Review: Sharp and Imaginative Sci Fi Action & Romance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 16, 2014
I read Berinn Rae's short story in Tales from the SFR Brigade (excellent, by the way), and she was one of the author's I followed up with after finishing that collection. I started with Collision since I like SFR.I liked this book a lot. The beginning really hooked me in and there was a lot of growth to the heroine. My only complaint was the lack of insight into Legian. By the end, I felt like I knew alpha characters Apolo and Jax better. There is a three month leap in time early in the book, and this would have been the best time to discover personality quirks about Legian. I felt cheated as this was when Legian and Sienna discovered each other. Although it is written in third person, we never really get into Legian's head like we do Sienna's.That nitpick aside, I felt the sequence action in this book was terrific. There was a lot of physical confrontation in terms of fight scenes among the humans and aliens, and I was able to follow the action very well in my head. Sometimes romance authors really lose their pacing in these scenes, but not Rae! She is very strong in this aspect, and each scene is built very well and not at all repetitive. There is a lot of imagination when it comes to the weapons.The sci fi elements were interesting, including the physical differences with the Sephian and Draeken races. She also incorporated differences in other physical ways related to light/dark, food, healing, etc. I thought it was pretty original.I also liked the irreverence of the characters. Sienna and Ben were probably the funniest. Rae had a lot of great quips, quoted by another reviewer for this book. The humor sparkled throughout, and it was nice that Sienna didn't curb that personality quirk for anybody.There are a lot of characters to keep track of in Collision, but Rae does a great job giving each one distinctive personalities and appearances. Actually, one of Rae's strongest writing skills is the introduction of new characters. You leave the scene with a good sense of who just walked into it.  There will be plenty of storylines to mine for books two and three!