Review: Beautiful beautiful beautiful
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 10, 2012
So good. This story takes place in the same universe ofDark Edge of Honor. There is less focus on the political aspects and more on the different races inhabiting it. I am not an expert of science fiction, but I really enjoyed it here.This is Kyle's story. Kyle was injured and crippled by a Glyrinny weapon, which destroyed his nerves, and made him unable to walk without prosthetics, impotent and destitute. Stripped of his job and his pride, he is asked to perform a mission to access better surgery that would allow him to be more independent: he has to capture or kill a Glyrinny spy. He looks for it on board of a space ship, the Scorpion, whose pilot comes from the same planet of Kyle, but while Kyle was a simple soldier who sought his fortune abroad, this man, Grimm, belongs to the warrior chaste, a class of superior beings which Kyle failed to access.Grimm is handsome, fascinating and whole. He's probably a fallen warrior, but Kyle can't help feeling the attraction. He doesn't want to fall for it, because he is on a mission, but also because he feels inferior, damaged. Warriors on his home planet are also beings who comfort and heal people and Kyle needs comfort and recognizes his need even if he pushes it away. Grimm offers this comfort and more, clearly trying to make Kyle see that he's not half of a man because he can't feel anything from the waist down. It was heart-wrenching to see the hollowness in Kyle's life, the way he wasn't able to scrap himself together, how difficult it was for him to even believe there could still be a little bit of pleasure left for him.The story gets more complicated and I don't want to spoil it and tell too much. I want to remark the beautiful writing, I was especially impressed by the seamless way we were able to transition from Kyle's words to his thoughts, in a style that is the trademark of Aleksandr Voinov's writing and its beautiful terseness."He tried to get up, thought he felt his leg twitch, before he remembered he couldn't move his legs. He groaned with disappointment and felt so raw inside that his eyes blurred with tears."Like mine. I mean, two sentences and I'm looking for tissues. When what a character is feeling automagically transfers to me, I feel a bit silly, because, it's supposed to be fiction, but I also feel privileged at the same time because it made me _feel_. I guess Kyle'd say the same.