A Fan's Playground

Okay so this is a stand-alone book that is set in the same universe as Everina Maxwell's first novel, Winter's Orbit. It is also about two guys falling in love IN SPACE and it is so much fun!

Somewhere I saw one of those graphs with one axis being Cause Problems - Solve Problems, and the other being On Purpose - By Mistake, and with the main characters of this book placed firmly in the "cause problems on purpose" quadrant and YES and it is SO GOOD. And the best part is that they are extremely different flavours of this, but they work so well together. One of the leads is approximately as chaotic as a person can get, and clearly thrives off of it, he loves the feeling of being like, well what would happen if I did THIS completely bonkers thing on impulse and see where it goes. The other lead is the kind of person who memorizes regulations and can recite them at will, and has a very firm set of principles and morals, and is perfectly comfortable causing problems for other people via unorthodox applications of rules in order to effect what he thinks is right. TOGETHER THEY WILL - well, you'll find out.

And I love how the combination of these two characters making Choices means that the book kept on going in directions I was totally not able to anticipate. I recognized tropes, and then the narrative just zoomed RIGHT on by the expected arc of those tropes to do some other weirder thing!

It's got an excellent balance of relationship building and plot building, too. The author talks in the end-note about how it'll read for people coming it either from the romance genre or the scifi genre, and as someone who loves both, I think its way of integrating the two was perfect.

I also loved how many wonderful secondary characters the book contains, both sympathetic and less so! The sister, the aunt, the dead gen-parent, the previous governor, the governor general, the two rankers....all of them were amazing. (yes I am bad at names, how did you guess.)

And! It is about TELEPATHIC BONDING (and about pretending to be telepathically bonded!). Hot damn.

The funny thing was, as much as the book kept on doing its own thing, I was also unavoidably reminded of two other narratives I've previously read. The alien remnants stuff put me in mind of Tanya Huff's Confederation series, in terms of interacting with mysterious, powerful, and incomprehensible alien objects that can do unexpected things. And the brain powers and forced military mind-bonding to subjugate the powers of a particular type of person thing reminded me very strongly of astolat's Person of Interest fanfic Dangerous If Unbound!

Ocean's Echo is doing rather different things with both of these elements than either Huff or astolat, but it's fun that it still manages to be in conversation with other things I've read.

I thoroughly loved reading the whole thing, and kept on having to pause to like, scream silently inside my head about various aspects. Good times!!!

A few years ago there was a novel-length work of m/m original fiction posted to AO3 called "Course of Honour" and I read it and I loved it and then I reread it several more times. And then some acquiring editor with excellent taste purchased it for publishing!

Winter's Orbit is the updated, edited, published version of that origfic and it is even BETTER and I love ittttttttt. It's a delightful addition to my slowly growing collection of queer space opera, and even the cover commits. It is very Bisexual Flag Colours In Space and I commend the cover designer for their choices.

Anyway the book is about an Arranged Marriage For Politics Reasons with a subplot of Who Killed Jainan's Previous Husband And Who Else Do They Want To Kill (For Politics Reasons) and it is delicious. Two people who are very different from each other and wary of their marriage must learn how to get along and how to be supportive of each other, with a timeline of being able to present a good face to the public within a month because of treaty reasons! Both are very competent at very different things and both contribute materially to making important things happen, while doubting their own worth! Also there are a bunch of secondary non-romantic relationships that are deeply important to the main characters as well!

Kiem and Jainan, the lead characters in the romance, are both wonderful and I love them both very much. And I love that even though both of them have a history of not being valued for who they are, they both see in the other a person worth valuing and admiring. And they learn to trust and like each other, and are willing to do so much for each other, and it's amazing. And okay, maybe they get to love a little fast (they've only known each other a month!!!) but they do go through a Lot together in that month so I'm very willing to be understanding.

(Bel, Kiem's aide, is a definite favourite character as well btw. Her arc is GREAT.)

I love that one of the things updated for the professionally published version of this book is expanded quantities of worldbuilding, because the original was honestly pretty light on anything but the (admittedly excellent) feels. I'm always there for worldbuilding, and the added content is great, except now I just want even more. The author has unleashed a hunger within me!

It's fascinating the way that this is set in the context of an empire that annexed a minor planet (Kiem is from the imperial family and Jainan is from the annexed planet), but where the empire itself is small beans in the broader context, being only 7 planets in size, and having basically no power when it comes to the universe-wide political shenanigans; I want to know more about this. I want to know more about the radical Thean students. I would love to know more about the Emperor! Tell me more about the remnants! More about the Iskat planetary ecosystem! More about Thean clan heraldry! Differing perceptions of gender amongst the different cultures that make up the Iskat empire! The culture and history of the other 5 planets in the empire! I am insatiable.