Ocean's Echo

Product Information

I honestly can’t think of a single space opera I don’t like, so it’s not surprising that Ocean’s Echo is joining the list of sci-fis I really enjoyed. That woman over there, with the flint-and-gold necklace and the weapon at her belt, was an architect. The plot didn’t need to be so complex (and arguably the book didn’t have the range to do that complexity well anyway). I was hoping that it would give me the same feelings of awe and delight that Winter's Orbit did, and instead it delivered them on an even higher level. And among the rubble is a treasure both terrible and unimaginably powerful, one that upends a decades-old power struggle, and begins a war.

I was super duper excited to request this one off NetGalley because I really enjoyed Winter's Orbit, but then I actually read the synopsis and it implied it had three of my absolutely least favorite things: mind control, military fraternization, and power imbalance brought about by those two things. That's another general thing I loved - the development of their relationship and connection was impeccable.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. I wish we would have had another chapter or an epilogue for a bit more Tennal and Surit, but I really enjoyed it overall.

Strange Horizons is looking to add an additional social media editor and accessibility editor to our editorial collective. His intentional self-destruction is like a set of sparkly fireworks going off and burning down everything - you can't look away from the sparks! That said for a military space opera I really enjoyed exploring this world and this different genetic manipulation and how the political tensions played out.Maxwell's Winter's Orbit is a stunning new space opera debut, striking with all the skill of a master staff wielder. They end up friends, allies and they might end up having sex, but this could have been just as well a friendship story, or they are just great friends on the way to fuckbuddies ? My favorite thing about Maxwell’s writing is the way she manages to balance small-scale focus on the developing relationship between the two main characters and more large-scale focus on a societal conflict that has been plaguing their world for decades.

Exploring this genetic manipulation with our main characters was also fascinating, especially in the later half of the book. This stand-alone set in the same universe as Winter's Orbit is an exciting, fast-paced sci-fi adventure with great worldbuilding and complex characters. Because it takes place in the same world, it's hard to not compare them, but it has a similar vibe to Winter's Orbit, but Ocean's Echo feels much more of a sci-fi story, with an undercurrent of romance in it. However, Maxwell gives both of her main characters their time to shine, and Surit—kind, disciplined, steadfast, stubborn—is just as fleshed out. Instead Tennal flirted his way past security in the hotel lobby and walked into the elevator as if he belonged there.although it took me a while to get invested in the story, i was eventually drawn in and intrigued by the second half, which was way better than the first half.

It is always fun to follow a character like Tennal who would happily stay out of all of the conflict and is instead dragged into the center of it.As SFF readers, we're all familiar with mind reading and a "mind meld" between two (or more) people, right? I get the initial resistance, they were in an unequal power dynamic situation which isn’t great for true romance but there wasn’t much of a build up from absolutely no to true love. Perhaps it’s clear from this paragraph what my first point is going to be about, and that’s the worldbuilding. She wasn’t interested in threatening him, and there was none of the prurient interest that would suggest she knew who his family was.