The Diabolic by S.J. Kincaid

Publication Date: November 1, 2016

Series: STANDALONE

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi/Space Opera

Subjects: space colonies, genetic modification, bodyguards, impersonation, royalty

Setting: In space, spaceships and space colonies

POV/Tense: 1^st person, past tense: Nemesis dan Impyrean

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 403 pgs. (In ARC version, at least)

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: Simon & Schuster: BFYR

Summary/ product description: “Red Queen meets The Hunger Games in this epic novel about what happens when the galaxy’s most deadly weapon masquerades as a senator’s daughter and a hostage of the galactic court.

A Diabolic is ruthless. A Diabolic is powerful. A Diabolic has a single task: Kill in order to protect the person you’ve been created for.

Nemesis is a Diabolic, a humanoid teenager created to protect a galactic senator’s daughter, Sidonia. The two have grown up side by side, but are in no way sisters. Nemesis is expected to give her life for Sidonia, and she would do so gladly. She would also take as many lives as necessary to keep Sidonia safe.

When the power-mad Emperor learns Sidonia’s father is participating in a rebellion, he summons Sidonia to the Galactic court. She is to serve as a hostage. Now, there is only one way for Nemesis to protect Sidonia. She must become her. Nemesis travels to the court disguised as Sidonia—a killing machine masquerading in a world of corrupt politicians and two-faced senators’ children. It’s a nest of vipers with threats on every side, but Nemesis must keep her true abilities a secret or risk everything.

As the Empire begins to fracture and rebellion looms closer, Nemesis learns there is something more to her than just deadly force. She finds a humanity truer than what she encounters from most humans. Amidst all the danger, action, and intrigue, her humanity just might be the thing that saves her life—and the empire.”

My Review:  I’ve had the great pleasure of reading an advance copy of this, provided by Anderson’s Bookshop and Bookfair in Naperville, Illinois. They have a pre-pub event August 22 that I had wanted to attend, but have class that night. The author will be there to sign ARCs and there will be food. If you live in Chicagoland and are interested, please contact them and pick up you ARC. Seeing as this book has not yet been released and won’t be until November first, I won’t spoil anything major, but I’ll tell you about it the best I can.

The Diabolic is a sci-fi story that takes place in space. It’s part dystopian, part space opera. Nemesis is a Diabolic, which is a genetically engineered bodyguard that is bonded to one person, and seeks to protect only that person, even if it means harming the people that person care about. Nemesis belongs to Sidonia Impyrean, the daughter of a galactic Senator.

Sidonia is summoned by the Emperor to the Chrysanthemum, the space colony where the royal court is located. Sidonia’s mother decides to have Nemesis go in her steed. Nemesis is taught etiquette and under goes genetic modifications to her appearance and to make her body seem more average in size and strength so she won’t be discovered to be a Diabolic. 

When Nemesis gets to court, she discovers that playing a Senatorial heir might be harder than she thought. She might have to take extreme measure to keep her secret and to protect the Impyrean family. She soons discovers that in the royal court, there’s always some plot, scandal or assassination attempt in the works and it’s best to trust no one.

The Emperor has three of his own Diabolics, even though they were outlawed everywhere else, and knowledge Nemesis’s mere existence could cause the execution of the Impyreans for treason. She thinks his Diabolics might be on to her. On top on that, the emperor’s nephew and heir Tyrus seems to be taking notice of her, and if rumors are true, then he’s insane, but maybe there’s something cleverer about him that she thinks.

The characters of this book are pretty interesting. Nemesis is very different from other YA heroines. She was meant to be a bodyguard and not care about her own well-being. She’s like Rose from Vampire Academy, but with the selflessness of Tris from Divergent. Sidonia is like Lissa from Vampire Academy, then. Tyrus reminds me of Nikolai from the Grisha series, though I won’t tell you why, except for some of the narcissistic and ego-related humor. Some of the characters annoyed me because they talked overly formally, like they’re from Elizabethan times to something. Some were so shallow and back-stabbing.

I thought the sci-fi stuff and technology was cool, except for the genetically modified “creatures” or “humanoids.” Nemesis is not considered humor because she was engineered. She’s very strong and fast, but they didn’t give her tear ducts, so she can’t cry. She denies that she feels thing like other people. She can kill without remorse. It’s likely because she was nurtured to kill and not part of her nature like she had believed. There are Exalted, which are hairless innocents grown and cared for during a holiday week only to be sent into a star to die. There are Harmonoids, engineered only to play music. There are Servitors who are only meant to serve and have no free will.

The cool technology includes machines that can change you appearance easily with genetic alteration. You can have any hair color, eye color, skin color, facial feature or even change your sex. There are hair stilts, which can hold you hair in any style you please. There’s also artificial youth so older folks can look young again. There are medbots to heal you.

On the uncool side of things, there are drugs, like opioid rubs, narcotics and inhaled euphorics, and they’re all legal in the empire and they use the med bots to fix any problem that occur from them. There’s also the Helionic religion, in which the worship the Living Cosmos and view any pursuit of science or mathematics as heresy.

I recommend this to those who enjoyed The Jewel by Amy Ewing, Red Queen by Victoria Avyard, any book set in space, or book about a royal court. There is a kind of Capital-esque feel to the court, so I even recommend it to Hunger Games fans.

Cover Art Review: One of the most gorgeous cover’s I’ve seen! I love butterflies. This is one beautiful yet deadly butterfly. It’s very metaphorical. I love that the knives and the title are metallic. This cover is pretty symmetrical and simple, like Red Queen’s cover.

Domination by Jon S. Lewis

Series: The C.H.A.O.S. Trilogy (bk.3 )

Genera(s): Sci-fi/Adventure

Subjects: aliens, action, genetic modification, government agencies, friendship

Setting: A school, Washington D.C., an alien world

POV/Tense: 3^rd person POV, limited: Colt McAlister

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 266 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover or Paperback

List Price: $14.99/$9.99

Publisher: Thomas Nelson (the Christian Imprint of HarperCollins)

Summary/ product description: “THEIR GOAL IS SIMPLE: TOTAL DOMINATION.

With six arms and jaws that can snap a man in two, the warmongering race of aliens known as the Thule has conquered every planet they’ve attacked.

And now their invasion of Earth has begun.

Humanity’s only hope springs from a mysterious Thule legend about a Betrayer, who they believe will rise up and destroy their people. The American government tried to manufacture their own Betrayer by injecting children with Thule blood but time after time the experiment failed . . . until Colt McAlister.

A decade later, Colt is a 16-year-old cadet at the CHAOS Military Academy where he’s training to defend mankind. But he’s afraid that the alien blood may be turning him into a Thule—and he’s beginning to suspect that fulfilling his role as the Betrayer may cost him everything.

Experience a cosmic battle filled with high-tech gear, gateways to other planets, and ultimate stakes. Not everyone will survive. But heroes will rise up and step into their destiny in this earth-shaking conclusion to the C.H.A.O.S trilogy.”

My Review:  Out of all the books in this series, this is the one I enjoyed the most. For some reason I didn’t like the second book. It just didn’t hold my interest. The first book was pretty good, but this finale was great. The characters were fun. It was very much like a comic book or cartoon, like Ben 10. Fighting aliens, and super hero stuff. I would definitely recommend this to teens who like movies like Men in Black or Mavel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. The author actually wrote for Marvel Comics.

Even though this book is published by a Christian imprint of Harper Collins, it’s not preachy. There’s a few religious things mentioned, like Colt repeating a bible quote. The book is basically a lot of sci-fi action. There’s a theme of friendship and working together. There’s a lot of meaningful stuff, but it’s mostly fun. I’d even recommend this to middle school age, maybe ages 10 and up, because it doesn’t contain swearing.

I found it interesting how the Thule blood affected Colt. His eyes turned gold and he got busts of anger, and his skin couldn’t be penetrated. He fought Thule and felt like a freak for the changes he was going through. I wish there was a part in which he became a monster and then reverted back, but that never happened sadly.

My favorite thing about this book was the part where Colt had to put on a show to revive the Phantom Flyer. It reminded me of Captain America when Steve would perform for the soldiers and the people during WWII. I loved how pop culture was mentioned. Like Lady Gaga, Scarlett Johansen and Robert Downing Jr. Even though this is more like a parallel world to ours, it had contemporary pop culture.

It was a pretty fast read. Easy reading level. Fun and light. I recommend getting the trilogy for your teen or yourself, especially if you are a fan of superhero movies and Marvel. Or just love books with aliens.

Cover Art Review: The cover is pretty good for the subject, but it would be cool if the characters were fighting aliens on it.

Twinmaker by Sean Williams

Series: Twinmaker (bk. 1)

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi/Thriller

Subjects: technology, teleportation, adventure, action, futuristic, friendship

Setting: Everywhere on Earth, but mostly in Manteca, California

POV/Tense: 3^rd person past tense, Claire’s POV

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 491 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: HarperTeen: Balzer + Bray

Summary/ product description: “M. T. Anderson meets Cory Doctorow in this teen debut from #1 New York Times bestseller Sean Williams, who also coauthors the Troubletwisters series with Garth Nix. When a coded note promises improvement—the chance to change your body any way you want, making it stronger, taller, more beautiful—Clair thinks it's too good to be true, but her best friend, Libby, falls into a deadly trap. With the help of the school freak and a mysterious stranger, Clair races against the clock and around the world to save Libby, even as every step draws her deeper into a deadly world of cover-ups and conspiracies. Action and danger fuel this near-future tale of technology, identity, and the lengths one girl will go to save her best friend.”

My Review: Twinmaker is an exciting sci-fi thriller with plenty of action. It may start off a bit slow, but it becomes more exciting as it goes along. I loved the technology in this book. Who hasn’t wished that they could instantaneously be somewhere instead of driving or walking? D-Mat booths are teleportation machines. They dematerialize you, transport your data and then rebuild you at you at the booth of you desired destination. It’s actually a bit scary, and it raises the question of whether or not it just creates a copy of you, and if you die when you use the booth.

They also have something called a Fabber. It’s a machine that can fabricate anything. You want a cup of coffee? A cheeseburger? New clothes? The fabber will create them out of energy and air! Also there’s the Air, which is like the Internet, and accessible from anywhere wirelessly. People wear contact lenses and have implants in their ear so they can be connected all the time.

All this technology is being monitored so certain things don’t go wrong. People are not allowed to be changed or duplicated. Libby receives a message about a meme called Improvement that advertises that you can be changed. She tries it and it supposedly works. Claire is worried about Libby and asks around about Improvement. She finds out that Improvement is dangerous and must find away to save her friend before Improvement kills her.

I didn’t really care much for the characters, though. I felt like they lacked much personality. Maybe’s it the 3^rd person POV. There was humorous dialogue, so it was entertaining. Claire was okay. Libby was too shallow. Zep seemed like a player. I liked Jesse, though. He never used a D-mat because his dad doesn’t believe in using them. There wasn’t much romance, sadly. I liked Q, too. She helps Claire along the way.

I also didn’t liked how endlessly long the book was. Just short of 500 pages, but with no chapter separation. It had chapters, but they ended and began on the same page. This book could have easily been 600 pages if there were chapter breaks. The type itself was set well. The book was very readable and you could definitely read it pretty fast. The writing style is pretty smooth and fluid.

This book did kind of remind me of the Uglies series by Scott Westfield. Uglies didn’t have teleportation, but Improvement sounded like becoming a Pretty and the dupes were like Specials. Libby’s popularities and party obsession reminded me of Extras.  If you’re a fan of that series, then this book might be something you’d like. If you enjoy sci-fi or dystopian, then give this a try.

Cover Art Review: Interesting photo. The outfit the girl’s wearing reminds me of what people were wearing in the Capitol in the Hunger Games movies. I like how the title looks and the color scheme of blue and yellow. I think the Australian cover looks better. The double circle symbol is on it.