Genre: Romance, Science-Fiction, M/M
Pages: 293
Series: None
Release Date: August 13, 2018
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Just like In the Wreckage, this book was a test-run of sorts to see if I should request a review copy of a book by the same author. But while the answer after In the Wreckage was ‘yes, I should’, this time it was ‘no!’.
One thing I found interesting about the author was that she to writes science-fiction with different planets and space and stuff. I like all of that a lot. In the beginning of the novel, we see that Gael lives in the undercity of a big planet. The undercity is dangerous, and all any ordinary person stuck there can hope for is survival. Gael gets in trouble with some bad people and a (kind of) friend suggests that he take a contract as a mail-order husband somewhere far away. And soon, Gael’s off to meet Bram, a really nice farmer/miner who lives on a barely terraformed planet at the end of the galaxy.
Bram was lonely and he was looking for a companion, someone to share his life with. But meeting someone on such a small planet which has so few people is not exactly easy. With Gael, he thinks he has a chance at happiness. With Bram, Gael thinks he has a chance at a new start and a chance to see the sun, which he’s never seen in the undercity.
Only… the plan goes wrong right as Gael reaches Bram. And the book goes wrong for me. We’re introduced to a character called Aavi at that point. And she’s introduced as a complication that, over time, would become a beloved character. Only, that didn’t happen. The main issue was probably the lack of a personality give to her. Then there was the fact that she didn’t contribute to the book or to the growing relationship between Gael and Bram, which had some good moments, at all. There was no point to her presence other than for her to screw up and cause problems. And I really wish she hadn’t been in the book.
The other issues were regarding the world building. There wasn’t enough of it. We were told stuff about the world and about what Bram’s job was, but it was too detailed and too vague at the same time because they were all the wrong details. They were also always in small bursts which made the world feel less real because the setting and Bram’s work weren’t a constant presence. And the problem that created was that I didn’t care about Bram’s job, which was important to really get into the story.
But there’s also the issue that, by the half point, I was tired of the book, had a hard time caring about the characters or the plot and was bored. I skimmed the second half of the book. Because of that, I almost didn’t write a review. But it’s not like I started the book with the decision to skim it. That happened because of the book. It was dull. The characters were dull, the setting (which could have been great) was dull, the plot was only sometimes there and not very interesting. It was also predictable. The book had very little depth and I don’t recommend it.
Quirky Opinions 