Well, Not Steal Exactly… by Vivien Jackson – Guest Post

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artificial intelligence, guest post, romance, scifi, scifi romance, series, Vivien Jackson

Today is release day for More Than Stardust.  Congratuations to Vivien Jackson on her new book!  If you missed my review of this great new book, you can find it here.

Today I am please to welcome Ms. Jackson to Whiskey With My Book.  She has decided to confess…

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Guest Post
by Vivien Jackson

Writers don’t just make up stories out of a vacuum. We steal tons of stuff… well, not steal exactly, not like plagiarism because that is BAD AND DON’T DO IT, but more in the way of references to previous work we have found meaningful and influential. For instance, I’m not sure if you it’s possible to write a book about a manufactured post-human – be it cyborg or android or techno-zombie – without having bits of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein pinging around in your brain. That book certainly took up residence in my mind when I was writing More Than Stardust, a science fiction romance about a self-aware nanorobotic artificial intelligence who dreams of having a body and being a real girl. At one point my characters even reference Frankenstein because that book is so deeply hooked into concepts of manufactured persons. I mean, of course characters in such a situation would think about it.

They don’t overtly reference Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, but I echoed a line of hers in a scene where characters are hiking over a glacier. Points to anybody who finds that line.

I also reference, more obliquely, Theodore Sturgeon’s More Than Human. Like that classic science fiction novel, my book is about post-humans, the “what comes after us” what-of of personhood. Which is where I got the title More Than Stardust from.

There are also homage-type references to all my fandoms, too: Doctor Who and The X-Files and J. R. R. Tolkien and 1980s hair band metal… stuff like that. I wouldn’t be a deep-rooted fangirl if I didn’t throw in those things. When I’m reading a book, I look for the connections between the author and me, things that we might have in common, as evidenced in what the characters say and do. Those things make a character relatable. If the character is only interested in things that I don’t know very well or don’t care to know particularly, I might skip pages. That’s not to say I haven’t read books where I learned something new – those are super fun! – but it’s comfy, to me, to find bits of things I love inside the books I read.

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About More Than Stardust

She never wanted to be a god. She only wanted to be a girl.

Chloe, a self-aware, highly illegal nanorobotic artificial intelligence knows a thing or two about wanting. The growing Machine Rebellion wants her to become its god. The technocratic global Consortium wants to cage her, take her apart, and reverse-engineer her. Her family wants to keep her a secret. Her best friend Garrett wants her safe. Chloe is a thing made of wants.

And it’s time the world knew hers.

Available now at
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SY9KR5N
And everywhere else: https://books2read.com/u/mg0qGv

About the Author

Vivien Jackson writes fantastical, futuristic, kissing books. Her debut science fiction romance, Wanted and Wired, was selected as an Amazon Best Book of 2017 and a Romance Writers of America RITA finalist. A devoted fangirl and inveterate gamer, Viv lives in Austin, Texas, with a herd of small, hairy pets. Also a husband. Hang out with her on Twitter @Vivien_Jackson or on the web at VivienJackson.com.

Connect with Vivian at:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Vivien_Jackson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VivienJacksonWriter/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vivien.jackson/
Web: https://www.vivienjackson.com

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More Than Stardust (Wanted and Wired, #3) by Vivien Jackson – Review

Tags

5 stars, artificial intelligence, Book Review, romance, scifi, scifi romance, Vivien Jackson

About More Than Stardust by Vivien Jackson

She never wanted to be a god. She only wanted to be a girl.

Chloe, a self-aware, highly illegal nanorobotic artificial intelligence knows a thing or two about wanting.The growing Machine Rebellion wants her to become its god. The technocratic global Consortium wants to cage her, take her apart, and reverse-engineer her. Her family wants to keep her a secret. Her best friend Garrett wants her safe.

Chloe is a thing made of wants. And it’s time the world knew hers.

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Review of More Than Stardust

Not even a complete chapter into More Than Stardust, and I knew this was going to be one heck of a fun ride!

Readers of the series already know a little about Chloe and Garrett. These two characters have had smaller roles in the first two books, but I just knew they were cool people. After all, they are hanging out with Heron and company, or as Chloe and Garrett tend to think of that gang – their family.

Not related by blood, but by circumstances and actions, this gang has saved the world more than once. This time, Chloe starts the story with a bang by saving the world again, when unknown forces start attacking, well, everywhere. They mistake they made was attacking Chloe’s home.

An early crisis and resolution had me thinking, where is the story going from here? Well, you might as well know, there will be another opportunity to save the world, but along the way, Garrett and Chloe are going to get closer than they ever have. Yes – to what you are thinking….

I love the development of the relationship between Chloe and Garrett. Though they have been best friends for years, there is still so much to learn about each other, each confronting their own doubts and longings. An AI and a human. Can this really work out? So, going into this, I think we all know they are fated to be together. The really interesting part is how it all works.

So much imagination went into figuring out how to get Chloe and Garrett together, I would love to tell you about it, but that would take the fun out of reading. And just when you think the romance has worked out, something happens to spoil the fun.

The fun spoilers are the Consortium. The Consortium has a lot of plans and not only do they want Chloe, but they don’t want the rest of Chloe’s family (alive). Chloe is not going to be happy about that! A self-aware, highly illegal, nanorobotic, artificial intelligence who has Garrett, a pilot with killer techno-gearhead skills, for a friend will be a force for the Consortium to reckon with.

While the story belongs to both Chloe and Garrett, Chloe is the character who gets most of my attention. Chloe’s nanobite technology is both an asset and a liability, which just adds to the depth of the character and helps her to develop more human feelings. At times she is god-like and other times she is so very human.

I feel like this third book is the boldest in the Wanted and Wired series. I refer to Ms. Jackson’s writing style, which can be irreverent, quirky, unconventional, and just plain ungrammatical, reflecting how her characters think and act. I saw this in all three books, but this attitude blooms in More Than Stardust. It brings emotion to the story in a way complete sentences do not.

More Than Stardust can be read as standalone if you have not read the first two books in the series. But, really, I recommend all three, in whatever order you like, for lawless, lively and lovely adventures.

Many thanks to the author who provided a copy of her book in exchange for my honest review.

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Links

Add More Than Stardust to your Goodreads shelf:

Pre-Order More Than Stardust (Releases July 9th):

 

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Constellation XXI (Repelling the Invasion, #3) by Edward Hoornaert – Review

Tags

5 stars, Book Review, Edward Hoornaert, scifi, scifi romance

Review by K.J. VanHouten.

About Constellation XXI by Edward Hoornaert

Rediscovering love at the worst possible time

Although Sienna Dukelsky had been the most promising student pilot at Keening AstroSpace Academy, she inexplicably settles for a routine, unglamorous job guiding incoming spaceships to safe berths at Farflung Space Station. Rumors, never verified, blamed her surprising decision on a boyfriend who got expelled from Keening.

Crispin Hunt, fleeing enemy forces, is greeted by a tugship captained by Sienna, his former girlfriend. Love rekindles—until an old betrayal boils up. Her ship loses power while aimed dead on at the space station, forcing Sienna to confront the terrifying truth about Crispin and his cargo…and her routine job suddenly becomes the most important in the entire galaxy.

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Review of Constellation XXI

First, I must apologize for this review being so long in coming! That was no reflection on the author. OK, actually, maybe it is. I first started reading Constellation XXI and got distracted by names that were familiar – that’s when I realized this is book 3 of the Repelling the Invasion series. That reminded me that the first book in the series, The Guardian Angel of Farflung Station, is one of my favourite SFR stories! Which meant I was then so eager to reread it that I couldn’t get into the new story until I did. Which also meant that I then went on to read book 2, Escapee, which was another great story. So I FINALLY came back to Constellation XXI when I found my way out of that rabbit-hole. (Which was a fun and much recommended rabbit-hole to fall into to be sure!)

Constellation XXI returns us to the Dukelsky family – this time with Sienna, cousin to Duke, whom we met in book 1. Sienna is eager to prove herself, having recently completed a academy training and tugship apprenticeship. She finally gets a chance for a solo captaincy – even if she is the only crew on a new Thought Ship, which operates in response to brainwaves rather than manual controls. Her assignment is to monitor the emptiest section of space around Farflung Station, an important responsibility to monitor for errant ships and keep collisions from affecting the station by docking incoming ships with the station properly. Not to mention monitoring for any incoming ships from Proxima, home to a cruel race of people at war with the rest of the galaxy.

If only she could stop falling into daydreams about Crispin Hunt, a former lover that she hasn’t seen in years, but suddenly comes into renewed contact with. Literally, it turns out as he appears at the helm of a freighter coming in from the Black, as the sparsely populated borderlands area was known. Crispin is captain of the Constellation XXI, coming in with a cargo of exotic animals for sale. Sienna isn’t sure if she wants to welcome him or blast him from space. The only thing she is sure of is that she doesn’t really want him in her life right now, and she’s pretty sure that feeling is mutual.

The story sounds simple and harmless enough – meeting up with an old lover, rekindle an old attraction that never quite went away, and a coming-into-her-own story of a rookie making a place for herself in a competitive job environment. Simple enough that is until you throw in a group of marines eager for a fight and with no respect for a rookie tugship captain, old misunderstandings and misdeeds, and ultimately, a ship-wide power loss that puts two ships on a deadly collision course with Farflung Station itself. And somehow, it’s tied to the mysterious cargo that Crispin is bringing in from beyond the border planets – and which he isn’t being entirely truthful about. Secrets that threaten far more than just a collision with the station, but rather a collision with perceptions that may change the way of life and war for the galaxy.

Yes, Constellation XXI works perfectly fine as a standalone read, but I recommend reading any series in order. There always seems to be background data flotsam that makes the environment of the story richer and ties characters into a larger universe. As I said before, this series is a fun one to fall into. Ed Hooenart has a talent for bringing out the humour and humanity of his characters. Repelling the Invasion is probably my favourite of his series, and Constellation XXI just proves that his stories just keep getting better. Highly recommend reading this one!

Disclaimer: An ebook of Constellation XXI was provided in exchange for an honest review.

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Links

Add Constellation XXI to your Goodreads shelf:

Purchase Constellation XXI:

 

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