#byanne

Trial of the Sun Queen by Nisha J. Tuli

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Trial of the Sun Queen is about a young woman named Lor who is taken from a notoriously brutal jail cell to compete for the chance to become queen. She literally goes from rags to riches overnight. The competition is Survivor-like in the sense that the competitors don't know what the events will be ahead of time, and some test physical strength while others test mental acuity.

This book was entertaining. At one point, I saw a summary saying that it was Hunger Games meets The Bachelorette, and while I can definitely see that, I thought that kind of took away from this book. Trial of the Sun Queen took some inspiration from Throne of Glass, but the book maintains a serious tone while keeping me at the edge of my seat.

Trial of the Sun Queen is one of those books that I had a good time reading, but I admit it wasn't ground-shaking or thought-provoking. But I think that's okay. I don't think this book wanted to be that. It wanted to entertain, and it succeeded.

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Disclaimer: I DNFed (did not finish) Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan at 36%, but I want to talk about it!

Altered Carbon is a cyberpunk novel set in a universe where humans have colonized huge swatches of it. This universe is so far in the future from our own that the Mars colony is considered ancient. Human consciousness can be downloaded to various bodies to travel across large swatches of space, eliminating the need for the time it takes to travel and preserving the original bodies during this travel.

I appreciated this idea. This book asks, What does that look like when the human body isn't considered you? The answer is rentable bodies and extreme violence.

This leads to our main character, Takeshi Kovacs, getting contracted by a billionaire to discover who murdered his last body.

The story definitely pokes fun at the idea of money and class and how, without the fear of pure death, since you can download your consciousness to be reuploaded, et infinitum, the meaning of life becomes ephemeral.

Where this story fell apart for me is the handling of women's bodies.

Mild spoilers ahead! Trigger warning: Torture.

Every time a woman's character is depicted, we know the state of her "elusive globes."

Now, I totally understand that Takeshi Kovacs is a male, so I didn't mind this for a while.

At one point, we learn that one of the characters has a body that emits a drug all the time through her sweat, fluids, etc, that makes her and others around her aroused. This was an intriguing idea because, again, this spoke to the consumerism concept that living for 100s of years might generate and a disregard for the sanctity of human bodies that is pervasive in this universe.

I explain all this to say that I know the difference between when the cyberpunk genre tries to be edgy versus when the author steps too far.

The scene that made me ultimately DNF this book was when Kovacs gets tortured, and they purposefully switch him into a female body (again, the character comments on the state of the woman's upper body). The author explains that the reason they chose to torture him as a woman is because women feel more pain during their periods, and then the book proceeds to brutally mutilate the woman's body.

What literary purpose did that serve? If the goal was to make him suffer, they could've just burned his male body parts, too—why the gender swap?

Does this add to the story, or is it shock value?

Book provided for free by NetGalley

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In Soma, by Fernando Llor, I immersed myself in a fun and vibrant world on the brink of alien invasion. The comic book takes place while Maya is trying to get out of a creative slump while feeling disconnected. After helping a friend with dating problems, she returns to work and finds an alien, Soma, crash-landing in her living room. Soma warns her of an imminent invasion, and together, Maya and Soma must try to save her neighborhood/city, which is the alien invasion's first stop before the rest of the world.

I thought this comic was super fun and fast-paced. Due to its easy-to-follow nature, this would be an excellent story for young adults and beyond. As someone firmly in adulthood, I find this a fun read to pass the time. The story kept me on my toes, and I enjoyed the straightforward nature of all the characters. I think the colors of the art and style matched the story.

I didn't give it five stars because I felt that because the story valued straightforwardness, it sacrificed a bit of depth. The most fleshed-out characters seemed to be Maya's friend, but we are asked to care a lot about Maya and Soma when we don't know as much as I'd like to know about them. Maya is a struggling artist, and I understand why Soma cares about humans, but what else? Regardless, I will still read a sequel in the future, and I am now a fan of Fernando Llor.

I received an advanced reader copy for free, but all thoughts are my own.

Review by @waterflowsup