Grade: C

Dear Bam,

Stories about people who turn out to be something other than what they think they are always intrigue me. And in the Philip K. Dickian vein of writing, I love being in the dark about what is fantasy and what is reality, with small hints to both deceive and make me think more along the way. Well, either that or have a twist that you don’t see coming, and when it happens it so hard to wrap your brain around that you question your own reality. Unified Souls is that type of story, but I figured out the plotline, complete with twists, almost immediately since the author was kind enough to spell everything out. Which left 353 pages of character development, worldbuilding and backstory. I’m not saying I’m smarter than the average bear, but when you read this on the first page, well…you know where the author is going:

The burnt flesh and the metallic grind of the giants in the dream stained her mind. Still, it didn’t make any sense. What the vision was and where it came from baffled Storm. Cyborgs were not supposed to have nightmares. Cyborgs didn’t dream.

Now I’m not saying it’s impossible to make something like this work, but here it didn’t. Before I get into all of that, a brief (oy, not easy for what is essentially a space opera and very complex story) synopsis:

Jasmine Storm is the last living cyborg (or is she?), having survived after a viral anomaly caused the cyborgs to fall into civil war and wipe each other out. When we meet Jasmine, she is working as the head of security for Webster’s Casino, and trying to make heads or tails of why humanoids act like they do. Good luck babe…we can’t figure out why humans act like they do; now imagine playing shrink to 30 species of humanoid. Jasmine is relatively sheltered from the heavy-handed Regime (think Empire [insert Star Wars link here]) since the casino is like a space-bound version of Switzerland, the biggest yacht you can imagine, and Las Vegas all rolled into one. She’s got a man (Billingsly, some sort of chameleon type dude) and Cameron Perry, a mechanic/engineer to fix her when she’s got cyborg-related issues. But her new dreams and feelings can’t be explained by the cool logic that is supposed to rule the cyborgs and Jasmine senses that she needs a change. Jasmine has managed, with the help of Eldon Webster, to keep her existence a secret from pretty much everyone in the universe until Devin Cartell shows up at the casino.

Devin is a rebel working against the regime, and his wife (yes, you read that right) Mashlia Mayd is the leader of the Uprising. Devin and Mashlia are in an arranged marriage that was planned when they were kids. Of course, they have problems. Devin is an Empath (from Empa, of course) and he takes one look at Jasmine…and his whole world is thrown off kilter. I’d like to say that it was so cool the way Jasmine and Devin threw each other off kilter, but I had a very hard time finding the chemistry between them. Also, Jasmine and Devin don’t actually see each other for the first time until page 57. The prior chapters focus on worldbuilding, and the writing is such that the entire 57 pages read like an info dump, setting up the remaining 290 odd pages of action. Devin obviously fights his attraction (?) to Jasmine since he is married (!), and he realizes that Jasmine, as the only living cyborg, is going to be a key in the fight against the Regime.

*Sigh*. I really, really wanted to love this book. The premise is right up there with the Skolian Empire saga, and there are different species, worlds and ideas that all sound like they should be captivating, but the writing just killed it for me. I’ve plowed through heavy science fiction in hours, and it took me four days and a significant number of putdown/pick ups to finish this book. As noted above, there is a considerable amount of info dumping and the number of un- and under-developed secondary characters could be used to fill in the background on any CGI scene you can think of. Also, there was an flood of terms used without strong references and it took me pages of re-reading them to figure out what the author intended them to mean. For example:

“Can’t find it!” Bresk snapped.

“Just shoot the trept,” Cartell snapped back at him.

A blast nailed the transport.

Cartell lurched. “What the?” The transport lost some of its control. “Oh that’s just bolkling great,” Cartell snapped.

Bresk grumbled back at Cartell and climbed into the back. “Temaka!”

“What?”

What? was my question as well. Okay, I can tell you, with near 100% certainty that the term “temaka” was never used in the book again, and “bolking” might have been used once more, maybe not. Now, I know that when you’re in a different universe, you curse differently. Shut the frak up. You don’t have to fraking tell me that. Do you think I’m fraking stupid? (Okay, that might have been overkill.) However, I would hope to be able to differentiate curses from things that actually meant something, and I was having a hard time doing it here.

Action is not a necessary requirement for me, but when there are very few “quiet moments” between the H/H, it’s nice to have something moving the plot forward. For a 300+ page space-opera sci-fi action/adventure romance, the actual action was hard to come by as everything was overlaid with hints, clues and secondary meaning. These hints, clues, etc. were dropped like megaton bombs, slowing the story to a grinding halt. While Jasmine was a strong heroine without being a Mary Sue, Devin seemed a bit weak in comparison. I don’t think Devin needed to be an all-powerful alpha-hero, but Jasmine clearly needs a strong counterpoint. In addition, Devin’s being married didn’t sit well with me. I don’t care what universe you’re from, you’re fucking married man. If you can’t stand your wife, get a divorce. Henry VIII did it and it wasn’t allowed; so can you! I liked the last 80 or so pages of the book. The action picked up, I didn’t feel like I was being clubbed over the head with allusions, suggestions or clues and the H/H romance moved forward. Unfortunately, the first 250 pages were a tough pill to swallow. This gets a C for me.

Love ya,
Shuzluva

Please buy this book here.

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