Best Futuristic Novel (3° place): Hell Cop by Astrid Amara, Nicole Kimberling & Ginn Hale

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Next of Kin by Astrid Amara

In a futuristic world, the type I tagged Apocalypse Now, people live side by side with demons. Actually demons seem to have replace human in the most common jobs, and they are at the command of special men, the sorcerers. There are some big families of sorcerers, they are like the new aristocracy, and every sorcerer have some special powers, who more, who less.

Jay Yervant is one of those special men, but his powers brought more pain than anything else to him. He is a blazing man, like a human torch. He can't touch a human since he leaves deeply burns, and so he "banished" himself from his family. He became an Hell Cop, a special unit to fight the renegade demons. Jay has also another reason to disappoint his family, he is gay. But actually, other than feel desire for men, he has never acted upon it, since no lover can bear his touch.

Enter Brian, a 21 years old naive man... he is like a child in a candy store. Brian has always lived in a rural community which refused the modern technology, and above all the magic. But Brian didn't fit in the community and he left for the big city. Only that he wasn't prepared to what the big city is, he didn't know that demons were real, and not only a bogus the priest on the community used to scare the kid. Among all the caos the only thing normal seems his attraction to Jay, actually I didn't understand where and when Brian acquired all his sexual experience, unless in that community they did something else other than pray ;-)

Anyway it seems that Brian is the only guy able to touch Jay without being injured, and Jay was attracted to Brian even before discovering this "little" particular... maybe the days of Jay as a virgin are limited! If you think I'm joking, you are right, since the novella has a very funny mood on it. It deals with bloody killings, with body parts splattered all around, but I don't know how, it still manages to be funny. Maybe it's Brian's innocence, his fixation on having sex with Jay that makes him forget everything else around. Maybe it's also a bit the Cinderfella theme, since Jay is from a very wealthy family, but he chose to live far from them, and Brian is this poor guy living in a shitty apartment...

Really I don't know, usually I'm not a big fan of futuristic setting and too much blood around, but this time I read it all and would have been willing to read more. And in a nice play of contrast, both men preserve a type of innocence: Brian with his isolated upbringing has an innocent soul, even if he experienced sex, and instead Jay, who has seen too much and lived in a corrupted world, due to his special powers is still a virgin, at least on a physical level.

Red Sands by Nicole Kimberling

The story is set in the same universe as before, and this time has as main hero another Hell Cop, colleague of Jay. Actually Jay makes only a cameo for reference and instead Brina has a little role, where he confirms his naivete. Argent, Jay's colleague, is of a different sort from his friend. From what I understood, Jay comes from a sorcery family, and he has his special powers as a birthright, instead Argent chose to become an Hell Cop and was trained in the art of sorcery. Due to that, Argent, and his story, has a different feeling, it's more simple, and almost not "paranormal".

To balance a bit the lack of paranormal event, Argent chosen lover for the story is Michael, an half-demon half-human. From someone with demon blood you would expect from him to be something special, and instead Michael is an average man. He is a college professor, an anthropologist, who spends a lot of time far from his planet in some mission. When he is at home, he is not even a particular affectionate man, he has a family that obviously loves him, but he is detached from them. Michael's father was a famous rocker, and probably he used his relationship with Michael's mother, a demon from another planet, to gain popularity. Even if proud of his son, Michael's father was too much lost on his sex, drugs and rock and roll world to be a paternal figure. How strange that a otherworldly kid like Michael was subjected to the same destiny of the sons of the rich and famous.

Maybe since he is tired to be "different", maybe since he is alone, Michael's relationship with Argent flows in a nice and quite way; there is no paranormal event, no sudden passion, they meet, they like, they love, probably the only ordinary thing amid the extraordinary that is around them. Even Michael's special powers to read people mind by touch are neutralized by Argent's training, putting them on the same level of emotion.

Overall the lasting feeling is of a nice romance cop, and even the final solution is somewhat simple like that.

Touching Sparks by Ginn Hale

The last story is even more ordinary of the previous two, and I'm using the word ordinary in a derogatory way, remember that the futuristic genre is not usually my cup of tea.

No one of the two men involved in this story has special powers or half blood otherworldly lineage. Moran is an Hell Cop, and as all the Hell Cop, he was trained in sorcery, but all his powers are learned not inherited. He is the classical cop of wet dreams, dark, handsome and mourning. And as all the mourning cops, he needs a "fresh" boy to bring him out of his sadness.

James Sparks, Sparky for Moran, was the teenager kid who lived near Moran many years ago. Now he is a successful photographer who is stumbled in a drugs illegal market with illegal fight side entertainment. James is too good boy next door to let it go and obviously he asks help to Moran and forces the man to involve him as undercover spy. Moran has some trouble to match the memories of the skinny teenager with this young man, and he builds in his mind an imagine that is not exactly true: he sees James like a virgin damsel in distress that Moran has to help but not debauch.

This is the shorter of the stories and probably the less light of the three. It's a dark and gothic feeling, a sense of danger probably enhanced by the fact that no one of the heroes involved have special powers to shield them from death.



http://www.loose-id.com/detail.aspx?ID=827

Amazon Kindle: Hell Cop by Astrid Amara, Nicole Kimberling & Ginn Hale

Reading List:

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Cover Art by April Martinez

Comments

Character's name

[judith-david.livejournal.com]

Many thanks for your review of Hell Cop, Elisa. And many thanks for your unflagging support of writers in the m/m genre. Just a quick note, though. Fine name, is Adam -- just not the right name. The character to whom you refer is called Brian.

Re: Character's name

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Yes, sorry. And I was also pretty convinced in my error... NO excuse, maybe my mind thought Adam, and it remains sticked, and since Amara's novella was the first one I read, at the end I was not "fresh". Pity I don't check the blurb since I try to avoid to write a replica of it. Elisa