) to rail the aliens and make them lose their cool. She is an empowered woman, fierce, and resourceful. Fyn is a bit bland, not much in terms of personality, and, even when it’s mentioned a couple times how dangerous he is, it never shows.
itabar's review against another edition
I started this book and it had a lot of promise.
But I just cannot get over humans travelling to another GALAXY and they encounter human-like aliens. And these aliens IN ANOTHER GALAXY speak near-ENGLISH!! And those beings look, act, and have emotions **exactly** like humans.
OK, maybe human-like creatures were spread over a bazillion galaxies from some proto human star travelers. But to have the almost the same LANGUAGE?? Admittedly I'm not very far in, but there is no explanation. No one says "Hey, how come you speak our language? Do you also speak French and Urdu??" No one marvels at the physical similarity. There is more disparity in culture on earth right now than there is between the H&H.
I just cannot suspend disbelief. And, sadly, this is were most RomSF completely FAILS: believable plotting and world-building. The focus is on romance and very little on believable SF.
While I'm listening, I'm shaking my head that this story got published. So I'm stopping. Where was the editor? Where was the Logic Police?
But I just cannot get over humans travelling to another GALAXY and they encounter human-like aliens. And these aliens IN ANOTHER GALAXY speak near-ENGLISH!! And those beings look, act, and have emotions **exactly** like humans.
OK, maybe human-like creatures were spread over a bazillion galaxies from some proto human star travelers. But to have the almost the same LANGUAGE?? Admittedly I'm not very far in, but there is no explanation. No one says "Hey, how come you speak our language? Do you also speak French and Urdu??" No one marvels at the physical similarity. There is more disparity in culture on earth right now than there is between the H&H.
I just cannot suspend disbelief. And, sadly, this is were most RomSF completely FAILS: believable plotting and world-building. The focus is on romance and very little on believable SF.
While I'm listening, I'm shaking my head that this story got published. So I'm stopping. Where was the editor? Where was the Logic Police?
ccgwalt's review against another edition
5.0
4.5* This was fun, fun, fun! I loved the characters. None of them, even the "bad guys" were stereotypical or 2-dimensional. The story was fast-moving and well-plotted. The reader is given glimpses and hints about past secrets and future revelations, but the story unfolds naturally as the book progresses. And the action was like a roller-coaster ride with slow, tension producing climbs followed by non-stop, heart-pounding descents. I felt like I was there on the ship, on the outposts and in the dogfights. I was very thankful for the sometimes laugh-out-loud humor that was the perfect tension relief. The reception of the Gadi delegation onto the Earth ship was priceless.
The book wasn't perfect and I could nit-pick a few things. But that would be to ruin the fun for me if no one else. I choose to over-look the occasional over-the-top scene or a few moments of confusion about a point of the story. I want to bask in one of the most fun, and somehow unique, books I've read in a long time.
Oh, yeah...and there is a really sweet love story going on here, too. ;-)
The book wasn't perfect and I could nit-pick a few things. But that would be to ruin the fun for me if no one else. I choose to over-look the occasional over-the-top scene or a few moments of confusion about a point of the story. I want to bask in one of the most fun, and somehow unique, books I've read in a long time.
Oh, yeah...and there is a really sweet love story going on here, too. ;-)
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