Grimspace (Sirantha Jax, Book 1) Review

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Grimspace (Sirantha Jax, Book 1) ReviewI'm not usually a sci fi reader. Call me a wuss, but whenever I would try to read sci fi, I usually got too distracted by all the sciencey stuff to remain focused on the story. But I had seen Grimspace advertised on a website and the cover caught my eye. At that point my reaction was about as intellectual as "Ooo, pretty colors..." but hey, attractive covers are a plus. Then the book caught my eye again, this time in the bookstore, and lo and behold, it sounded interesting. I figured, what the heck? What I didn't know at the time of purchase was that it's something called "romantic" sci fi. This left me a little worried; I wanted what was promised to me on the back of the book, not a romance novel with spaceships and lightsabers.
Starting out, I really wasn't sure what to make of it. I found Jax to be inconsistent as a character at first and hard to empathize with. There were little quirks of writing style that drove me crazy, like the incessant use of the word "frag" as a swear and Aguirre's habit of leaving off things like proper nouns from the start of a sentence. For example, you'd get "Could have seen it" rather than "I could have seen it". This became really fragg--er, really frustrating pretty quickly. But for all of that, I found it pretty easy to keep reading. Okay, I suffered a major WTF moment on the planet Lachion. You've got gobs of space open to you and you choose to colonize a planet with packs of man-eating flying dinosaurian creatures that can rip through the plate armor on vehicles and smell blood in the air from miles away? Why!? I think perhaps that taking time for a little bit more history of these sorts of places would be good, and I think Aguirre could manage it fine without bogging her story down.
So about halfway through I suddenly realize that I'm rather enjoying myself. A short time later I notice that I'm really enjoying myself. The book is fun and witty, and those little quirks that were annoying me either thinned out or became less noticeable (hard to tell in the middle of reading). You learn more about Jax, which makes her character come together at last, and she's remarkably easy to empathize with. Her thoughts are often selfish, her first instinct tends to be about what is good only for her, but I could understand where she was coming from after a while. She's an interesting protagonist with a lot of potential, I think.
Grimspace is light on things like technobabble and scientific info dumps, which keeps it from bogging down. And the romantic element really isn't a concern. It's far from being the main plot focus and though it gets a little bit obnoxious towards the end, it never comes close to consuming the whole novel (I think some of this feeling has to do with the first person POV, which makes it difficult to get across the perspective of other characters). Being far from savvy when it comes to science, though, and sci fi for that matter, I wanted the opinion of someone who was; my fiance, in this case. He didn't find the romance element to be obtrusive either and the science that was there was mostly sound (he did question what precisely these dinosaur creatures eat when human flesh is unavailable, since that wasn't mentioned. Which I have to admit is a pretty good point). So that's a pretty strong recommendation from someone who has a clue what they're talking about.
I personally was a bit concerned with the end. I found it seemed a bit too pat, too perfect, and I really hope it will be addressed in the second one. Even with the few misgivings I have, I'm looking forward to the second one a lot. Good thing it'll be out in September. You can already see the cover for it on Ms. Aguirre's site. Ooo, pretty...
Grimspace (Sirantha Jax, Book 1) Overview

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Hourglass Review

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Hourglass ReviewAt thirteen, Emerson "Em" Cole began seeing ghosts. Or, at least, she *thought* those people she saw were ghosts. Shortly after, her parents died in a tragic accident.
Four years later, while living with her older brother Thomas and his wife Dru, Em is introduced to Michael Weaver, who Em believes is just another con artist hired by her brother to help her with her visions. But, it turns out that Michael understands Em, and her "gift", better than she ever expected.
This is one of those stories which could easily be spoiled with too much information, so I'll only mention that there's more sci-fi than supernatural--a nice break from the genre--and it had a definite X-Men vibe. In fact, I truly loved the premise; it was dripping with potential, but beleaguered by unnecessary melodrama and uneven pacing.
Em, who narrates, would be easy to empathize with because of her lot in life: deceased parents, feeling like a burden in her brother's and sister-in-law's lives, and on top of that, seeing things which aren't there to the point of needing heavy medication. However, she spends a good chunk of the book painting herself as a gritty badass, but not actually supporting it. Her character felt forced and other characters, with the exceptions of Lily and Kaleb, felt one-dimensional with little subtlety or nuance.
Also, every single woman had 10-mile-long legs and was gorgeous compared to Em's tiny stature (of which she reminded us constantly), and every single man was traffic-stopping in his hotness. As icing on the cake, all of these men shirked the tall beauties to fawn over Em, much to her surprise. Unfortunately, the instalove romance and weak love-triangle steals some oomph from the amazing premise.
Where this book shines is in the plotting and intrigue. The plot had a few unexpected twists, some working more than others, and the book did an excellent job piquing curiosity about Em's visions and each of the characters' abilities and the Hourglass society, not to mention setting the scene for future installments, and rather than leave you hanging, there is a resolution to the story, with the hint of another story to come.Hourglass Overview

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