Michelle Diener

The third book of Michelle Diener's terrific Rising Wave series focuses on Massi, Luc's close friend and lieutenant, and Duncan, a new character to the series with a novel kind of powerful magic. Massi and Duncan, together with Ava, Luc, and other members of the Rising Wave, work to finally vanquish the dark forces that carried out Ava's abduction in book 2 and threaten new, promising but hard-won political alliances. Massi and Duncan are a compelling couple, but it's Ava and Luc's interactions that I still enjoy the most. Diener's female characters are refreshingly strong and independent, capable of rescuing themselves and their heroes, and Ava is my favorite example.… (mer)

This is science-fantasy, not science-fiction.
While there are a few instances of surprisingly well-thought-out sci-fi concepts that I haven't seen being considered before even in harder sci-fi, in general, this violates all the rules of sci-fi.
It's nothing more than a somewhat interesting backdrop for a pretty cheesy romance story and some friendship dynamics with an AI companion.
All clichées apply.
While it certainly doesn't deserve any originality or consistency awards, it was at least entertaining.
Low 3 stars.… (mer)

It's a bit of a misnomer to call this romance, as the story is definitely more spaceships-and-intrigue than it is kisses-and-cuddles, but I want it on the same shelf as [b: Dark Horse|25615831|Dark Horse (Class 5, #1)|Michelle Diener|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1432783528s/25615831.jpg|45427378] (which was excellent, btw, you should totally read it if you want kisses and spaceships). I quite liked reading this, even if there are marked similarities to Dark Horse and a real lack of naked-funtimes. The alien cultures are pretty cool (I approve of an Elven Warrior alien race, eleventy billion thumbs up), the thinking systems are cool and scary, and the ladies seem pretty cool? Although, they do seem to take "abducted by aliens, oh noes" extremely well.

Whatever, I'm all over the next book, as soon as it's available.

ETA: on re-read, I still enjoyed the story (and my re-read of [b: Dark Horse|25615831|Dark Horse (Class 5, #1)|Michelle Diener|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1432783528s/25615831.jpg|45427378] but these ladies are like ~*~magical~*~ with new languages. How does one learn TWO new (ALIEN!!) languages in 3 months? And they don't just learn enough to be conversant, they communicate like native speakers. And there are so many other inconveniences explained away by reasons. It's a totally entertaining story, but it requires a lot of suspension of disbelief.… (mer)