It’s our first book club episode! Amanda, Elyse, Carrie, and I discuss a suggestion from Holly in our Patreon: Mercenary Instinct by Ruby Lionsdrake.
We have a lot to talk about, and I have a few notes for you before we start.
First: TW/CW for discussion of threat of rape and sexual assault off and on throughout the episode.
Second: Spoilers ahoy. We can’t really talk about the book in detail without sharing the details, right?
Our hope is that you read the book, too, and can follow along and respond to our discussion. But don’t worry – I’m going include a plot summary just before we start our conversation.
Among the questions we answer:
What were our reactions to the story, the world (and the space), the hero, the heroine, and the surrounding characters?
Did the bad guy need to put out a bounty on them in the first place?
Does hanging out in space make you 22% dumber because of low oxygen and bra strangulation?
How many other science fiction/space ensembles can we mention in one episode? HARD TO SAY.
Which is your preference: hot shower or scary horny?
How many missed opportunities were there for epic poop jokes?
When there’s carnivorous plants, velociraptors, a massive storm, and a spaceship crash, when is the best time to make out?
We take a brief side tour into what we’re currently reading and then wrap up with our grade.
What about you? What did you think of Mercenary Instinct? We’d love to hear what you thought of it!
❤ Read the transcript ❤
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Podcast Sponsor
This week’s podcast is brought to you by Lady Notorious by Theresa Romain.
Known for her witty, sensuous, and skillfully researched historical romances, Theresa Romain weaves another wonderfully adventurous tale in Lady Notorious. With a fortune on the line and a bunch of mysterious deaths, Bow Street Runner Cassandra Benton agrees to help George, Lord Northbrook, foil a nefarious plot targeting his family.
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With their lives and hearts on the line, can Cass and George unveil the culprit before they end up victims themselves?
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Transcript
❤ Click to view the transcript ❤
[music]
Sarah Wendell: Hi there, and welcome to episode number 343 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. With me today are Amanda, Elyse, and Carrie, also of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. It’s our first book club episode! We are discussing a suggestion from Holly in our Patreon community, Mercenary Instinct by Ruby Lionsdrake.
Now, we have a lot to talk about, and I have two important notes for you before we start:
First, trigger warning and content warning for discussion of the threat of rape and sexual assault off and on throughout this discussion, because it’s part of the plot that we had a lot to say about.
Number two: spoilers ahoy! We can’t really talk about the book in detail without sharing the details, right? Our hope is that you read the book too and can follow along and respond to our discussion, but do not worry if you have not read it! I’m going to include a plot summary just before we start our conversation.
Among the questions we answer, or try to, about this book:
- What were our reactions to the story, the world, and the space, the hero, the heroine, and the surrounding characters?
- Did the bad guy really need to put out a bounty on the heroine and her crew in the first place?
- Does hanging out in space make you twenty-two percent dumber because of low oxygen and the high chance of bra strangulation?
- How many other science fiction or space ensembles can we mention in one episode?
- What is your preference, hot shower or scary horny sex?
- How many missed opportunities were there for epic poop jokes?
- When there’s carnivorous plants, velociraptors, a massive storm, and a space ship crash, when exactly is the best time to make out?
We take a brief detour into what we’re currently reading, and then we wrap up with our grade.
We would love to know what you thought of Mercenary Instinct. You can leave a comment in the podcast show notes; you can call and leave us a message at 1-201-371-3272. We would love to hear from you and find out what you thought of this book. We had a lot to say.
This week’s podcast is brought to you by Lady Notorious by Theresa Romain. Known for her witty, sensuous, and skillfully researched historical romances, Theresa Romain weaves another wonderfully adventurous tale in Lady Notorious. With a fortune on the line and a bunch of mysterious deaths, Bow Street Runner Cassandra Benton agrees to help George, Lord Northbrook, foil a nefarious plot that is targeting his family. Posing as his notorious “cousin,” Cassandra counts on her wit and detective skill to infiltrate the ton and ferret out the murderer. What she does not count on is her irresistible attraction to her dashing employer as days of investigation quickly turn into passionate nights. With their lives and hearts on the line, can Cass and George unveil the culprit before they end up victims themselves? Lady Notorious by Theresa Romain is on sale now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com. I read and reviewed this book, and I have to say, Theresa Romain’s writing always works on me. Chest tingles, just piles of them.
The transcript this week for this episode is brought to you by our podcast Patreon community. Thank you, y’all! Every episode receives a transcript from garlicknitter – thank you, garlicknitter! – and if you have supported the show with a monthly pledge of any amount, thank you. You are helping me ensure that every episode has a transcript and is therefore accessible to everyone who would like to participate in the show. You are making every episode better, and I appreciate it so very much.
If you’d like to join the Patreon community, it would be wonderful! Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one dollar a month, and every pledge is deeply, deeply appreciated. You’ll also be part of the group who helps me develop questions for upcoming interviews and suggests guests for shows, and you’ll be able to help us choose our quarterly book club selection, as we did with this episode’s book! Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches, and I thank you very much in advance.
I will have links to all of the books and different things that we discuss in this episode in the podcast show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast, and I will have, at the end of this episode, a summary of what is coming up on Smart Bitches this week and a terrible joke and information about the music you’re listening to, because, well, the bad joke is one of my favorite things. And I have a terrible joke this week; I’m really excited about it.
But before we get started, I need to give you a bit of a plot summary so you understand what is happening in Mercenary Instinct. Now, part of this is inspired by the cover copy, but mostly this is me attempting to explain everything that happens and to set up the book, and there’s a lot, so. [Clears throat] Are you ready? Okay. Here we go, plot summary time:
The book opens with heroine Ankari Markovich scraping the poop of extinct aliens off the walls of a distant dig site. She signals to her crew of two people that she’s on her way back to the ship, but then she and they are captured by a band of brawny mercenaries. It seems that some rando Finance Lord has put an absurd bounty on their heads, so the captain of the Mandrake Company, Viktor Mandrake, he picks them up. They put up a fight, and they mere-, nearly get away, but then, boom, they’re captured and put in the brig on the Mandrake ship. Now, Ankari wants to escape; Viktor wants the bounty; and one of his crew members, Striker, is so terrible he should be kicked in the jimmies. So Ankari and her crew are troublesome, as she is very wily and street-smart and has many schemes in her brain as to how they can escape, including tricking people who deserve it, and also tricking people who should be kicked in the nards many times. Viktor is kind of intrigued by Ankari, and she’s pretty curious about him, and there’s this massive attraction thing going on, but there’s also a whole bunch of problems with their acting on that attraction, until the Finance Lord gets all mad that Viktor isn’t doing exactly what said Finance Lord wants him to do, so Finance Lord signals to other, more disgusting bounty crews that the prisoners are on board Viktor’s ship and makes the Mandrake crew vulnerable. The Finance Lord puts all of them in a position where they have to protect themselves and Ankari’s crew, who still don’t understand why there’s a bounty on their heads in the first place. Then it comes times for Viktor to turn Ankari in, but enough weird shit has happened that he’s pretty sure that’s a bad idea, and he’d rather be with Ankari than with all of that money. He still has to deal with his crew, who are expecting their share of that bounty, and this Finance Lord, who lives on an island full of carnivorous plants – as you do – and figure out what to do with his attraction to Ankari, who is still trying to escape from him, as they approach the weird Finance Lord’s island and come up with a plan to turn her in, but not really, maybe.
And now it is time to discuss Mercenary Instinct by Ruby Lionsdrake.
[music]
Sarah: What did you guys think of this book? What was your im-, im-, impression of Mercenary Instinct? Now I have to look it up, is it – how many instincts are there? I can’t remember; were there more than one? Is it Mercenary Instinct or Mercenary Instincts?
Amanda: I think it’s singular.
Sarah: Which one of them had the mercenary instinct? It is a singular! All right, Ruby Lionsdrake only has one instinct for sharing between the two of them. So what did you guys think of the book?
Amanda: It wasn’t bad. I would read the next one.
Sarah: Ooh! Are you going to read Trial and Temptation?
Amanda: Is that the next one?
Sarah: That is the next one!
Amanda: I will probably read it at some point. It’s not, like, it’s not an immediate one, like I have to read it right now.
Sarah: I don’t think any of the people from the first book are in the second one.
Amanda: No! I think, like, Ja- – wait, I think maybe Jamie is the heroine of the next one? Does, does the cover have, like, a blonde woman on it?
Sarah: No, Man- – [laughs] – the Mandrake Company book two has a shirtless guy with some excellent abs and a really nice iliac crest, which is, the iliac cliff, that little curve above the hip? And the woman is wearing the finest in space apparel: it is a bra, I think it’s pink, with some black lace. I believe this style is called a balconette, and there is a space ship set to fly directly into their abdomens, so clearly this is a space romance.
Amanda: My boobs do not respond well to a balconette bra –
Sarah: [Laughs] Right!
Amanda: – I will tell you that.
Sarah: Mine don’t either! It’s really not good.
Amanda: Jamie’s in the third book, that’s what I’m thinking.
Sarah: Oh, Jamie’s in the third one.
Carrie: Every time I’m going to go into space, I wear that outfit.
Sarah: Really! Just, just the balconette bra with the black lace?
Carrie: Oh no, really, yeah.
Sarah: Oh!
Amanda: Ladies, clasp into your space bras!
Carrie: I just put on my space bra, and up I go!
Elyse: Right. I thought there were no bras in space.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: Because inevitably, eventually, I’ll, I’ll be, you know, strangled by my own bra, but you know –
Amanda: In space, no one can hear you bra.
Carrie: [Laughs]
Sarah: And also, the guy from The Unyielding, which is Call of Crows book three, is the same guy on the cover of book three of the Mandrake Company, so I can –
Amanda: Oh, he gets around.
Sarah: He really does; he’s like that guy with that crooked smile with the dark hair who hangs out above a lot of cityscapes on a lot of contemporaries. This guy is in space; he’s a warrior for a Norse god – this guy’s very busy!
Amanda: He’s like a Highlander. He’s just jumping around.
Sarah: [Laughs] Carrie, what did you think of Mercenary Instinct?
Carrie: I first started reviewing for Smart Bitches, what, like seven years ago? Six years ago?
Sarah: I have no concept of time, but that seems right.
Carrie: I don’t know. At that time, I think I would have been really excited about this book. I would have been like, oh my God, science fiction romance: this is the best thing ever. Time has passed, and now I’m kind of like, well, this is a perfectly competently written book. It’s fun, it’s got some fun characters, it’s got some fun action, blah blah blah; however, I didn’t feel like it was super duper original. There were things about it that I got a big kick out of, but on the whole, I was kind of like, you know, carnivorous flowers, check, right; mercenary teams, check. You know, the, the, the food logs, those were awesome. Those were awesome. I, I found that to be totally a plausible part of, of future mercenary space life, and –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: – and, and that they would be used, like, in multiple ways, right? You eat them; you throw them at people. You know, I’m, I was down with that. But yeah, I, I felt like on the whole it was like it was a, it was fine.
Sarah: I love how carnivorous plants are a checkbox for you?
Carrie: Well, I mean, they’re things, they show up often, because –
Sarah: Really!
Carrie: – they’re cool!
Sarah: This is, this is my fir-, these are my first carnivorous plants, y’all. I am a carnivorous plants virgin.
Carrie: Carnivorous or poisonous.
Elyse: Yeah, you need to listen to The Day of the Triffids on audio? It’s a very old book, so it doesn’t really stand up to the test of time, but it’s, like, very campy science fiction. It’s batshit insane. It’s about carnivorous plants coming to Earth.
Carrie: It’s fabulous.
Sarah: So I have missed, like, a whole other world of carnivorous plants.
Elyse: Correct.
Sarah: Wow!
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: I am just learning so much, and we’re only a few minutes in.
Elyse: Yes, it was published –
Sarah: Elyse, what did you think?
Elyse: Sorry. It was, Day of the Triffids was published in 1951, so there, that’s what you’re getting yourself into.
I liked the book. I thought it was a fun kind of adventure, sci-fi romance. I had some major issues with the plot though, and I don’t, did I just miss it – I’m going to jump right into what bothered me – did I just miss something, or, like, why did Felgard have to hire a mercenary team to capture these women? Why couldn’t he just, like, invest in their company?
Carrie: Ughhh!
Amanda: Yeah, I’m with you on that. There were so many less complicated ways to get their help, and then he’s like, oh, but I’m the one who blew up your planet! Of course you wouldn’t want to work for me! And then the heroine was like, I didn’t know that, so – [Laughs]
Carrie: Yeah. I have –
Sarah: See, that –
Carrie: – to confess that eventually I kind of stopped following the plot at all. And by –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: – by eventually, I think I mean around page three. And this is, like, my jam, right? Like, sci-fi is, like, my jam, but it was, it was kind of like they took all of the fun sci-fi elements they could, and I salute them for it, right? They have the Firefly-like thing going on, and they have the quirky scientist –
Sarah: Right.
Carrie: – thing going on, and they’ve got the, you know, the, the planet full of velociraptors going on. Why? Why? Because it’s cool, right? Because there they are –
Sarah: Right.
Carrie: – in a space ship. Should you stay in it? Well, it’s suspended in a tree, but on the other hand, you know – so it, they just took everything, and they just threw it at the wall under Rule of Cool, and I am pretty down with Rule of Cool, so I found it entertaining, but, like, it was not long before I went, oh, this is not a plot book. I’m just not going to worry about it. Nothing is going to make sense at all.
Sarah: I had no problem with the bad guy being like, I’m going to put a bounty on your head, and I’m going to control you, because that’s what evil dudes do, and Felgard did blow up their planets! I mean, once they figured that out – I, I actually have a –
Amanda: No, they didn’t figure it out; he straight up told them, like –
Sarah: Right, exactly! If they had figured that out while they were working for him, it would have been like another four hundred pages! He was just like, no, I put a bounty on your heads ‘cause I’m evil –
Elyse: Right.
Sarah: – but I don’t want to die, so poop!
Amanda: Why, why couldn’t it have been, like, a strictly monetary business transaction? Like, they didn’t really have to get too in-depth. I feel like their company would have been cool with, like, having an investor, and, like, that would have been it.
Sarah: See, I think that would have changed the plot, because if they found out that he had blown up their planet – or is it just Ankari’s planet? I don’t think the other two were from the same –
Amanda: It’s just Ankari’s planet, yeah.
Sarah: – and, and dude’s planet – like, he blew up their planets. I think that once they would have found out, they would have been stuck with him.
Amanda: I don’t think he blew up Grenavine; I think he blew up Sparrow –
Sarah: Ohhh.
Amanda: – which was Ankari’s planet. I don’t remember how Grenavinewas blown up.
Carrie: And, Sarah, the crucial element that I, perhaps too harshly, feel that you’re missing is that, with regard to, but if-then the plot, is that if anybody at any point in the book had engaged in any reasonable activity whatsoever, there would have been no plot.
Sarah: Well, yeah, but they’re in space; it’s low oxygen. You’re dumb when you’ve got low oxygen.
Carrie: [Laughs] They’re probably all strangled by their bras! It cuts off –
Sarah: And drunk! Like, I’ve seen people –
Carrie: – the oxygen.
Sarah: – I’ve seen, I’ve seen footage of, of airplanes taking off and then flying into low oxygen altitudes just to measure the effects on people, and people just get stupid drunk! Maybe they’re all low on oxygen, and they’re just really kind of dumb and drunk on low oxygen levels.
Carrie: Well, in theory, inside your ship, where most things took place, you’re not at a low oxygen level.
Sarah: One would hope! But, like, you know.
Carrie: But, like, when you have a prisoner, you check their pockets, and if the prisoner is known to have successfully picked a pocket, then you make sure to check their pockets, like, all the time, or you give them – here’s a thought – clothes without pockets.
Sarah: That is quite a statement, yes.
Carrie: I know. It can happen. So, I mean, you know, it’s a, it’s a Rule of Cool fun book. I don’t think that they were really going off of, off of, you know – but does it –
Sarah: This was more fiction than science, you’re saying?
Carrie: This is more fiction than science, although I was super nerdy thrilled about the whole, like, microbiota thing, but I was also like, oh my God, so many awful things are wrong with this plan! But it was an interesting plan because it ties in so closely to all this, like, cutting-edge research that’s happening now with regard to, like, gut biome, plus I really liked it that, you know, what’s-her-name, Ankari, is, like, you know, hanging out with her captor/boyfriend, and she’s like, you’re gut flora are probably really great! And I’m like, that was, that was a fine moment in literature, in my opinion.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: Like, I was like, yes, that’s awesome. It was funny; it was in character; it was faboo. But, yeah, like, the whole biota thing, I was like, okay, on one hand, this is really neat that they’re tying into, into something that’s happening now, and on the other hand, this is alien gut bacteria. Okay, I could, I, I think I could fill too much time if, if I’m allowed to continue talking about the gut flora. [Laughs]
Sarah: I, one of my questions is how many missed opportunities were there for poop jokes? There were so many –
Amanda: There were a couple!
Sarah: Yeah!
Amanda: There were a couple, but it could have been so much more.
Sarah: There could have been so many more poop jokes. That’s the thing that I think disappointed me the most. Like, I have to be clear: I have read very little, if any, science fiction romance. I might have read some science fiction erotic romance way back in the day when Ellora’s Cave was a going concern? But I don’t think – I mean, I don’t even remember, like, what my name is and what year it is, but I don’t think I’ve read that much science fiction romance, so this was entirely new for me. I was here for, you know, human-eating plants, but the missed opportunities for poop jokes, very disappointing.
Elyse: I just think, like, my level of cynicism with the fact that we’re currently living in an oligarchy makes me feel that he would have been more evil if he had just bought her zero revenue company and then controlled the direction of his research versus put a bounty out on these women.
Amanda: Ooh, that’s a good one.
Sarah: That’s true –
Carrie: Yes, that –
Sarah: – but then there would have been no reason for mercenaries with man chest and guns.
Elyse: And knife throwing.
Sarah: Yes, can’t forget the nice, the knife throwing.
Elyse: So the other thing, aside from the plot, that bothered me was that I got kind of a weird rape-y vibe from parts of the book?
Sarah: Yeah, that, that –
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: I needed to talk about that too.
Elyse: Okay, so first of all, there’s obviously, like, a power dynamic here, where she is his captive. So you’re just going to have to accept that their relationship is something that she’s fully consenting to and engaged in, despite the fact that she has no power in this situation and is literally a captive, and if captivity romance is your thing, like, that’s totally cool. But I was not crazy about the other mercenaries who were the bad guys threatening to rape the women, and I also was not, like, I was super, super not okay when Striker was like, hey, can’t we just have sex with the hostages? And the hero’s like, well, I guess if you can get them to agree to it and you all stay in the same room. I was like, what the fuck?
Sarah: Yeah, that, that stopped me cold. I was like, wait, no, that’s not the right answer to that question, dude. Like, that’s –
Amanda: See, when, when that happened, I had to stop, and I had to make sure that Striker does not appear as a hero anywhere down the line of this series, or I was just going to straight up quit the fucking book. And –
Sarah: Oh my God, I did the same thing.
Amanda: – he’s not. He’s not a hero so far that shows up, and I pray to God that he never does.
Carrie: Well, and you know what really pissed me – so I realize this is a case, again, of bad nerd priorities, okay. I’m appalled about the rape; yes, yes, I am; but also, this is a science fiction romance! It should know its audience! It, it, the whole, like, well, he draws comics, and that’s a sign of him being stupid, I kept thinking they would come back to that, and his comics would be, like, incredibly sensitive and brilliant, and it would show that he had layers, and then I would be mad that he had layers, ‘cause he’s also, like, a rapist, right? But –
Sarah: Right.
Carrie: – but there would be some kind of twist. But no! No! It was like, oh-ho-ho-ho, comic books! And I’m like, who, who, who out there still believes, is there anyone so ignorant that they still believe that reading and writing comic books is a sign of illiteracy and/or low intelligence? If so, contact me!
Amanda: See, I don’t think that’s what she was trying to do at all. I think she was –
Sarah: No?
Amanda: – trying to do the comic book thing as, he’s an idiot and misguided, but he als-, like, there’s more to him than just being, like, a skeevy dude. Like, he also is, like, kind of like trying to –
Elyse: Right, there was nuance.
Amanda: – round him out as a person. Like, he has hobbies and passions, and, like, he’s not supposed to be a bad guy.
Carrie: Yeah, but they never went into, like, they never did the thing where, like, they showed that his comics were really cool, and they just kept bringing it up, not like, but he does comics! More like, and you can tell he’s dumb because he does comics. Like, other characters, like, used that as evidence that he wasn’t –
Amanda: I disagree with that shorthand. I didn’t read it as, like, oh, just because he’s into comics and wants to show people his comics, that means he’s stupid. I just think he thinks it’s something that he’s proud of that he wants people to see?
Sarah: [Laughs] What, like, it’s a bad pick-up line when he’s not threatening to rape prisoners? Hey, you want to come to my bunk and see my comics?
Amanda: Yeah, he’s, like, really proud of his comics!
Sarah: I, I think I, I agree with you, Amanda. I think that it was a, it was an attempt to give him some dimension or some nuance, but it didn’t go –
Elyse: Right.
Sarah: – deep enough – forgive me – for any of it to override the, hey, if they all agree –
Elyse: Yeah.
Sarah: – can I have sex with our prisoners?
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: And then, later on, the, the mercenaries – okay, so first there’s a bounty on these three women, and mercenary hero group, the, the Mandrake Company, picks them up, and then they go somewhere else, and bounty guy is mad that he’s not, you know, being delivered his captives immediately, so he sends out another company, or in-, incentivizes another company to go take the original captives from the Mandrake group, so now they have to protect the people that they’re trying to turn in. That group is like, we’re just going to rape everybody. They’re just –
Amanda: Oh yeah.
Sarah: They were, they were like, yeah, oh yeah, this is part of the deal: we capture the people, and we rape the people, and then we turn the people in. So they had, like, absolutely zero redeeming qualities. I wonder, and I’m suspicious that the, the comics thing was a way to give him some form of nuance. I don’t think it was that he was stupid, because the people who’d seen them, there was some expression of appreciation from other characters.
Amanda: Well, he, he was hiding his, like, penname, do you remember?
Sarah: Right.
Amanda: Like, he’s like, don’t, if you talk to so-and-so, like, don’t tell him who I am –
Elyse: I think –
Amanda: – because, like, I think he wanted to keep, like, his mercenary life and his comic book life separate? But then again –
Sarah: Well, I mean, why?
Amanda: – like, that wasn’t explained.
Sarah: Nah, he was still wanting to go have sex with the prisoners if they all agreed, when they don’t have any power to say really no.
Elyse: I think for me the TV show The Expanse has really upped my expectations of, like, the space marine/mercenary kind of beefcake who is maybe not super smart just because of Amos? So I was hoping Striker was going to be an Amos character who from the exterior looks kind of not, not very smart and is super tough, but then you find out really has a lot of self-awareness and emotional fluency, and that did not happen at all, and it bummed me out.
Carrie: I think Amos is pretty smart. I’ll throw down for that.
Elyse: Yep, yep.
Carrie: I think Amos is like kind of, that’s his, one of his hidden layers.
Elyse: I can buy that. We could do a whole podcast on Amos, to be honest.
Carrie: Right, yeah. Like, as soon as I said that, I was like, Carrie, don’t say it, because now we are obligated. See, Sarah and Amanda don’t understand this.
Amanda: No.
Carrie: The next forty minutes is devoted to discussing Amos.
Elyse: Pretty much.
Carrie: Like, why would we talk about anything else?
Elyse: Yes. Yep.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: Really.
Sarah: So aside from Striker, the would-be rapist who draws pictures, what did you guys think of the hero, Viktor?
Amanda: I wished Grenavine wasn’t gone, ‘cause that planet sounds so fun, and I would’ve loved to have seen scenes on Grenavine, and I liked that his name was Willow, ‘cause it reminded me of the movie.
Elyse: I didn’t think he was super three-dimensional, you know? I mean, there were little bits of nuance, like his name being Willow, the fact that I guess he stands up when he eats, which is a little weird, but okay.
Amanda: [Laughs]
Sarah: He doesn’t st-, sit down!
Elyse: Ever.
Sarah: Like, he’s got a sitting problem.
Elyse: Right.
Amanda: – get some chairs in his room.
Elyse: But, like, that was kind of it. He was a little bit sort of like the copy-and-paste-action-hero hero. I didn’t, I didn’t get a lot out of him. In fact, I thought some of the secondary characters were more interesting. Like, I wanted to know more about Sergeant Hazel, and even Tick I thought had the potential to be a really, really interesting character, but yeah, he was kind of vanilla.
Amanda: There was a lot of things that were mentioned that had the potential to really be interesting in terms of, like, character development. For example, he has a really big attachment to, like, people who are from his home planet, and I would have liked to know, like, how they all discovered each other, and they mentioned, like, they used to be all, like, crimson ops, and I would like to understand more about, like, how the government and crimson ops worked out and why, like, these people are now mercenaries. So they, like, dropped a lot of background stuff, but it was never, like, fully explained, especially in how it related to Viktor as a person.
Carrie: I felt like he was very infl-, well, a lot of the characters were very Firefly-influenced, especially towards the beginning of the book, when we don’t know him as well. You know, he’s got the I-lost tragic backstory; he’s got the long coat, you know. He’s the mercenary who’s done really bad things, but he sort of has a heart of gold, but maybe not.
Elyse: But he’s not, he doesn’t have that, he doesn’t have that level of, like, charm or self-deprecation –
Carrie: Right.
Elyse: – that – I can’t think of the main character from Firefly.
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: Mal.
Elyse: Mal, thank you!
Carrie: Mal.
Elyse: He doesn’t have that.
Carrie: And I think for me, that’s part of why it didn’t work.
Elyse: The, the book actually reminded me most of the TV show Altered Carbon. I don’t know if any of you watch that.
Sarah: I’ve never heard of it.
Amanda: I know it’s on Netflix. That’s, that’s all I got.
Elyse: It’s kind of like a, it, it reminds me a little bit of Blade Runner. Basically, the main character is brought back to life after being killed. He’s, like, put into another body, which is a thing you can do in the future, so, like, really rich people get to stay young and beautiful forever and just kind of go from one body to the next – and he has to solve a, a mystery, a, basically a murder mystery, and it has a lot to do with, again, kind of like a classist society where if you’re really wealthy, certain things like disease and aging don’t really affect you, and it kind of, I got that vibe a little bit from the Felgard character wanting to extend his own life the way he did and kind of bringing in this mercenary hero to facilitate that? I don’t know, it just felt similar in vibe to that TV show. I think the, the thing with Altered Carbon, though, to be aware of, is that the main character, his name is Takeshi, and he was Asian before he was put into a new body, which is a white dude, which is all kinds of problematic whitewashing, but yeah, he’s a, he’s a mercenary who’s brought back from the dead specifically to do a mission for a super wealthy guy who doesn’t have to have any consequences in life ‘cause he’s super wealthy.
Sarah: I did like that the super wealthy bad guy in this, in this case got eaten by his own plants. That was, that was good. I was in favor.
What did you guys think of the heroine and the women that she was with?
Amanda: I liked that she and the two other women have such vastly different backgrounds, and I liked that they kind of all knew their role and all knew their limitations? And what I really liked, I really liked Jamie, surprisingly, even though I was worried it was, she was going to be too, like, infantilized in a way, but I liked how whenever they were trying to get out of something, they’re like, oh, can you fly it, and she’s like, listen, I don’t know anything; you need to get me a manual so I can read it. Like, it was very practical? [Laughs] And that’s what I liked. I mean, Ankari kind of has that, like, you know, grew up on the streets and had to be a pickpocket backstory, but I liked that, you know, starting a small business and, like, building something from the ground up meant so much to her? Like, the story that she tells Viktor about her and her dad I really liked a lot?
Sarah: Yeah.
Amanda: I liked her more than I liked Viktor, but it’s not like I disliked either one of them, either.
Sarah: I agree; I did like her a lot, and my favorite scenes were always her interacting with her team.
Amanda: Yes.
Sarah: Because not only did they give each other shit, but they had each other’s backs, and she felt responsible for them, but also got out of their way.
Amanda: Yeah!
Sarah: Like, she had respect for the things that they could do that she’d hired them for.
Amanda: And she also knew that, like, that was their lane. Like, she knew –
Sarah: Yeah.
Amanda: – she once – I think she said it several times – she’s like, the whole, like, bio stuff, that is not my thing. That’s Lauren’s thing.
Sarah: Yep.
Amanda: I am just here to, like, organize and be the leader.
[Laughter]
Sarah: I will scrape the poop off the walls, and then my job here is done.
Amanda: Yeah, and then someone else will look at that poop, and then the other woman will transport the poop to wherever we need to go.
Sarah: [Laughs] So much poop jokes!
Zeb: Woof, woof, woof, woof!
Sarah: So – even Zeb is mad that there are no poop jokes. He’s very upset about this.
Zeb: Woof, woof, woof, woof!
Sarah: Carrie, what did you think of the women?
Carrie: Well, I did like it that it opened with the poop collection scene, and yes, with all of you, I mourn the lack of more poop jokes, but, you know, just the fact that, like – I like it when people portray science as, like, tedious and gross, because I think that often science is tedious and gross? So, you know, that was cool. I, I don’t know, it was just fine. I like it that the team is all women, and nobody’s like, oh, wow, your team is all women! Or, oh, I wanted to pick them all ‘cause their women, right? There’s just, you know, they’re, they just happen to be three women – unless there’s a part that I missed, which is highly possible. Maybe there is a part where she says, I really wanted to pick a team of all women, but I didn’t notice that being, like, a big theme that people remarked on or cared about. It was – except possibly in the sense of they didn’t have anybody who, whose lane was security and kicking ass, and that was a problem for them. And if that person were a woman, I don’t think anybody would say, oh wow, your team of four is all women! Like, no one cared. So I liked that. I, I, I – I just don’t think I would choose to make out with people in some of the situations that she and Viktor choose to make out in! I, I just –
Elyse: Oh yeah, danger boner for sure.
Amanda: I mean, to quote, to quote Eleanor from The Good Place –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: – she stole a –
Amanda: – scary horny is the best kind of horny.
Elyse: [Laughs]
Carrie: She stole, like, a futuristic iPad, right? She’s got it in her pocket, and she has the opportunity to be like, whoa, hands off, buddy! And instead she’s, like, all over him, and I’m like, dude! What are you doing?!
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: Why?!
Sarah: Take your stolen tablet and run! Run, girl, run!
Carrie: I, I’m – I don’t know. I think maybe my romantic heart is turning dead and cold, because I’m like, just go, go back to your bunk like everybody else! [Laughs]
Elyse: The part after they, they hike through the jungle after nearly being eaten by velociraptors, and it’s pouring rain, and everyone’s super exhausted and probably smells really bad, and if a velociraptor was going to attack me, I definitely pee at least a little bit, if not, like, full –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Elyse: – full letting go, right. And then she’s like, and now it’s time for a blowie, and you’re like, what the fuck? Go to bed!
Amanda: She showered! She showered though!
Elyse: Go – no, you need, like, a, you need, like, eight hours of solid sleep after shit like that.
Amanda: I’m, sorry, I’m on board with scary horny, so.
Elyse: No.
Amanda: I’m, I’m in the –
Sarah: You like a good danger boner?
Amanda: Well, I just said, like, scary horny is the best kind of horny!
Sarah: What, like this could be it; let’s do it?
Amanda: Yeah! You, like, it’s one of those things where, like, you’re in such an intense situation that the only outlet you have is to have, like, dirty, gross sex after you get out of a jungle.
Elyse: She didn’t ha-, like, did he shower though? Like –
Amanda: Why not?
Elyse: – she just gave him a blow job!
Amanda: No, he did change his clothes, so I’m assuming he showered.
Elyse: Oh well, you, he definitely had massive ball sweat from hiking through the jungle in the rain.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Elyse: Like, tho-, those nuts were stanky, is where I’m at.
Amanda: Maybe she likes it that way! I’m not going to judge her!
Elyse: And if we’re in scary horny territory and I think, like, this is going to be my last hurrah, we’re not just going to go with a blow job. Come on.
Amanda: Well –
Carrie: Okay –
Amanda: – that’ll remind me never to be in it, like, a do-or-die situation with you, Elyse –
Elyse: [Laughs]
Amanda: – ‘cause I will be up Shit Creek without a paddle!
Sarah: Oh my gosh.
Carrie: Okay, I think that we could differentiate between the danger boner of the we-have-escaped-velociraptors, which to me comes down to, like, consenting adults and personal preference, right? Like, that is not my jam, but if they want to do that, fine – and the captured-prisoner boner, which has creepy overlays and, for both people, one of whom knows she picks pockets and one of whom just picked a pocket, that is a different situation, because that involves really bad judgment. They’re both exercising terrible, terrible judgment, and I just don’t believe that any – okay, now I feel like people are going to, like, mail order these men to my door now – I’d, I’m going to throw down: I don’t believe anyone’s that hot. If, if Tom Hiddleston was standing in front of me, and I had just stolen something from him and I had to use it to escape to get off his ship before I was raped by his second in command, I would not make out with him.
Sarah: That was one, one of my problems with the hero, that his “no” was not, like, no, that’s not a thing we do. You have this sense of morality about your mercenary activities; that should extend to sexual violence –
Elyse: Right, like –
Sarah: – maybe?
Elyse: – you should def-, like, the correct answer was punching Striker in the face. Like, that was the –
Sarah: Right?
Elyse: – that was the correct answer.
Carrie: Yeah.
Elyse: I needed –
Sarah: Well, can you kick him in the crotch, then punch him in the face? ‘Cause he’ll be bent over; it’ll be easier to hit his face.
If you have read science fiction romance – we touched on this a little bit – how did this book fit in with your expectations of the genre? I know, Carrie, you said that this seemed very familiar because you’ve read a lot of science fiction. What about, what about you, Elyse?
Elyse: So I have to, I have to use the caveat that the science fiction romance I’ve read has mostly just been weird fucking. Right, so, like –
[Laughter]
Elyse: – it’s been novellas that I’ve read specifically because they’re crazysauce for the site –
Amanda: Hit Pause for a second –
Elyse: – because someone has tentacles. What?
Amanda: Let’s picture Elyse going into a bookstore and being like, will you point me in the direction of your weird fucking section, please?
[Laughter]
Elyse: You know, like the World War I, Lovecraftian demon on a submarine novella that I read and reviewed. Like, that’s my experience with alien romance.
Carrie: Okay, I must be, like, twelve. Did you say the semen on the submarine? [Laughs]
Elyse: Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. There, there was a, there –
Carrie: Right.
Elyse: – World War I U-boats, tentacle demon, tons of butt sex, it was super weird. Also a lot of the, the romances I’ve read, the hero’s been an alien, and they’re always blue, and I don’t know what the deal with that is, like, why they’re blue, but apparently that’s a common theme, so I was a little disappointed by Viktor’s lack of blueness. It read more to me like a, a science fiction book than a romance, just because the sci-fi romance that I’m familiar with is kind of batshit crazy.
Sarah: So you were expecting, like, tentacles.
Elyse: Oh, for sure! And quite frankly –
Sarah: Shifters.
Elyse: – I was a little disappointed, because if you have the opportunity to work some tentacles in there, I just think you should do it.
Amanda: Well, there was that scene on the dinosaur planet where they noticed, like, the vines started, like, moving and, like, really, like, covered, like they looked away and then they looked back at the ship, and the vines had almost completely covered the dashboard, so it was like sentient vines is the feeling I got from it? That was a missed opportunity!
Sarah: [Laughs]
Elyse: I, I would like to retract my earlier statement, because on further reflection, I don’t think I’ve read sci-fi romance so much as I’ve read weird monster-fucking books, and they’re probably not the same thing.
Sarah: No, they’re –
Carrie: No, it’s really not.
Sarah: – probably not.
Carrie: I, I’ve read some of both, and, and I, and they’re very, they are very different, which is odd, because they’re mostly different in terms of the trappings, but they, it seems like if you have tentacles, then you’re, you’re relegated straight to the erotica section, which, you know, need not necessarily be the case ex-, I don’t – well.
Sarah: I mean, I wrote an entire chapter of tentacle porn for my first book. I remember it vividly; it was my birthday, and I wrote tentacle porn for many hours, and it is not an easy task. I mean, writing sex generally is very difficult, but I will say writing tentacle porn was some of the hardest things – no pun intended – I’ve ever done!
So would you recommend this book if someone was curious about science fiction romance? Would you recommend this book to them?
Amanda: There are others I would recommend first, before – [laughs] –
Sarah: Yeah?
Amanda: – before recommending this one. Like, if, if this is someone’s first taste of sci-fi romance, I don’t think this would be my first choice. I enjoyed the book. I think I might be the least discerning out of the four of us.
[Laughter]
Amanda: But I don’t think this would be my first or even second choice for sci-fi romance recommendation?
Elyse: Yeah, I’d give it kind of a solid C? It wasn’t the best book I ever read. It was good; there were some plot points that I wasn’t crazy about, but I enjoyed it.
Carrie: Yeah, I’d probably give it like a C, C-. I, I don’t think that I would recommend it as an entry-level book though. If somebody was like, oh my God, I’ve read all this stuff, you know, and, and then I’d be like, oh, you should try this book; it’s a rollicking good time! But it’s, it’s not high on my list for, like, an entry point for people.
Sarah: [Laughs] See, I, as I am completely unfamiliar with science fiction romance, I went into this like, okay, sure! I like the idea that you can have references to Earth or Old Earth or whatever used to be Earth, and you can create all of these different worlds and then have them no longer exist to inform the characters. I thought that was a really interesting way to construct a world, and I, and I liked it a lot in terms of, here is romantic action; it’s not quite suspense; it’s more like action-adventure in space with mercenaries and some threats of assault – more than I like. The thing that I learned from this book though is that I need more internal conflict with my characters. I need romance characters to have more internal conflict between them, because it felt like, for this book, a lot of the conflict was external. There were things working against them, and they had horny pants, and then they had swampy humid blow jobs, and I, if you guys want to bang, that’s fine, okay, go ahead. Maybe that is what does it for you, but I need more internal conflict in the characters in order to get really engaged with the romance, and I don’t think this had enough of that, because their goals were still running parallel, but were never really connected. The part where they connected over having destroyed worlds was the part that I wanted to read more of, and it wasn’t enough. Or there wasn’t enough in the book.
Amanda: Yeah, with it just being external – ‘cause I feel the same way about a lot of the romances I read – once the external obstacle has been overcome, whether it’s like a big bad or whatever, that’s it. It’s like, game over; there’s no reason why we can’t be together now, you know what I mean? Whereas if there’s more, like, internal conflict plus external, it’s more – I don’t know. I like the – this is one of the reasons why I feel like – [laughs] – I’m not a big super fan of, like, friends to lovers or anything like that, ‘cause it’s too easy for them. Like, I want my couples to, like –
Sarah: What?!
Amanda: – crawl through hellfire and their own, you know, family baggage at the same time they’re crawling through literal hellfire –
Sarah: With carnivorous plants.
Amanda: Yeah – to make it work.
Sarah: Our tastes are so different, and I love it! [Laughs] Love it so much!
Amanda: They are! [Laughs] But I agree that it was mostly external, and that was like, what the hell is this deal with this bounty? And, like, who is Felgard? I’ve never met him; why does he want me? But there wasn’t, like, a reason the hero and heroine couldn’t be together; you know what I mean.
Sarah: Except for the power dynamic.
Amanda: I mean, but, like, once he decided not to give her up, like, that’s the end of the power dynamic. You know, like, once he committed that, like, you know, we’re going to work together to figure this out, that was kind of it. In my opinion.
Carrie: I think I kind of like a combination, because when people only have internal conflicts, sometimes I like, oh my God, go to fricking therapy, get your shit together, and then, you know, get together. And when there’s only external conflict, I mean, sometimes that’s too easy to resolve, and sometimes it’s too hard to resolve, you know, so then we get into all our drama about historicals and happy endings, and it gets very confusing and, and can get problematic really quickly. But, but I do like having a mix, and there was a real missed opportunity for a mix here in the sense that they could say, okay, well, we’ve removed the external conflict, but why does this still feel kind of awkward? And the awkward could be that they both have this, like, a sea of grief, and they can’t open up emotionally, and blah blah blah. You know what I mean? There, there’s a lot of ways they could have combined the two to make a more, overall richer experience.
Sarah: Huh. All right, so I always ask: anything you guys are reading that you want to talk about?
Amanda: Yes. [Laughs]
Sarah: Tell me all about it. Are people, are people crawling through –
Amanda: Yes, yes. Bad things are happening, and I love it.
[Laughter]
Sarah: So the, so the, the carnivorous plants of their emotions are devouring them from the inside, and they’re crawling through a, a field of carnivorous plants?
Amanda: There is blood magic; a monastery has been taken over; there’s a century-long war; there’s a woman who can speak to gods, and she’s been blessed by the goddess of death. Like, yes! Things are happening, Sarah!
Sarah: All is well.
Amanda: Yeah, it’s called –
Elyse: What are you reading?
Amanda: – Wicked Saints; it’s called Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan –
Elyse: Ooh.
Amanda: – and I, like, tweeted at her last night – [laughs] – ‘cause I had started the book –
Sarah: Aw!
Amanda: – and I was like, this book is a villain-loving Goth girl’s dream, which is exactly what I love, and she responded, she was like, that’s exactly what I intended it to be. So it’s dark; it’s YA, but it’s very violent; it’s very graphic. It’s really good; it’s really atmospheric; it’s definitely got a Gothic vibe to it? I think you would like it, Elyse, and it’s out in April, April 2nd, but there are assassin’s – oh, okay, there we go. It’s inspired by Slavic polytheism?
Sarah: Ooh!
Amanda: It’s very interesting –
Elyse: Ooh!
Amanda: – so far. It is one of my most, like, anticipated books, and I’ve seen images of the finished copies floating around on Twitter, and there’s, like, a beautiful map in the end-, end pages, and yeah. It’s dark and, like, haunting, and there’s antiheroes and eyepatches and magic and all of my favorite things.
Sarah: Dude!
Amanda: Yeah, that’s what I’m reading.
Sarah: How are you even talking to us right now and not, like, just going, uh-huh, while you read a book?
Amanda: It’s hard. I had some coffee, so I – [laughs] – couldn’t concentrate on a book for this.
Sarah: [Laughs] Elyse, is there anything you’re reading you want to talk about?
Elyse: I’m reading Burnout, which –
Sarah: It’s so good!
Elyse: It really, really is. It comes out next Tuesday. So it’s nonfiction about dealing with burnout and emotional stress specifically as a woman, which is a topic that I definitely need some help on. So that’s good, and then I’m kind of taking a little brain vacation and playing Diablo with my husband, so I’ve been running around the Diabloverse killing monsters and undead.
Sarah: I mean, I remember when I had bad days when I was in college, I knew the cheat code to give myself all of the weapons in Doom, which you had to boot up from DOS. Like, you couldn’t run it through Windows –
Amanda: Good old Doom.
Sarah: – you had to reboot in DOS and run doom. I would give myself all the weapons, and I would just melt every motherfucker that came my way, and I felt much better after, like, ten minutes.
Elyse: Gaming with Rich is a unique experience. So he’s playing a necromancer that he named Trent –
Sarah: As you do.
Amanda: [Laughs]
Elyse: – and he’s – as you do – and he’s just got this ongoing narration from Trent’s perspective about his new band and how they were ska, but now they’re emo, and, like, he’ll kill someone and then he’ll feel really bad because that was Karen and she came to one of their concerts once, but she didn’t buy their demo D, their demo CD. Like, it’s just this ongoing –
[Laughter]
Elyse: – stream-of-consciousness thing, and sometimes I’m like, I love you; shut up.
Sarah: He is fanfic-ing his own character; I love it.
Elyse: Yes.
Sarah: Nice! Carrie, is there anything you’re reading that you want to talk about?
Carrie: Yeah, so it occurred to me that I, I think I should say that Mercenary Instinct I think suffered because it was buried in the midst of this vast pile of books that I am reading super, super, super fast, and I think that was hard on Mercenary Instinct. I’m sorry, Mercenary Instinct, that I wedged you in between a whole bunch of other stuff, most of which was incredibly cool.
But I did, there’s a lot of stuff that I just finished reading that I’m reviewing, but I want to give a shout-out to the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells –
Elyse: Yes!
Carrie: Yeah, I love Murderbot! So don’t anyone spoil it, because one of the things I have to read after Mercenary Instinct is the last two novellas, which, again, can’t have been good for Mercenary Instinct. I’m sorry, book. We, I should adjust my grade like half a grade higher just because I was like, okay, as soon as I finish this, I can read Murderbot. I should have just read Murderbot first.
Elyse: Murderbot’s so good.
Carrie: Okay, so the first novella in the Murderbot Diaries is All Systems Red, and it’s so good. It’s so fun, and it’s inventive, and it’s, like, angsty and goofy and weird and crazy, and the novellas are short, so if you’re stressed you can read it fast, which is really nice. Yeah, I am very much digging Murderbot.
Elyse: So the, the premise of Murderbot – ‘cause I think people need to know this – they’re really short sci-fi novellas where, the first book, it’s a group of scientists who are exploring a planet for the possibility of terraforming, and they have a, it was, it’s an android, right?
Carrie: It’s kind of a cyborg system, so it’s, it has organic parts and inorganic parts that consist of both hardware and software.
Elyse: And it’s a, a genderless, basically security bot that is supposed to keep them safe while they’re on this planet, and there’s the prevailing theory that if the, the security bots ever, like, hacked their own regulators, they would turn into, like, crazy murdering machines and would kill humanity and take over, kind of like, I’m trying, what’s the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie? Terminator, right?
Carrie: Yeah.
Elyse: Except the main character, Murderbot, has hacked its regulator, and all it wants to do is watch streaming television –
Sarah: Why not?
Elyse: – and is mostly, like, kind of annoyed and amused by its human subjects, who it now has to be protect from things, and it’s, like, super socially awkward and doesn’t want to interact with the humans. It’s really funny and subversive and, and a good read.
Sarah: I am currently reading A Dangerous Collaboration, which is the fourth Veronica Speedwell book? Veronica Speedwell is a lepidopterist, she’s a butterfly hunter, and she partners early in the series with a guy named Stoker. I think his real name is Revelstoke Templeton-Vane –
Amanda: Course it is. [Laughs]
Sarah: – with a hyphen in the – course it is! Like, as, obviously, naturally! She and he have a very intense attraction, but she has very specific rules: she will not engage with ca-, in casual sex in England because the English are all too uptight, so she does all of her casual sexing around the world, which she has done, like, several times, ‘cause she hunts butterflies for a living. In this one, she is put on a remote island off the, off the end of Cornwall. She’s tempted by Stoker’s brother to pretend to be his fiancé, ‘cause that always works out, in order to get larvae of a particular butterfly that she wants to create, to put in her, what’s it called? I think it’s a vivarium? The thing about the book that I love is not only is there a mystery going on, but the way that Deanna Raybourn displays the research into the setting of her characters is through words that I’m not familiar with, so I get introduced to words that fit perfectly in the setting, but I have to look them up, and I find this fascinating, and – it’s not constant; it’s not like every other page I’m like, what the hell does that mean? For example, there’s a map on the wall, and it’s described as foxed, and I didn’t know what that meant. It turns out that when a map or something on old paper has brown spots, almost like rust, that’s called foxing. I had no idea! So then I went down the Wikipedia rabbit hole of rare books and what happens to paper when it gets old as hell, but the way that she just drops little pieces of contextualized vocabulary in the setting is so fun, and I’m just at the part where things are getting, like, super freaky. There’s ghosts, possibly, or someone pretending to be a ghost, and because she, Veronica’s a scientist and Stoker is a historian, they’re both like, yeah, bullshit? So – and I think there’s an obscene painting on a harpsichord involved? Like, there’s a lot going on, and I am so here for it! [Laughs] I mean, who doesn’t want obscene paintings on their harpsichords, right?
Elyse: I know I do.
Sarah: Right? So what would – I know, Carrie, you said maybe a C+/B-. Would, do you guys have a grade for Mercenary Instinct?
Amanda: B- for me.
Elyse: I’m going to go just a solid C.
Sarah: I would say a solid B, so somewhere in the B-/C+ range would be our average. Amanda, if you read book two or just skip ahead to book three – I don’t know if that’s a thing you can do.
Amanda: I –
Sarah: Do you skip ahead?
Amanda: I refuse.
Sarah: Okay, so if you do –
Amanda: [Laughs] Book two!
[Laughter]
Sarah: ‘Cause I would just be like, screw book two! I want to read about the guy who looks like he’s from the Laurenston books and the chick with cool hair.
Amanda: No, I, I need to know about those space bras, Sarah.
Sarah: Oh, right, space bras!
Amanda: We talked about ‘em; now I need to know about ‘em!
Sarah: That could be a really good way to market all these bras I see on Instagram? Like, this is the bra in space. Like, I would pay attention to that.
Amanda: Will, will it keep your boobs situated in zero Gs?
[Laughter]
Sarah: These Gs will not move in zero Gs. That’s a good ad!
[music]
Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this episode. I want to extend a special thanks to Holly, who made the suggestion for this book. While we didn’t unilaterally love it, I had a lot of fun reading this one, so thank you, thank you, thank you.
If you would like to share with us what you thought of Mercenary Instinct, we would really like to know! What did you think? Are you a fan of science fiction romance? Do you have other recommendations that you think we should read? What did you think of this book? How many times should Striker be kicked in the nards? I mean, this is a good question. Leave a comment, or call us and leave a message at 1-201-371-3272, and if you’d like to email us privately, you don’t want to share your thoughts publicly, that is also cool. You can email us at [email protected].
This week’s podcast is brought to you by Lady Notorious by Theresa Romain. Known for her witty, sensuous, and skillfully researched historical romances, Theresa Romain weaves another wonderfully adventurous tale in Lady Notorious. With a fortune on the line and a bunch of mysterious deaths, Bow Street Runner Cassandra Benton agrees to help George, Lord Northbrook, foil a nefarious plot targeting his family. Posing as his notorious “cousin,” Cassandra counts on her wit and her detective skill to infiltrate the ton and ferret out the murderer. What she didn’t count on was her irresistible attraction to her dashing employer as days of investigation quickly turn into passionate nights. With their lives and hearts on the line, can Cass and George unveil the culprit before they end up victims themselves? Lady Notorious by Theresa Romain is on sale now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.
The transcript this week is brought to you by out podcast Patreon community. Thank you everyone, so very much. Our podcast transcripts are compiled by garlicknitter. Thank you, garlicknitter! [My pleasure! – gk] If you would like to join the Patreon community, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one dollar per month, and you will be part of the group who helps me develop questions, suggests guests, and helps us pick our quarterly book cub, book club selections. Have a look at all of the options at patreon.com/SmartBitches, and if you have made a pledge to say that what we do here is worth a dollar or more of your very precious money, we very, very much appreciate that. Thank you.
Coming up on Smart Bitches this week, we have so many things, but, oops, I forgot to tell you about the music, so I’m going to do that first.
The music you are listening to is from Caravan Palace. It is provided to us by Sassy Outwater, and this track is called “La caravane.” Now, you can find their two-album set Caravan Palace and Panic on Amazon and iTunes and wherever you buy your funky music, and this is great music to cook or work or write to if you can listen to things with lyrics while you write. Most of the lyrics are not in English, but I can’t listen to voices while I’m writing. However, I listen to this album set while I’m cooking or when I’m stitching. It’s a lovely, lovely two-album set, and the music is funky and different, so if you like it, have a look. And thank you to Sassy Outwater for the music.
Now it is time for what’s coming up on Smart Bitches. Ready? Okay. It’s time. It’s time! It’s time, it’s time, it’s time, it’s time for our monthly thread that everyone loves, Whatcha Reading? You tell us what you are reading, we tell you what we’re reading, and then we all buy more books, because even though we do this every month, I personally never learn anything except how much I love to buy books that sound interesting. I love this thread; it is such a fun thread; I hope you will come and hang out and tell us what you’re reading!
Then we have some Lightning Reviews and some full-length reviews of new titles, including, coming out this week, Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, which we mentioned in this episode. Holy smokes, are you going to read, want to read this book; it’s incredible. And, as a sneak preview, I can tell you that I have an interview with Emily and Amelia Nagoski for next week’s podcast where we go very deep into the different parts of this book, so get ready for that too!
We also have a new edition of Cover Snark, Books on Sale, and Help a Bitch Out, so I hope you will stop by and hang out with us. The site is always better when you are there.
I will have links to all of the books and some of the discussions that we talked about in this episode in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.
And now it is time for our terrible, terrible joke. Are you ready for a terrible joke? This book is terrible! Okay.
What was left after the French cheese factory demolition?
What was left after the French cheese factory demolition?
Debris.
[Laughs] Brie! Brie. Okay. [Laughs more] Debris! Okay, I, I have a, I have a thing for cheese jokes. Like, that whole joke about cheese that not, that’s not yours never fails to make me laugh. So apparently bad jokes about cheese are a thing, and I didn’t know it was a thing, but now I do, so I’m very happy. That joke comes from jamesdo72 on Reddit; thank you, sir. Debris!
So whether or not you like cheese or cheese jokes, on behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you here next week.
[bouncy music]
This podcast transcript was handcrafted with meticulous skill by Garlic Knitter. Many thanks.
Mercenary Instinct sat in my TBR for ages, and I finally got to it because of this book club. Thanks!
I’m more or less on board with “fun but kind of silly.” I bought this book originally because I wanted to try sf romance. I love science fiction, but “mail-order bride to space warlord(s)” isn’t my jam – it’s fine, just not my thing – and that seems to be the most popular form by miles. (light-years. ha.)
So I had high hopes for “plucky band of mercenaries” instead. This wasn’t that, really. But it was okay, apart from JayneIMeanStrikerUghhhh. Mostly I thought “I could be reading Mass Effect fanfiction right now, y’all.”
Or Murderbot, for that matter!!!! There’s one more novella I haven’t read so far, and I’m going to be so sad when it’s over.
What bugged me about the hero wasn’t the chair allergy or the ball stank, it was throwing apples directly into the blender, seeds and stems and all. I know the cyanide risk is overblown; it’s more of a texture thing. Maybe the space blender pulverizes them to atoms, okay, but I kept imagining swallowing little seed fragments. Bleaaah.
So yeah, this book was fun at times, had some flaws, and I will basically forget about it from here on out. One less on the TBR pile, though, and that’s always worth it!
I really enjoyed the heroine but I wish she’d had a better book to be energetic, ingenious, amid funny in.
Is your jam – unexplained attraction, sex scenes with questionable consent, and illogical power scenarios? Then this is the book for you.
Let me give you some examples – The bad guy puts out a giant bounty on our heroines, why? They are a brand new start-up, they would have been highly motivated if he just offered them the cash instead. — Sexual intercourse between a prisoner and her jailer is okay if she gives her ‘consent’? — A Mercenary captain blithely sets aside his “Mercenary Instinct” for his new prize/hot babe and his crew doesn’t space him?? — The bad guy confesses to being an even badder guy and really ticks off our H/h. There is no explanation or motivation for this confession, except the author wanted a big shoot out scene?
To summarize, I feel like the author had a giant pile of ‘sci-fi tropes’ and at arbitrary times, she pulled out an absurd scenario and threw it into the book. If you aren’t okay with completely suspending your desire for multi-dimensional characters who make decisions based upon their needs or their social groups expectations then don’t pick up this book.
I was skimming a lot, only slowing down for the scenes with the women talking to each other. I would read a book of those three bantering and doing their jobs.
I agree with everyone’s feelings about the book and basically forgot a lot of it once I was done. I will say however that I didn’t want to give up the world so quickly and so I read “Trial and Temptation” right after and I felt that this was the better book. The main characters were more developed with the male lead on the autism spectrum (is it me or is that really “hot” right now?) and the action was more edge-seaty. That said, it didn’t make me want to go on to the third.
Question for Carrie and the greater community — I’m getting into sci-fi romance and I’d love some recommendations.
Thoughts anyone?
I agree “Trial and Temptation” was a much better book.
For Sci-Fi romance, I always recommend Linnea Sinclair. Especially Games of Command or Finders Keepers.
I liked this book. Could it be better? Yes. However it was much better than so much sci-fi romance I have read. I especially enjoyed the heroine’s healthy relationships with other women – which is a refreshing thing. I have gone on to read the rest of the series and there are peeks into their relationship deepening in further books.
@Evelyn Hill – Linnea Sinclair is one of my top sci-fi recommendations too! Accidental Goddess and Finders Keepers were my favorites of hers. I wish she had come out with anything new!
@Noel: Seconding everyone’s suggestion for Linnea Sinclair. Other options: Ada Harper, Jessie Mihalik, and Robyn Bachar.
Amazing! Thanks everyone!
Ok but a discussion of the expanse needs to happen. I personally love that it’s space opera about PEOPLE. And that all of the people are so trophy but so real all at the same time.
And how Holden and Anna are the bi paladins of my heart
Whoops I meant to say *tropey
Thank you for the book club! I haven’t read any scifi romance before, but I love most adventure style romances. I am about 30-ish % through the book, and I keep looking to the secondary characters for more depth, but from what I hear, it just isn’t going to happen.
I am glad to have the chance to try something new with all of you!
Thanks for an enjoyable post.
Michelle Diener’s Dark Horse is a fun science fiction romance.
A favorite series of mine is the Linesman series by SK Dunstall; it’s science fiction with the barest hint of romance by the end of the trilogy.
I’ve just recently started reading SF Romance after a long absence from “hard” SF in general. I do enjoy the campy alien guys/human women trope (best exemplified I’d say by Ruby Dixon’s Ice Planet Barbarians series), but for books on the space opera end of the spectrum, I have a few recommendations:
-Rachel Bach’s Paradox series, starting with Fortune’s Pawn
-Carol Van Natta’s Central Galactic Concordance series, starting with Overload Flux.
-Anna Hackett’s Galactic Gladiators series, starting with Gladiator
-Veronica Scott has been recommended to me, but I haven’t tried any of her books yet.
I sort of agree with Carrie. I love sci-fi, and …this was a great set-up, but…I was bored and did a lot of skimming.
It fell into a lot of well-established romantic tropes…and I found myself wishing at one point that the writer had flipped the genders. Made the big alpha mercenary captain – female, and the scientists and marketing/petty thief male. Instead of falling into the formula. Also, I’d hoped there’d be a big twist at the end regarding the villain, but no, he was your standard by the numbers, nasty irredeemable bad guy.
The characters are betrayed at one point — predictably by a character jealous of the leads romance.
And that’s the problem — the plot is a bit too predictable. And the characters don’t really drive it nor are they developed through it.
At any rate, I was disappointed in it — because I rather liked the set-up of a bunch of microbiologists attempting to setup a business that uses alien poop transplants to heal gut ailments, and gets grabbed by a bunch of mercenary’s collecting a bounty. That has potential. But…too much focus on getting the lead characters into each other’s pants and not enough on world-building and character. A weakness of the sci-fi romance genre, unfortunately. Too often the writers focus more on well the sex, then the characters, plot and world.
What was the U-boat tentacle sex novella? Asking for a friend who is actually just me. 🙂
@Sarahjane First Watch by Peter Hansen
We’re all different — I’d find tentacle!sex relatively easy to write because “alien-ness” is my catnip and I’m a Big Weird Aspie that finds it much harder to get into the head of someone complying with social norms. Unfortunately this probably means I have more difficulty with the rest of the book, so I think just being weirded out by the tentacles is probably the better option!
The responses to the discussion have been so interesting – thank you! I’m really glad you gave this book a try and let us know what you thought. We’re going to be selecting our second quarter book club title soon, so stay tuned. And thank you again for reading along and discussing with us!
What happened to this author? It appears she never delivered on books promised in 2018. Does she write under another name?