20 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Victorious Star - Definitely A Keeper, Jan 10 2007
By Vixenne Victorienne "Kymberlyn Reed" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Interstellar Service & Discipline: Victorious Star (Paperback)
Practically everyone reviewing this book has gushed over the sex scenes, which are definitely hot and not for the faint of heart or easily offended. There's strong BDSM, m/f and m/f/m scenes as well as one other consensual act that can't be mentioned here. However, what makes Victorious Star worthy of the 5-star rating is the overall story itself.
Ms. Hawke has brilliantly fused such diverse ideas ranging from the 80's cyberpunk movement to Anne McCaffrey's 'The Ship Who Sang' and even throwing in a bit of ancient Egyptian language. She has created a universe full of sentient ships and fascinating races and peppered it with large interstellar battles worthy of C.S. Forester and Patrick O'Brien with enough action and derring-do to make even 007 wipe his brow.
That's a good thing because if the book depended on the strength of its characters it wouldn't have succeeded as well. Unfortunately the three main characters - Captain Aubrey Ravnos, his second-in-command, the skheldi blood prince Seht and their soon-to-be submissive, former Imperial nav-pilot Victoria Stark - aren't as fully fleshed out as they could have been.
Aubrey and Seht have what seems to be the standard Dom/Dom relationship in books such as this one and frankly it seemed a little improbable that Seht, a blood-prince from the warlike and rather vicious skheldi, would choose to be less than overly dominant towards a human (Aubrey) whom his people regard as nothing more than pleasure toys and slaves.
Victoria Stark, known as the "Victorious Star" for her habit of rescuing ships from nearly impossible situations brought about by incompetent captains goes from tough, [...] and self-assured to submissive without a really tangible transition point. She maintains the attitude, but that seems less about her personality and more about a plot device that moves the story along. She likes the sex, but often has interior monologues that make her (and the reader) wonder why. There's no deeper look into her need and desire to be dominated, especially by these two alpha males. Also, the few m/m scenes weren't as intense as I'd hoped.
Overall though, Victorious Star is a compelling read and a good book from a talented author. I've read on the author's website there's to be both a sequel and a prequel. That's great because it would definitely help flesh out the lives of the characters more.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting blend of the future adventure genre with the erotic romance genre, Jan 18 2007
By G. Robinson "Extensive reader" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Interstellar Service & Discipline: Victorious Star (Paperback)
A surprisingly successful blending of two genre that normally don't really go together. Yes there's the Empresses' New Clothes but that's really erotic romance captured by aliens sub genre. Victoria is a Nav-pilot who is augmented so that she can interact with the sentient ships. She likes them much better than her superior officers and often saves the ship at their expense. She is an Imperial officer but is dumped outside the Imperial borders to wait for pickup and reassignment after embarrassing her two superior officers by winning a battle after they abandoned ship. She gets in a fight with the nav-pilot of the mercenary ship she ran off and kills him. She is abducted by the ships captain Ravnos to act as the nav-pilot for his ship. But she is shared with his lover Seht one of the non-human Skeldhi who normally hate humans except as pets and sex toys. There's an interesting villain who apparently is like the energizer bunny he just keeps going and going. The character development is good and the characters compelling with a good plot and some humor.
But this book has light non-consensual sex, same sex sex, BDSM, Ds, MS and is not for those who find these distasteful. Although over all its good enough it might change your mind. Hopefully this is the start of a series.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
SMOKIN!@!!!!!, May 26 2007
By Hayley - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Interstellar Service & Discipline: Victorious Star (Paperback)
This book was a wonderful blend of sf with hot erotic scenes. Not for the faint of heart! M/M and M/M/F action abound. BDSM bordering on rape. I read this book in 2 hours and could not put it down. I have to say that I think this is one of Hawke's best books yet.