Review: Wandering Star by K.M. Penemue

Zane and Sixia are Jacks, meaning they'll take on almost any job, though most of their time is spent running cargo and hunting bounties across space.

While on Venus, they take on a job well outside the usual: deliver Isais, a slave, to his waiting master. The job comes with explicit instructions not to treat Isais like a person, but it's not long before Zane finds himself enjoying Isais's company more and more.

Adding to the stress is the fact that someone doesn't want them completing the job, and doesn't mind leaving them dead if that's what it takes. But if they somehow manage to make to the delivery point, Zane fears letting Isais go will prove infinitely harder than keeping everyone alive.

It’s not explicitly displayed in the blurb nor by the labels in the publishing house, so I will tell it myself: this is a POLYAMOROUS book. For some reason I can’t consider this M/M/F. I don’t consider it a spoiler, just a fair warning, or at least, the fair warning I would have liked to read before getting into this adventure.

Because it’s action-packed, that’s undeniable. It’s fun, and well-written, and easy to read, and very very cool.

Sixia and Zane are Jacks. They accept any job that can make money, mostly outer-space deliveries, but this time their assignment is different: they are requested to bring a slave to the King of a faraway planet. And they are ordered not to treat him as a person.

Zane fails spectacularly.

The sense of humor is great.

So why am I so deflated? Well, for starters, this is my first asexual book and maybe this sounds absurd but I wanted my first time to be special. I expected a love story in which the MC would accept his partner with no conditions and with no “alternative” resolutions.

This means: I wanted the MC to be with the other MC and be utterly happy with that. Just like any other love story.

But what happened with Zane was this instead: I love that blue-haired guy but he doesn’t want sex, but that doesn’t matter because I can happily fuck the girl. WTF? Don’t get me wrong, he never says that and I honestly believe he truly falls in love with Isais and loves Sixia, too, and he’s obviously content with both of them.

The problem is, I wasn’t.

I know I’m making this sound worse than it should but I felt Isais was the consolation prize, the second choice, the not-enough-for-me kind of person.

I didn’t like that. At all. I wanted Isais to be his everything. But he wasn’t, he was just a part of his everything. Because the other part is Sixia and the sex.

I felt the book was trying to sell me the story that the solution for people falling in love with asexual people is to fuck another person instead. And no worries about that, because the HEA for the three of them is guaranteed.

Just no.

I mean, I have no experience in these asexual stories but it felt all WRONG to me! Asexual people don’t want sex but I have a feeling their hearts are intact. I’ve always assumed they longed for their other half as any other human being does, and that doesn’t include accepting your partner to have fun with another. Maybe I’m too naïve in this but those are my feelings and I can’t change them. For me, asexual people and people who are in a polyamorous relationship are two different concepts, not the same one. They may coincide sometimes but not because it’s inherent in their natures but because they feel complete with said situation.

You should know I’m not a fan of M/M/M and much less of polyamorous, so I try to avoid them. That’s why I would have appreciated to have had some kind of warning. Unfortunately, for some reason, the out-of-the-ordinary romances are quite vague in their descriptions, so I’m never sure when I’m reading a blurb whether or not they are telling me what I need to know, and I unavoidably feel cheated afterwards.

Still, I’ve read some threesomes love stories that were precious to me. I just have to be REALLY motivated to read them and for the author to be REALLY good at it. So they are not an absolute contraindication, but a relative one.

*****

Second part of the review.

Adding to this big romantic fail we have to consider the scientific one.

There was a scene in which there is a heart arrest. And they save the person with an injection in the heart. I admit Tarantino is the best, I admire him, I love him and I think he’s the best American you can find, he’s my role model in so many ways (well, ok, I try control myself. Mostly). Whatever, I would vote him for President and all. But I would never, never, NEVER, ask him to save my life.

Why?

Well, because that scene is… a myth. To give you a hint, cardiac surgeons think about it VERY seriously before deciding to make a pericardiocentesis, and only the most trained ones manage to do it without complications. Translation: if you are not careful, you can perforate the heart, and everybody with more than two neurons knows that’s bad news.

So, do you honestly believe a non-experienced person should do it?

I’m not an expert, and that’s why I know I would NEVER do it. I mean, if I was in the middle of nowhere (outer-space) and I had to stick a big needle in someone’s chest to save his life… I would reject that foolhardy idea immediately. I mean, a hole in your heart, no less! How can this possibly result in a happily-ever-after?

It’s a bit too dangerous. Firstly, the chances to reach the part of the heart you want to reach are small, and even less if you have no knowledge of anatomy. Secondly, the person would bleed himself dry in a matter of minutes. Thirdly, if he doesn’t bleed himself to death (I doubt it), it would easily get complicated into an hemopericardium that could lead to cardiac tamponade that could lead to cardiogenic shock. And if that doesn’t happen, there are also endless chances of complications: infection (pneumonia, miocarditis, pleurits, etc), hemo/pneumothorax, the rupture of an important vessel with the consequent internal bleeding… and maybe some may not lethal by themselves at first but one possible/probable/unavoidable common road to them all is… yes! You are right! Death! Sooner or later, but death nonetheless. Above all with no medical support, in the middle of the space. With the injection he may (shockingly) live, but that doesn’t mean he will have a long life, if you know what I’m trying to say. And of course, when you finally get to reanimate someone, there is no guarantee that there are no sequels. The more time it takes to reanimate someone, the more chances for that person to suffer some degree of brain damage, above all when you have waste precious seconds in preparing and using the injection (neurons don’t take ischemia very well). So when the character wakes up and begins walking and causing trouble again as if nothing has happened, with barely no symptoms at all (maybe a little of weakness) I was not entirely convinced. But hey, everything for the sake of fiction, I guess.

If I was there, I’d use the injection in whatever vein I can find and proceed with CPR in a heartbeat (pun intended). If I find none, I would inject it anyway and pray my brains out while doing the CPR. That way the drug would circulate really quickly and hopefully do its work. You know what? Forget the injection, I’d do the CPR right-the-fuck-now! CPR is the trick, break the ribs if you have to but DO IT WELL AND DON’T STOP.

But hey, that’s me. You can do whatever you think suitable.

But do you know what’s the worst thing? None of this is necessary. Things are much more obscure. The crux of the matter is: how come we are in the future in the middle of nowhere and the spaceship doesn’t have defibrillators? (Or any other cool technology you could expect) More and more businesses have one. Nowadays there are very dumb defibrillators, you put the paddles on the chest, order everybody to stay clear, push a button and voilà. Even kids learn to use them.

We are in the future and we have fancy sodas, but no defibrillators. Think about it a minute or two. Lots of spaceships. With artificial gravity. And fancy sodas. But no defibrillators.

It’s kind of mind-blowing and not because we are in the space.

This future sucks, IMO.

So I honestly believe this is a good book, but for the reasons I have told above I couldn’t fully enjoy it. I still recommend it, though, because I’m pretty sure other readers would appreciate it better than I did.

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