Aria of the Eclipse

Title: Aria of the Eclipse
Author: Vivien Dean
Cover Artist: Trace Edward Zaber
Publisher: Amber Quill Press LLC
Amazon: Buy Link Aria Of The Eclipse
Genre: Science Fiction / Interspecies
Length: aprox 120 pages/35k words
Rating: 4 stars out of 5

A Guest Review by ZenHarley

Review Summary: A pleasant story, not too heavy on the SF

Blurb:

Nothing has ever excited Tylen Merodine more than being invited by the Regent himself to celebrate the first solar eclipse in his planet’s recorded history. It’s the party of the millennium, and if he has to restrain his normal exuberant instincts to fit in, that’s what he’ll do to be a part of it. His good intentions vanish, however, the moment he’s presented to the Regent. Because there, in a gilded cage, playing music unlike anything Tylen’s ever heard, is the most beautiful alien he could imagine.

For more than twenty years, Dek has lived in captivity, performing at the whim of those who see him as an animal. The Regent is just the latest in a long line of owners, and while he’s kind, he’s still blind to Dek’s sentient nature. Only music gives Dek a voice, until Tylen breaks the rules and sneaks in to see and speak to him alone.

The time they have together is stolen and precious, the minutes ticking away until the eclipse is past and they have to go back to the way their lives were before. But when the Regent shows an unexpected interest in Tylen’s future, they begin to wonder if their worlds need to remain so separate…

Review:

I’m a sucker for interspecies love stories in SF. Give me an Oort cloud trader and a 7-foot sentient cephalopod, and it’s all green lights, baby. So it was a no-brainer when I saw the blurb for this little gem, and despite some very minor niggles, it proved to be a very pleasant way to kill a couple hours over Saturday morning coffee.

One caveat, though: if you’re triggered by scenes of captivity, particularly ones that involve cages, please give this a pass. While the cage in question is reasonably nice, it’s still most certainly a cage.

The blurb does a pretty good job of outlining the basic plot: Dek was captured from his home planet at the age of 13, and due to his species’ ability to produce music from specialized webbing on his hands, he’s been traded, sold, and treated as an entertaining pet for the last 20 years. His one early attempt to assert his status as a fellow sentient being ended quite badly, and so he hasn’t spoken again, relying on his music to express his feelings from within his cage. He eventually winds up in the hands of the Regent, the primary political power on the small planet of Ymoro. The Regent is preparing for the planet’s first recorded solar eclipse by building a stunningly-designed solarium from which to view it, and the book opens with the first of several parties leading up to the great solar event.

Tylen is the second son of one of the planet’s prominent families, and newly come into his role in this rigidly-structured society. He’s still a bit rough around the edges, and as yet unable to tamp down his enthusiasm for life and learning to suit proper society. He is immediately attracted to Dek and his beautiful alien music at the Regent’s party, and Dek takes a shine to Tylen as well.

This is not boundary-stretching SF: no vowel-less names, no technobabble, no spaceships, and the one alien is decidedly human-like. The Ymoro society is easy to understand (think Regency England with technology) and the speech is contemporary English. The story doesn’t try to accomplish too much, and is the better for it. My only quibble was that, for an inter-species love story, the two guys were so physiologically compatible that their lovemaking was almost ho-hum. It’s not that extra limbs or slime or whatever is mandatory, but a wee bit more difference may have helped reinforce the idea that these guys are not just reaching out across cultural lines, but across species lines as well.

The prose is smooth, clean, and almost entirely unremarkable — and that’s a compliment. I was able to remain happily immersed in the story, without once thinking, “oh, now that’s a weird sentence structure,” or worse, “ack, typo, typo!”

The author manages to sustain an impression of imminent disaster throughout Tylen and Dek’s secret courtship, and while some may find the ending less edgy than it could have been, I thought it was a pleasant surprise and just right for a book of this length. I finished it with a smile, and will undoubtedly return to it another day as a pleasant comfort read.

Recommended with a nice French roast and a warm baguette.

Peace,
Zen