Reviewed by Carissa

 

TITLE:  The Experiment

 

AUTHOR:  Alicia Nordwell

 

PUBLISHER:  Dreamspinner Press

 

LENGTH:  270 pages

 

BLURB:  

 

In the distant future, humans wage war against the alien planet Caeorleia, with no tactic off-limits if it will help the humans get their hands on Caeorleia’s resources. Ask Ryker. He thought he volunteered for a simple experiment that would help his government in the war. He didn’t realize sadistic doctors would turn him into the experiment—by injecting him with blood from a captured Caeorleian, Seral Iorflas.

 

Nor did Ryker realize he’d be sent to sabotage a planet full of the very beings his world is battling, beings who kill humans on sight. But then, thanks to the experiment that irrevocably changed him, he isn’t exactly human any longer—and with each passing day, as his blood bond with Seral strengthens, he’s less and less sure as to whose side he’s on.

 

REVIEW:  

 

“They’d lied to us.

We weren’t working on an experiment. We were the experiment.”

 

Five years ago Ryker was at the end of his rope. Broke, alone, and increasingly surrounded by the drumbeats of humanities war mongering, he took a chance at a new beginning.  It seemed the government needed some people to help study the environmental safety of a planet they intended to colonize.  As an ex lab-tech, Ryker figures he’s got as good a shot as any other candidate.  And he does.  He’s perfect.  Except it was all a lie.  And now, after five years of torture, rape, and being subjected to every test and experiment the scientists could think up, there isn’t very much left of the Ryker that left Earth in search of one last chance. After everything that has happened to him, he is not even human anymore.

 

When he is bonded genetically to the Caeorleian prisoner, Seral, and dumped on the prisoner’s home world in order to act as a spy, Ryker is nothing more than a scarred and terrified Caeorleian-human hybrid.  He doesn’t know what to make of Seral, who claims to be Ryker’s isit–basically husband/bondmate–or the strange family that is now claiming him as their own.  Life, over the last five years, has taught him everything about pain and degradation, so he very much doubts that it has suddenly decided to listen to his broken please now.  But when Seral looks at him…

 

I loved the aliens in this book.  Seriously, they and the world they lived on were great.  It felt like someone actually took the time to think up an alien that was different enough to make me curious, but real enough that I didn’t spend most of the book totally confused as to what exactly it was that I am supposed to be imagining.  I found it cool that the author made these aliens feel unique.  And loved seeing them react to the various noises that Ryker makes, especially his laughing.

 

The connection/love between Ryker and Seral was very well written.  It didn’t feel like insta-love, though it certainly had enough of the traits.  The bonding between them connected them, but it felt like the romance had to grow at its own pace.  After everything that Ryker had been through, it was nice to see that he didn’t automatically take one look at Seral and want to jump his bones.  Trust became want, became desire, became love.  And while I would have liked for the love part to have held off a bit longer, it never felt out of place when it did crop up.  There were also some hot biting scenes which pleased me greatly.  Oh the joys of sex with vampiric aliens…(feel like I should mention they are not in fact vampires, they just have a lovely set of fangs and a penchant for nibbling on their bed partners).

 

There are several aspects of this book that didn’t quite work with me.  Ryker turns into a bit of an annoying, whining, ass, and Seral into an overprotective he-man cliché.  It was only for a bit, but it was not pleasant to read all the same.  I get that Ryker feels the need to do something, to help the man he loves…but for the love of all that is shiny and sweet can we please stop having characters, after taking a hit to their ego, sneak off convinced that they clearly know better than anyone else that ever existed?  It makes me want to start shooting people. I swear this cliché pops up in ⅔ of all action-orientated stories.  And I want it to stop.  I don’t like that I can pick up a story and know exactly how the climax is going to come about.  It kills the fun.  I read for the fun.  Please stop trying to kill my fun.

 

Also, the reveal of the traitor….  Really?  Like there was no build up whatsoever to that reveal.  The character basically turned from fun-loving to crazed and power-hungry in like the length of a few pages.  It made no sense.  None.  I get that it was supposed to be a surprise, but you don’t live with someone that long, know them their whole lives and care for them that deeply without seeing at least some aspects of raging psycho-killer pop up at some point.  It just felt incredibly forced.

 

I was impressed by this novel.  While there were some points where it fell into cliché, it never seemed to stay there for long, and it always strived to work everything into a clear plot.  The writing was entertaining enough that I didn’t want to stop reading, and I was drawn to these characters from almost their first words.  And can I say it was refreshing to read a SciFi novel that doesn’t feel the need to explain every single detail to me?  Books that basically have their first chapter read as “This is the History of the Universe and Every Organism Found in it” bore me to tears.  I really felt like the author trusted us to simply stick with the story, to learn as we go along, and I have to say that was wonderful.  And not just because it actually made the story flow right from the beginning.  We knew what we needed to know, when we needed to know it, and the rest of the minutia was left to our imaginations.  And since most of the characters were naked for good portion of the book…it was rather pleasant imaginings.  I had a lot of fun in this world (three cheers for cultural-based nudity!), and I hope that there is another book in the series so we get a chance to go back and learn some more.

 

RATING:  

 

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