Illusion, by Christa YelichKoth
Book Review by David L. Felts
Have you read this book?
Illusion, by Christa Yelich-Koth, is a billed as a science-fiction book, although the "science" aspects are few and far between and no more than slight-of-hand. Aliens that are alien by physical description only, a space ship, a simulation chamber (holodeck), some sort of no-dream pills....
Science fantasy would be a more apt description, along with more than its fair share of romantic elements. I encountered "blushing cheeks" and "heated cheeks" and "flushed cheeks" enough times that I began to notice it, and not in a good way.
Almost the entire story takes place on the aforementioned starship, docked at some sort of secret star base somewhere in some galaxy. It's a small setting with a limited main cast:
Daith, the young daughter of Jacine Jaxx, former omnipotent military ruler of something, was kidnapped from her home world and her memories erased. She is desperate to recover her memories and identity.
Trey, a young and ruthless commander-in-exile, formerly Jaxx's second in command, who orchestrated Daith's kidnapping and hopes to be able to use her powers to reclaim the empire lost when Jaxx died.
Dru, Trey's brother and the doctor who's trying to discover if Daith has the same mental powers her father had under the guise of helping her to recover her memories.
The plot is fairly tepid and lifeless.
Daith is the Female in Jeopardy (femjep) whose cheeks are constantly blushing. She sleeps a lot, and has nosebleeds and gets headaches. Evidently, she's pretty, because whenever she runs into other crew members, they think about how pretty she is. Her father, the omnipotent ruler Jaxx, possessed some sort of mental power like super ESP, telekinesis, and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Psionic powers all in one. He used these powers to take over something and rule it.
Dru wants to help her, yet wants to help his brother Trey as well; these two goals are increasingly at odds with each other as he begins to develop affection and concern for Daith. His "help" is actually training Daith to discover the extent of Daith's mental powers as well as develop them.
Trey is a ruthless, paranoid, one-dimensional psychopathic caricature of a military leader who makes impossible and unclear demands of his subordinates and then kills them when they fail to accomplish his assigned tasks. Why anyone would even put up with him is unclear.
On the writing: switches between third person limited and third person multiple often impart a jumbled and irregular narrative flow. Nevertheless, there are some fine moments where the the writer's talents show. I'm sure Yelich-Koth story crafting abilities will continue to advance as long as she keeps at it.
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