Review: Soft SF but Nice Romance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 8, 2013
Pasha is indeed an uncommon whore. He's uncommonly beautiful, and for now at least he has an uncommonly nice pimp who owns him and really only sells his services when he is need of money for gambling, which is actually quite often. But Pasha knows he wasn't always a whore. For one thing, he knows `Pasha' isn't really his name, it's just the word for slave in the language of his master. The memory of what his name was, who he was before he was a slave, has been wiped from his mind through a chip implanted in his brain.As "An Uncommon Whore" opens, Pasha's master has brought him to a seedy bar, where he will most likely sell the man's services or use him as a distraction while gambling. In the bar, Pasha spots a rough and tumble pirate, Griffin Hawke, who nonetheless draws his attention. It isn't until the man is kneeling under the table servicing him that Griffin realizes the slave swathed in robes from head to toe is the lost Prince Helios, and his former lover. He knows he must return the prince to the new home world his people have found, but that isn't going to be easy. First, he has to get Pasha's owner to part with his slave, and then he needs to find a way to get the man's memories back. All the while, they will be in constant danger from their enemies, some of whom were responsible for Pasha's enslavement.This is a nice little romance. If you're not into sci-fi, don't worry. While setting the story in the future allows for some interesting plot devices, like the chip in Helios' brain that wipes out his knowledge of his past, this is really a very `soft' science fiction story. The light, almost breezy, writing style further reinforces the idea that this isn't a `hard' science fiction story.The light writing style is probably what contributes to the story's only significant downside: the characters didn't quite come alive, for me at least. Pasha/Helios and Griffin are drawn well enough, but I didn't connect to either of them. While the plot doesn't have much in the way of twists, it does have some nice `bends' and also lays plenty of fertile mysteries for the sequel, although there's nothing of any real consequence left dangling at the end. The book feels complete as-is and won't make you feel cheated by not delivering a satisfactory ending.