Reviewer: newaunty Signed
Date: 11/23/2013
Title: Sharing the Sunlight
Thank you for writing this amazingly complex and spellbinding series. I've enjoyed every word. I was waiting until I finished completely to review, now I wish I'd reviewed as I went, because after spending two weeks reading it, and another two weeks trying to work out what to say, the details are slipping from my mind.
The rest of my review will almost certainly container spoilers, so fair warning to anybody who reads it!
Your writing is excellent, it's easy to see you're a professional writer. Your characterisation is spot on, your spelling and grammar perfect (sounds basic, but it separates the pros from the amateurs) and you've successfully introduced and integrated new characters. I especially liked Irina Hunyady. And the word "hobgoblin" didn't appear once, which was a huge relief!
"Sharing the Sunlight", the first novel, is probably the one I remember least thoroughly. I think I read the the first part, skipped ahead to find the first sex scene, and continued reading from there (sorry!) Then after I'd finished the series, I went back and read the middle part!
I loved the humour in "Double Trouble" and "Primal Scream", and the first person viewpoint of "One Night". "Promises to Keep" was achingly sad, "Jagged Edges" and "In the Shade" only slightly less so. Thank you for writing a realistic Pon Farr - this is somewhat how I always pictured it would really be. I'd so like to see the next one, now that they're bonded, I imagine it will be much different and much more fulfilling. Spock's injury is so tragic because it was so mindless and unnecessary. Your concept of how the telepathic sense ties in with all the other senses sounds so right.
You write sex really well. One of my favourite authors said, in terms of how to write good sex, that sex scenes are about emotions, not actions, and you prove this to be true. More evidence that you do this professionally. I had a good giggle about the search for Spock's prostate - as soon as I read the words, ". . . shifts in gland size and position," I knew Jim was going to find it! I enjoyed your descriptions of the reality of a homosexual relationship, both the physical and the emotional/psychological adjustments required of both Kirk and Spock. And I understand you created the term Chenesi - gotta love the person responsible for that!
I found "Son of Sarek" very touching, especially Spock's relationship with Jamomi - I would enjoy seeing Jim and Spock become parents one day, perhaps adopting when they're permanently stationed planetside. I think Spock was born to be a father, it's something he needs to do, he has so much to offer as a parent.
"In the Shade", where do I start? I didn't like the whole story of Fahtima, I found it a difficult concept to swallow, mostly her feelings and motivations. I understand, however, that you had to engineer the return of Spock's telepathic abilities somehow, and this was the purpose of the Fahtima storyline. I'm so glad they did return. All the way through the last novel, I knew that ultimately Spock would be OK. Thank God he is, it would have been an unbearably tragic ending if not.
Version made my skin crawl. I felt his actions at Golgotharen crossed the line from unethical to outright criminal. I did like that Spock literally escaped though, and weeks later Versin hadn't even realised he was no longer there! A display of Versin's arrogance and lack of compassion - he dictates, almost unthinkingly, the future path of Spock's life, erasing Kirk from it because of his own prejudice, uncaring of the phenomenal effect his actions will have on at least two lives. Yet he takes so little interest in Spock's treatment or progress that he doesn't even bother to check before he issues another "update" to his family! Sluman and T'Braggia I liked a lot, though.
I would've very much liked to see the Enterprise's experience with the Graves Gravitational Mass. I kept reading references to it and feeling that I must've missed something. I wanted to go and look for it, this story that I must have somehow neglected to read.
Thank you for recognizing that in the twenty third century, Australia hasn't fallen off the planet! Even if I wouldn't be caught dead living in Melbourne, thanks for including it on the planetary map!
Overall, I enjoyed the whole series immensely, more than I've enjoyed any other. I wish I had it to begin all over again. I've read your other K /S work, and I hold out hope that you may write something further. Thank you so much for writing this and sharing it with all of us.
