The most memorable thing in this novel was the short sentence, “You burn, I burn, Ash.” Ash is the abbreviated last name of the main female character. I don't think the author realized there was unintended humor in writing that. Or maybe she did. But it seemed emblematic of this novel: one I had begun to like, but which by fifty percent of the way through had devolved into such a dumb-ass romance that I couldn't stand to read it anymore.
Thoughtless phrases like the one mentioned above littered this novel, so even as I started to like the main character and started to get into the story, these still brought me up with a short sharp stop every now and then. At one point, I read, "The second grabbed her arm, the arm connected to her dislocated shoulder." If it’s dislocated, it’s not connected, and vice-versa. I know what she's trying to say, but there are much better ways of saying it that evidently went unexplored there.
Another laughable line was: "She kept navigation on manual, took the controls, and banked away from the Obsidian." Spacecraft don't bank. Aircraft bank because they have to. Spacecraft don’t. Again, thoughtless writing. Another was a Star-Trek-ism: "She was as still as a Caruthian deer." On Star Trek (I don't even watch it any more, but unfortunately the memory refuses to fade) they were always talking about 'planet of origin-Item' as an indivisible pair. It was laughable. Same here. Why a Caruthian deer? Why not just a deer? Do Caruthian deer turn to stone when they become still - à la a weeping angels from Doctor Who? I doubt it. Just 'a deer' would have been fine. You don't need to specify the planet it came from because such a reference is both pretentious and meaningless. And poor writing. One last one: "You’re anomaly is unresponsive, Commander." She doesn't mean 'you are anomaly'; she means 'your anomaly'. Again, inattentive writing. As writers, we’ve all been there, and one of these once in a while is forgivable, but so many of them were too many.
In terms of the story itself, the anomaly is Lieutenant Ramie Ashdyn, or Ash for short. Nowhere in the 50% I read is an anomaly actually explained. It references a certain type of person, but how or why they're considered anomalies I cannot tell you because the author couldn't tell me. This genetic condition (or whatever it's supposed to be) appears to render them into a super soldier or spy or whatever is it they choose to do. Why does this happen? I don't know.
So anyway, Ashdyn is an anomaly and of course even more anomalous than others because of her attitude. I enjoyed this to begin with because it made her badass - that is until fifty percent into this story, when the romantic bullshit between her and her commanding officer became far too big a part of the story and entirely inappropriate for three major reasons. The first of these was that he was her commanding officer - her superior, her authority figure, and therefore this was entirely wrong. The second is worse, believe it or not. This superior officer - who she referred to as 'Rip' - were given unnatural mental control over their subordinates through the use of some sort of compulsion brainwashing, which meant these subordinates were unable to refuse a special type of command the officer could issue. The command could be anything, but when issued in the right way, they had no choice but to obey it. In short, they were slaves. Again, having sex with someone under that kind of control is entirely inappropriate.
The third reason was simply ridiculous, and I guess I should have paid more attention to the 'Shades of' portion of the title here. While it's a gray area, I do take full responsibility for my lack of focus here. Ashdyn has been off these special meds she takes and so is extraordinarily weakened (because she's an anomaly). On top of that, she'd been tortured for an hour, including having too-tight manacles on her limbs, and having at least one finger deliberately broken as well as having some device that causes extreme pain, but not damage, applied to her head several times. She'd been in a fight - both physical and using weapons - had stolen a space transport and crash-landed on the nearby planet, hiked in her increasingly weakening state through a forest, and then been forced to roll down the side of a canyon in order to escape being shot. In other words, she wasn't beaten, but she was battered and bruised, cut and damaged, with lord knows how many broken ribs and pulled muscles, and at the end of her string.
After all of this, and while washing off in a river - during which of course she has to get naked in order to get 'properly clean', as does her finely-chiseled and muscular superior officer - she's entertaining sexual thoughts about him - all her injuries and pain completely forgotten. This is the woman whose fiancé betrayed her, yet she has zero thoughts about that guy: not a sliver of a longing, or a regret or anything, and yet now she's suddenly lusting after this rugged commander for whom she's had zero feelings until he all-but beats up on her while she's manacled. I understand that later she has sex with him. But thankfully, I didn't read that far. I'd like to invite the author to abuse herself to the same extent she dictates that her female character gets abused and then see how sexual she feels after it. My guess is that her answer will be 'not bloody much'.
I can see a guy writing bullshit like this, but a female author? I don't get it at all. It’s entirely inappropriate and all it achieves is to turn what was shaping up to be a fine and strong female character into the wilting violet star of a cheesy Harlequin southern romance. It’s barf-worthy. This novel is warty to the max and I don't see where it can possibly go that's intelligent after this. Wherever that turns out to be, I don't want to go there with it. Half of this was too much by half.
