Age: Young Adult, Adult
Category: Science-fiction, romance, LGBTQIA+
Rating: 4 stars
Rosie Thinks: What I expected was a quick, light sci-fi/slash story. What I got was an intricate story that was focused on the struggle, rather than solely the sci-fi world or the romance. Which is a great thing, seeing as how I don't ever read sci-fi. The only reason I picked this up was because I was running out of m/m books to read, and this had such tremendous reviews!
Adam Yuga is everything his people strive to be: perfect, intelligent, on the rise. He has the world at his feet until a routine physical reveals him to be seriously ill. His people cast him out and he wanders, lost, until one of the reviled Bideshi saves him from deaths door. Through Lochlan, Adam discovers that the Bideshi are much more than the propaganda he's heard, yet neither the strange sickness nor his people are done with him yet.
This has to be one of the most well-written m/m stories I've read in a while. It was incredibly well thought out and engaging from the beginning. As I mentioned before, sci-fi is the one genre I won't touch. I'm glad the need for some m/m won out over my bias against sci-fi! If you're worried about the same thing I was, I'll tell you that the sci-fi factor isn't overwhelming or needlessly complicated or boring. The perfect Protectorate could've come out of any sci-fi movie, but the Bideshi were where the authors' creativity took flight. The Bideshi are the wandering nomads of space, thought of by outsiders as incestual, primitive brutes. But they're the only ones who take Adam in and heal him, and show him that their society is more magical and honourable than he could've thought.
Adam and Lochlan made for a fantastic pairing. Adam's characterisation was more subtle than in-your-face, like Lochlan. While most of the book was in Adam's perspective, I loved Lochlan. He's brash, a playboy, and wicked, but that's all a mask for the deep hurt and pain he carries around inside. Okay, my description there makes him sound like a cheap cliche, but that's not how he comes across, I swear! He was just plain loveable, and neither characters lost themselves and their own personalities in their romance, thankfully.
Although not the best sci-fi/slash story I've ever read (that place gets taken by Dark Space by Lisa Henry), it is definitely up there. I was totally won over by this adventure through space!
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