War Games
By K.S. Augustin
July 27, 2011
Sci-fi/ f/f
96K words
Pub: Sandal Press
Ebook
What can you do when you start falling in love with the
woman you’re meant to kill?
Laisen Carros is a covert agent of the Fusion, sent
undercover to infiltrate the Perlim Empire. However, the years she’s spent as
Cheloi Sie fighting Menon rebels on an alien battleground are starting to
exhaust her.
To Lith Yinalña, Cheloi Sie is nothing but a war criminal
and she considers it her personal mission to kill her.
Unfortunately for Laisen/Cheloi, the Empire and an
idealistic assassin aren’t the only things she needs to worry about. A
treacherous subordinate—the ambitious Koul Grakal-Ski—is looking for any chance
to grab control of the territory. When Laisen and Lith start falling in love,
it’s only a matter of time before Koul notices. And acts.
I won this book in a contest and I’m so glad I tried! It’s again
that rare SF/F book with a female protagonist who has a romantic interest in
women, so it was a treat for me. The plot is fast paced, tension is kept high
and the characters, all of them including the secondary characters, are all
compelling and fully developed.
I really have nothing negative to say about this book. The
romance and plot were interwoven in just the right way and with an equal amount
of book space and development.
One thing I liked that might be reader preference is that a
lot of the story is intertwined with moral conflicts. Cheloi Sie/Laisen Carros
is the most morally ambiguous character in this story and it’s mostly from her
POV that this story is expressed through. I can’t really say that she’s a
morally upright person, which I think will push some readers’ buttons, but I
loved it. I’m actually rather fond of characters who have to do things that are
ugly or wrong for what they feel is a greater good. That character who will
make decisions and not dwell on how it negatively affects their internal code.
Cheloi Sei is a general for the Perlim who are trying to get
control of the planet Menon in order to gain some foothold to fight their real
enemy, the Fusion. Cheloi is a spy for the Fusion and has been sent to
infiltrate the Perlim by becoming one of them. To play her role to a T, she
needs to make hard decisions in which she has to order the mass murder of
innocent people so that her cover and loyalty to the Perlim is never
questioned.
What’s interesting to me is that ultimately, maybe the
Fusion are not the altruistic people that they are presented as. On the surface
it’s implied that they are the more “enlightened” group trying to curb the
“evil” Perlim Empire from destroying and subjugating an innocent people on a
foreign planet. However, like in most situations of war, it depends on what
side you’re on as to whether your side is the “right” side and that becomes an
interesting conflict inside of Cheloi. Is she just a pawn for an equally
controlling Empire?
It’s interesting to
me to think about these kinds of things because all of the characters in this
story are acting and doing atrocious things, except for maybe Lith, in the name
of the rightness of their empire and ideology. It’s for the greater good. K.S.
Augustin did a great job of really getting into the internal conflicts or lack
thereof when the characters are confronted with things that go against their
beliefs, like falling in love with the enemy, etc.
Cheloi is a strong, steely, unflappable woman. She can’t
afford to make one mistake or her cover and her mission to take down the Perlim
as a Perlim general will all be for naught. Her second in command, Koul
Grakal-Ski, is an ambitious man and resents her for being appointed to a
position he felt was his. He’s looking at every turn to find something on her
to take her down so he watches her every move carefully. He’s also extremely
loyal to the Perlim Empire and would never do anything to hurt it. His need to
follow orders and be loyal becomes Cheloi’s luck in her mission. But he still
tries to undermine her constantly.
To keep up with the
stress of always being on top of things, she talks often to a virtual
psychiatrist with whom she can interact with inside her head through a chip. In
this way we get a good chance to see what’s going on inside of Cheloi Sie’s
head, what she really feels, how things really affect her and we get to see
that there are cracks. She’s very “human” and her relationships with the people
she works with do affect her deep down. She's also got a painful past and that
is constantly hinted at but comes out in bits and pieces, slowly allowing us
see where she comes from ultimately.
Outside of her intense attraction to Lith, she’s
particularly fond of Rumis, her adjunct who is extremely loyal to her and the
Perlim empire. However, unlike the conniving Koul Grakal-Ski, Rumis is
honorable in his loyalty to her and it eats at Cheloi that she is being
deceitful to a man she admires. There are painful consequences in Cheloi’s
later decisions about Rumis, which I thought added a lot to the choices she
makes for her future and her loyalty to the Fusion. She pays severe
consequences emotionally for liking him and I liked that spurred character
reflection and growth.
So all in all I loved the dynamics of what drives all the
characters. There are lots of interesting moral questions presented that made
this story really interesting to me.
Then there’s the romance. Lith is a young idealist who gets
swept up in the romantic ideology of freeing her people from the Perlim Empire
even though her parents were born Perlim. She belongs to a small, rouge Fusion
group who have sent her to kill Cheloi, whom they know to be a mass murderer of
innocents. What she doesn’t know is that Cheloi and she are fighting for the
same side, which sets up the very interesting conflict for her in her
attraction to Cheloi.
Right from the get-go there’s a strong attraction between
Lith and Cheloi, which both intrigues Lith and freaks her out. They get it on
fairly quickly but if it’s found out that they are having an affair, Koul will
have an excuse to get rid of Cheloi, so they have only stolen moments together.
One thing I’ll say here is that while I did feel they are
attracted, I couldn’t understand why Lith would put up with being coolly
dismissed after sex, which is what Cheloi does to 1. keep her distance knowing
that Lith’s the enemy and she shouldn’t lose her heart to her, and 2. to keep
the relationship secret. However, it was clear that Lith, while bothered by it,
realizes that it’s necessary and can’t help herself, she wants Cheloi.
Lith's personal codes are called into question as well as
she's forced to make an important decision, which could jeopardize her mission
to kill Cheloi and her break her heart at the same time.
While not the most passionate couple due to these issues,
the romance is nicely and slowly developed. I felt that these two ache to be
together even if they’re rather reticent in their expression of it. And there
is a happy ending.
Outside of all of that, there’s a nice tension and suspense
throughout the whole book that kept the story exciting. There are so many
twists and intrigues and alliances and deceits that I kept reading just to see
what would happen. I definitely recommend War Games if you’re into sci-fi and
f/f and even if you’re not. It’s just a good compelling story all around.
Heat level: 2-3. The sexual scenarios are not too
graphically written. More sensually written with softer terminology used.
Grade: A-
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