Arden Ellis

*I received this book from NetGalley, and Less Than Three in return for a fair review.*

This is a really really good short story. The story snuck up on me unexpectedly. It just kept building, my heart actually was racing there at times.

Not really sure what to say, though, without saying everything.

The universe: Colonists, mainly the lower classes (or however that was worded), headed off to new planets. Only to find that they'd been tricked. They promptly decided to return 'home', but the homeworlds didn't want them. War broke out. It still occurs at the time of this story, but now less with soldiers, and more with assassins, missiles targeting . . . everything, and the like. The two sides are the Reaches (colonists/poor) and the Sovereign (homeworlds/rich).

This story: The book description is good enough. The book opens with Mal, a member of the Reaches, sitting around on a spaceship traveling through space. She'd snuck aboard and taken it over - relatively easily since, for the most part, while the ship contains 100 people on it, only roughly 2 crew members are awake at a time. The rest are in sleep, frozen sleep. Cryo-sleep.

Why did Mal take over the ship? Because she was told to do so. More specifically, because the Sovereign Princess was aboard.

The story consists of a slow meeting between the princess, Aurora (or Rory), and Mal. Over weeks/months as the ship travels to a specific location. And the tension mounts, for they are enemies, and one needs the other for a specific ship task (being purposefully vague here); and tension mounts because of the risk - which will arrive first, the Reaches ship, or the Sovereign?

Everything is from Mal's point of view, but, even so, I felt like I got a good look at both characters (there are more than two, but - other than a few messages here and there and things seen on a view screen, there really are just two characters in the story). The relationship between the two was neat to watch.

Short, simple, neat story.

Rating: 4.88

March 24 2017… (más)

Book received from both Netgalley and Less Than Three for an honest review

I had many thoughts while reading this rather exiting story. Two main ideas swirled in my mind: 1) I rather like reading stories set ‘after’ some event has happened and people are living long after ‘now’ (the reader’s present) without a lot of knowledge of what the past was like (see: Larry Niven’s Destiny’s Road (though that one isn’t actually on earth); Jack McDevitt’s Eternity Road; etc.); 2) this story seemed like a continuation, centuries later of several stories I’d read (then, when the boat was mentioned, it seemed like a continuation of a television storyline, but I can’t say more about that specific one without spoilers). Specifically I mean a continuation of a story like Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason’s Ill Wind when an oil tanker crashes, oil is released (lots of it), an almost untested substance is released to ‘eat’ the oil and . . . it does so remarkably well, all over the earth, plunging the world into an apocalyptic setting worse than what would occur with the lack of oil around (since the ‘released substance’ had a tendency to eat things like plastic as well, if I recall correctly). Well, this specific story here, the Knight one, is like that story, 100s of years later.

But what, exactly, beyond the vague words used above, is this specific story about? It’s a story of knights on a quest, but not in medieval times, not to find the holy grail, but on a quest in a future world, 100s of years from now, when an ‘event’ occurred that dramatically altered ‘our’ world. Some hints are dropped along the way in the story, but I’ll not spoil things here and now.

What’s this quest? Well, first off, the story opens with Ser Wright wandering to a neighboring Lord’s land to retrieve a spy, one Ser Kai. Kind of a straight forward quest – go there, get person, and return home. But this is how the story opens, and how the reader begins to learn about this changed world. A world of knights in armor on horseback, a world with swords. And a world with pistols (see, it’s the future, not the past this story is set). Also a world with ruins all over the place, like cars, and buildings, and the like. But I distracted myself. This first quest leads to Wright picking up another individual, named ‘Silva’, a mercenary. And leading said person back to her Lord.

Which leads to the actual main quest for this story, and the reason why I labeled these journey’s as ‘quests’. For, you see, Kai had been over in the neighboring land as a spy, but not in preparation for an invasion or something like that. But to search and find if a particular ‘facility’ is, in fact, located within that neighboring Lord’s domain. A facility a scholar, here called an ‘Alchemist’, named Preston has discovered in his research. All this being noted to say why they are going on this quest and why this is a ‘quest’. For they are after an almost mythical ‘item’. Like any good quest. Here that ‘mythical item’ is a ‘cure’ for the ‘curse’ that spreads upon the land and consumes things. And scars and marks, and can kill humans.

So that’s what the story is about – two knights (Kai, Wright), a sell-sword (Silva), and an alchemist (Preston) on a quest to find a mythical ‘cure’. Of note: Kai, Wright, and Silva are all women. And all knights or equivalent. And there’s nothing ‘odd’ about that in this world, for a woman to be a military type person. (though before ‘you’ think the world is structured a certain way, as I was beginning to think, there are in fact male knights running around, and Wright’s own lord is male (though Kai’s is female)).

The characters? Nicely created, fully figured. Hmms that might mean something else. Well, they have fully created personalities and . . stuff. But what about romance and the like? Well, I do not wish to reveal everything, since it takes a little bit of time for the people themselves to realize their own thoughts and desires, but there is a romance in this story. Between two women. And sex. Depending on definitions, it’s lightly graphically described.

A riveting, action packed adventure with romance and bits of humor here and there (though the humor came a little late to the story and was somewhat surprising to see suddenly spring up (not in a bad way)). A quite satisfying read.

Rating: 5.00

January 29 2018… (más)

4.5 stars

Everything looked good on the cryo deck.

Are you looking for a quick read that just happens to be a sci-fi, F/F enemies-to-lovers retelling of Sleeping Beauty? Do I have a book for you! Also, it has a beautiful cover.

I just want to say that I absolutely LOVED the little ways the original story's images were translated into sci-fi - references to the ship's shape, the Reaches ship's name, the thorns in Mal's dream, etc.

I would have liked this story to be longer, but I think there was as much character and relationship development as you can fit into 50 pages - and the main characters did spend several months together, I just wished we had SEEN a little more of it.

The irony/table-turning of the ending was also great.

Also, one of the Popsugar prompts made me think, but - I do think this concept could make an awesome movie. Movies like retellings anyway, and this one is queer, sci-fi, and the images I mentioned above would be so good.

note: The main POV character, Mal walks with a cane and a limp.… (más)