No Words Alone(Spark #2)

No Words Alone(Spark #2)
by Autumn Dawn
Reviewed for queuemyreview.com- book release Dec08
Really 3.5 stars...
“No Words Alone” was my first read by Autumn Dawn so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. What I got was a
pleasant surprise and a sensuous and interesting futuristic romance. For readers who are s/f fans like me, this is a
more romantic s/f story with sex…nothing very explicit, and definitely not erotica, but more of a romantic bent
than is found in most s/f books.
It was hard enough when Xera was the only female in her spaceship crew. Then they had to crash land on an alien
planet…along with one of the enemy Scorpio spaceships they had just been battling! As translator and the only
person who knows ANY Scorpio, of course she will be front and center in any ‘discussions’ with their little-known
and mysterious enemy. Little does Xera know she’s about to get an up close and personal education on Scorpian
culture from the enemy Captain.
Ryven isn’t just the Captain of the alien spaceship, he’s the son of one of their rulers! He’s disgusted and appalled
by the barbarous treatment of the sole female in the earthmen crew. He doesn’t trust the Earth captain at all and
when he sees him attack the female he steps in to protect her. He’s captivated by her courage and beauty and
unless he wants her to end up in prison on Scorpio’s home planet, he’ll have to think of somewhere else she could
be of use!
I agonized over the previous descriptions of the main characters because they are much more than they sound.
But you’ll just have to bear with me because every edit sounded even worse! This book delighted AND frustrated
me at the same time. There were some places where I was sure some important information must have been
edited out. But then the author did a beautiful job of describing the anxiety and fear of a lone woman suddenly
stranded with two shipfuls of men! When she added in the realistic descriptions of two people trying to forge a
me at the same time. There were some places where I was sure some important information must have been
edited out. But then the author did a beautiful job of describing the anxiety and fear of a lone woman suddenly
stranded with two shipfuls of men! When she added in the realistic descriptions of two people trying to forge a
relationship while also learning about each other’s cultures, I found it fascinating.
Callous and greedy corporate raiding on a planetary scale, an Earthly planetary government too weak to be in
control, monstrous blood-feeding aliens, handsome humanish aliens, descriptions of technology that were an
interesting mixture of cutting-edge and futuristic…there was a lot to admire about Autumn Dawn’s first Dorchester
Publishing release. The information gaps and couple of plot stutters in “No Words Alone” weren’t enough to mar
my enjoyment of the author’s tale. I’ll be keeping an eye out for her next mainstream publication titled, “When
Sparks Fly” (no firm release date). I think other fantasy/science fiction fans who appreciate an extra dollop of
romance will enjoy this one too!|DNF at page 162. The first few chapters of this book were great. There was
danger, there was action, and at the center of it was a strong and sensible heroine. Then everything went downhill
fast. Then heroine was taken hostage, forcibly betrothed to an alien lord, and expected to fulfill the role of wife
and mother in a strongly patriarchal society. Inexplicably, the heroine almost immediately fell in love with her
captor/husband, in spite of the fact that he forced her into marriage and refused to ever let her see her family
again. The hero, meanwhile, lacked any discernible personality, other than being a misogynist prick. I had to stop
reading once the sex began and they started being all happy together. I didn't want them to be happy together. I
wanted the hero to die horribly, and I wanted the heroine to locate her missing backbone.|I was kind of enjoying it
-since to then, I like to read some romance mixed with science fiction- until I came to this dialogue:
(Hero / heroine are kissing)
The thought triggered a sudden panic. She jerked away as if bitten by ice water. “We’re not married.”
“Not my fault,” he murmured, making for her lips.
She wrenched away, aware that he allowed her to go. He didn’t look pleased, though. “We are not married,” she
repeated, stronger this time.
He crossed his arms and regarded her.
Discovering her hands were shaking wasn’t pleasant. She hugged herself to disguise it. “Look, I don’t know what
your morals are here, but we don’t do certain things before we’re married on my world. A woman can be ruined if
anyone even thinks she has. I’ve no interest in becoming a whore.”
Let's see if I get this straight:
a) if you kiss someone, you have marry him/her, regardless of how long you've known each other (1 week in this
case)
b) sex before marriages equals becoming a whore.
Excuse me?
Enough. It was bad enought having to go through some heavy-handed clichés that make life in a space station
disturbingly similar to life in a middle-class suburban landscape.
In all honesty, I should give it 1 star only. But I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, there may be people out
there who enjoy this kind of thinking. I am just not one of them.|What did I just read part of?
The book starts out much better than I expected: a ship of humans has just survived a skirmish with a ship of an
alien species ("The Scorpio") they are at war with, and both ships have crash-landed on a hostile planet full of
things that would like to eat them.
The lead character, Xera, is the human crew's translator. She's the only one who can communicate with the aliens who outgun and outclass the humans - and, as the two crews seek shelter and survival together, in spite of their
mutual animosity, Xera attempts to build a fragile alliance.
That first part is fine. Then the lead alien abducts her and the other humans and takes them to his home planet,
where he is some kind of princeling. And everything gets incredibly weird.
Xera, it turns out, is not a modern lady spacefarer (as one might expect), but instead hails from an extremely
conservative culture where remaining a virgin before marriage is of Taliban levels of importance. (But apparently
Xera, it turns out, is not a modern lady spacefarer (as one might expect), but instead hails from an extremely
conservative culture where remaining a virgin before marriage is of Taliban levels of importance. (But apparently
also a culture where people are cool about unmarried ladies swanning around the galaxy having adventures..?)
And the culture of her kidnapper is "patriarchal and basically monotheistic", except it turns out that it is also a
historical romance fantasy transplanted to space. The culture is obsessed with monogamy and sexual honor and
women being chaste until marriage, except that the men are not really party to this agreement and sleep around a
lot before marriage. (If you are wondering how this works, and who the women they sleep with are, if women are
immediately rendered unfit by sex outside of marriage, you have too much logic for this book.)
On the alien world, Xera is turned, without asking, into Earth's ambassador to this culture. Also her alien captor
marries her and has a lot of not-quite-sex with her (because virginity, you guys) and there a lot of segments about
how bellydancing is so great for women and women should dress to be hot and should not sleep around (this
goes in a couple of directions that are pretty weird) and so on and so forth, and Xera is eerily unconcerned about
the fact that she's been kidnapped and has been coerced into a forced marriage and is involved in a sexual
relationship that is, you know, semi-rapey.
So the sexual politics are super, super weird, and seem sufficiently unlikely for spacefaring cultures that I'd expect
a ton more worldbuilding to explain how it is that these cultures wound up this way, and how it is that the women
in the cultures are willing to put up with how things work. It's not that I'm just not willing to believe that these
cultures could exist, it's that the author stakes out weird worldbuilding territory and doesn't back it up.
I also found the relationship between Xera and her alien boyfriend, Ryven (odd note: there's an early note about
how the aliens can't pronounce the "V" sound - so one wonders what he calls himself) uncomfortable. It's not that
I can't read about an off-kilter relationship with power imbalances, not at all. It's just that this one was really poorly
done, so much so that I found it simultaneously creepy and dull. Xera so immediately accepts her barefoot-andpregnant new status that she doesn't really struggle against Ryven's forced marriage scheme, or his insistence that
women can only do this and that and certainly not be on starships or whatever. I found this very, very odd, that
Xera went from a basically tough spacer to Betty Draper with hardly a complaint.
But the biggest thing is the difference in tone and quality and logic between the first section, on the hostile planet,
and the next section, on the alien homeworld. It is literally as though one author started out writing a reasonably
interesting science-fiction romance, and then a couple of chapters in, some other, lesser writer took over, and that
author had a not-so-great unpublished historical romance about a forced marriage and cute outfits, and she just
changed some details and crammed it onto the first chunk.
Very weird.|
Bu yorum aynı zamanda Romancekolikte yayınlanmıştır.
Ben ailenımı isterimmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm oy oy diye türkü çığırasım geldi kitabı bitirdiğimde.
Neyse efenim şu aralar kitap beğenenememe sendromumdan sonra bu kitap iyi geldi açıkçası. Bu sayede de yeni
bir tür ile tanışmış oldum. Bilim kurgu fazla detay ile beni boğmadığı sürece ilgimi çeken türlerden biri. İşe
romance katılınca kitaba direkt daldım tabii.
Yazarın tarzı hoşuma gitti açıkçası. Olaya direkt giriş yaptı. Kurgusunu da bize ilerledikçe öğretti. Bu sürede bize
adapte olmamız için iyi bir sürede tanıdı. İçerik ne kadar romance olsa da Bilim Kurgu yönü de pasif bırakılmamış.
Hikaye kendilerine Galaksi Kaşifleri diyen bir grubun araştırma sırasında araştırdıkları gezene çakılması ve o
gezegendeki yaşayan canlılarla çöl gibi bir ortamda maruz kalmaları ile başlıyor.
Kızımız bir insan ve grubun tercümanı.
Kaptan tarafından pekte sevilmeyen biri.
Kızımız bir insan ve grubun tercümanı.
Kaptan tarafından pekte sevilmeyen biri.
Oğlumuz ise kendilerine Scorpio denen bir ırktan geliyor. Boylarının uzunluğu dışında tek fark ısıyı algılayabilen
gözleri. Oğlumuz aynı zamanda gezegenlerini yöneten 12 liderden birinin varisi. İnsanlarla beraber kaldıkları
durumu tartarak onları etkisiz hale getirmeme kararı alıyor. Böylelikle sığınaklara insanlarla beraber yolculuk
ediyorlar. Yer altından ve havadan gelen saldırılarda bir kaç kişi kaybetmeleri üzerine sığınağa varıyorlar.
Kızımız o zaman koskoca bir erkek grubunda tek kadın olduğunun farkına varıyor. Ve burada kalacakları süre
belirsiz... Akabinde kaptan kıza kötü davranmaya başlayınca, kızımıza göz koyan uzaylı kahramanımız onu
himayesine alıyor. Kısa süre sonra da kendi şehirlerine götürüyor. Elçilik teklif ediyor. Bunun yanında da evlenme
niyeti olduğunu geçte olsa fark ediyor. Böylelikle kızımız kendini, dilini bildiği ama kültürüne çok yabancı olduğu
bu dünyada ailesinle bir görüşememek üzere kendini Prensle evli buluyor...
Peki, aşkları bu tür bir zorluğun altından kalkabilecek mi?
PS: Yazara seriye ortanca karakterden başlayıp, ikincide evlendiğini duyduğumuz karakteri bize okutturmaya
çalıştığı için isyanlarımı sunuyor ve pes diyorum. Ben başka bir ailen hikayesi bekliyordum...