Alicia’s review of Games of Command by Linnea Sinclair
Sci-fi Paranormal romance published 27 Feb 07 by Spectra
I LOVED this book! The heroine (Sass) is tough enough for anyone but not hard or cold. Slight spoiler here: I loved that, for the part of the story where she didn’t really know the hero, Sinclair didn’t use the “mysteriously drawn to him for no known reason” plot. She just allowed the perfectly normal situation happen where one person is in love before the other one notices. She has a very real friendship with the (female) medical officer, too, which adds a lot to the story.
The hero (Admiral Kel-Paten) is a biomech construct, a man with mechanical and computer enhancements in his body and brain. He’s not sure she can ever love someone like him. In fact he assumes she can’t. But Sinclair doesn’t let him drop into the “pity poor me” type of tortured hero. He’s vulnerable in the area of his heart but not in any other way. He’s revealed to be strong and passionate with immense control.
Blurb:
The universe isn’t what it used to be. With the new Alliance between the Triad and the United Coalition, Captain Tasha “Sass” Sebastian finds herself serving under her former nemesis, biocybe Admiral Branden Kel-Paten–and doing her best to hide a deadly past. But when an injured mercenary winds up in their ship’s sick bay–and in the hands of her best friend, Dr. Eden Fynn–Sass’s efforts may be wasted.
Wanted rebel Jace Serafino has information that could expose all of Sass’s secrets, tear the fragile Alliance apart–and end Sass’s career if Kel-Paten discovers them. But the biocybe has something to hide as well, something once thought impossible for his kind to possess: feelings . . . for Sass. Soon it’s clear that their prisoner could bring down everything they once believed was worth dying for–and everything they now have to live for.
Read an excerpt.
The psychic attacks on the characters rip open their deepest fears and pour salt on their deepest wounds. This aspect of the book is extremely well done. They are thrown into situation after situation where they don’t know who to trust or what is real. If the author weren’t brilliant this could have gone into the unbelievable but she pulls it off.
The biggest surprise for me was the furzels. I’m often accused of not liking animals because I don’t ‘goo’ over just anything that is furry. I like cute animals but I can’t cross over the line into “cutesy.” I actually feel like the animal would be humiliated by a lot of what goes on if they only knew. I guess it’s like my humor, I just am picky and won’t pretend to like something I feel falls flat. But Sinclair, again, got this just right. These guys were very cute! I want one! I loved the way she had them talk in their minds like a small child actually talks (thinks). They are serious even if they come across as cute. This hits me just right.
One con for me is I’d like to have gotten some background on Kel-Paten’s life prior to the story. I wish I knew how he came to be made into the enhanced man he is in the story. Is he wounded? Does the government arbitrarily take his chance for a normal life from him for the sake of making a super admiral?Â
But I guess the author couldn’t really add more pages. Something had to give. At 560 pages (with none feeling like wasted space) the book is a pretty decent length. I’m thinking she had to cut it down by the way some scenes are on the sparse side. The end felt a little like it had been pared down but it was still powerful (to me, anyway). I closed the book with tears streaming down my face. A definite…
Grade: A
Post Script:Â Sinclair’s website has some shorts about the characters and she does tell Kel-Paten’s history.
Aww, well, gee, thanks! What a terrific birthday present to find this review (Angela James sent me over). Yeah, the book was chopped from about 300,000 words. It was a two to three book series. I wish I could have included more to, but it’s a bit of a doorstop as it is. I do have those short stories on my site (thanks for mentioning them) and a lot of Kel-Paten background on my shared blog.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/09/admiral-answers-part-1.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/10/rest-of-answers-kel-paten-on-hot-seat.html
and others…
I have to ‘fess up on the furzels. I didn’t write those scene. My furzel, uh, cat, Daiquiri did. 😉 Honest. He’s also the furzel on the front and back covers.
Thanks again and I hope you enjoy The Down Home Zombie Blues (totally different story but fun!). It’ll be out late November. ~Linnea
Excellent sci-fi romance! One of the best I have read in a long time!
And I loved the furzels BTW and Kel-Paten is one well written beta hero (IMO) 🙂
This was the first Linnea Sinclair book I bought and read. I barely finished when I knew I had to have all her backlist. I adored this one!!
Linnea – *G* Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to youuuu…
I didn’t think of Kel-Paten as beta at all. He just had one little area of weakness… Sass. Other than that he definitely dominates all those around him. He tries to be intimidating with her, too… LOL!
I certainly didn’t get through the book before I knew I had a glom coming on.
Aw, thanks for the birthday song. With a voice like that, you should be on American Idol. 😉
Yeah, I’m not sure of Kel-Paten is beta. There’s a gal on my Yahoo Group who says he’s omega and that the whole beta label is in error. Interesting.
To me, Kel-Paten is Kel-Paten. Hell, I’ve loved…uh, known him for over twenty years. He’s probably the one most influential character in my writing. He’s been telling me about Sass since the mid 1980s. Yeah, that long ago. He was a mere captain then. ~Linnea
“There’s a gal on my Yahoo Group who says he’s omega and that the whole beta label is in error. Interesting.”
Not! If Kel-Paten is Omega I am going on American Idol! Oh, yeah, I can just see him shuffling around in the back of the group with his shoulder around his ears, cringeing when someone notices him. :p
LOL, Alicia. Actually, I’m not that up on the ‘omega’ designation and her take was that the beta designation was wrongly defined. I’ll have to dig out her post. But to me, Kel-Paten is a wounded alpha.
Does anyone have a good website that delineates alpha, beta, gamma, delta, omega etc? I don’t.
But back to Kel-Paten. Because for most of his life his emotional responses were controlled by his programming, you can’t take those actions as indicative of what he is, but rather how he perceives himself and how he acted when it was do or die time. That’s why I saw him as more alpha, albeit wounded. Make sense? No? Hugs, ~Linnea
He’s Alpha all the way. He just had this bad experience with a woman and believed it made sense. Silly man.
I don’t mind using the lingo as it is accepted throughout the readersphere but in the animal world the beta male is the up and coming alpha. He’s the one testing the alpha for his position. He’s usually the next alpha when something happens to the current one. People talk about a less dominant hero as a beta hero but that would be an omega male if it were an animal pack, pride, herd, whatever.
Here’s a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_%28biology%29
Grrr… that article has been “updated” (changed) to reflect the good Dr. Paul Dobransky’s use of the term. Here’s a good one for the original use
http://www.labradornet.com/wolves_dogs.html
And try googling – “Dr. Paul Dobransky” omega – and see what you get. LOL! Well, obviously HE should be the one to define the term… I’m going to have to see what can be done to fix wiki back.
I guess I saw Kel as a beta because he reasoned with his mind over his fists and when he was around Sass he didn’t take control because she wanted to (and he was so in love with her I had this visual in my mind of him stuttering and shuffling his feet).And he was supposed to be some cold machine.
But Sass is one kick ass chick! 🙂
My favorite book of the year so far!!! Definitely check out the alien romances blog for all the extras. I love me some Kel-Paten.
Part of the confusion may come from the fact I don’t write to archetypes. I have a dear friend who does and who writes to Vogler’s Journey. It just doesn’t resonate for me, which only goes to prove there’s no one right way to write a book. 😉
The “chart” I was thinking of was Cowden’s: http://www.tamicowden.com/heroes.htm
I’ve seen something similar with alpha/beta etc but can’t put my fingers on it this morning.
Anyway, I don’t consciously write to alpha/beta or archetypes (I say ‘consciously’ because there’s no telling what goes on in my bizarre little mind). I’m more of a ME writer: Motivation and Environment, both mental and physical on the last one. That is, how does the character perceive him/her self and how is that going to manifest given the situation and goals? Kel-Paten (who always thinks of himself as Kel-Paten and rarely as Branden) had everything working really well and wrapped up nice and neatly until he gets within shouting distance of Sass, and then his entire self-analysis shatters.
I’m not a believer in love at first sight, per se, but I am a believer in ‘deep inexplicable attraction’ at first sight due to things happening on subconscious and often karmic levels. I do believe sentient beings are often ‘fated’–to be close friends, to work in a certain field, to find a certain mate or in the case of furpersons, to find a certain companionship/relationship with a human. Sometimes this ‘fating’ could be for a short period of time–a month, a year, even that fifteen minute meeting that changes your life. Sometimes it’s a life commitment. Duration doesn’t affect the quality of a ‘fated relationship’. The message imparted does.
So yeah, now I’m getting into the woo-woo stuff. 😉 But anyway, to me, Kel-Paten and Sass were fated and his response to her was so visceral (as these things often are) because it was from that deeper mental environment of his psyche/soul. Which may or may not segue with his more “obvious” alpha, beta, whatever mental environment.
Have I lost you? 😉 ~Linnea
Devon, I’m going to try to get links to all the Kel-Paten stuff in the Short Stories section of the Intergalactic Bar page on my site: http://www.linneasinclair.com
That way people don’t have to go hunting around the AlienRomances blog to find them. If they’re not up within a week or so, something throw something at me and remind me. 😉 ~Linnea