You Sexy Thing

Cat Rambo
Completed 9/24/2023, Reviewed 9/24/2023
2 stars

This was the September selection for my online book club.  I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the runner up, The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse.  I thought this book was a good premise that was not executed well.  My biggest gripe is that the point of view kept bouncing around, mainly between two characters, but also from the other characters on the ship as well as the sentient ship itself.  The book starts out from Niko’s POV, then spends a lot of time from the Princess’ POV.   I prefer when it’s one character’s POV, or when the change happens at chapter breaks.  There are some other issues that I’ll discuss later on, but this was the big one for me.  

The plot is decent.  A former military captain and her retired squad open a restaurant in a space station.  They’re trying to get a good review by a food critic when the space station begins exploding.  They escape on a sentient biomechanical space ship called You Sexy Thing, as in the hit song from the 70s.  The ship is commandeered by a pirate and they are taken to a pirate haven.  There the captain, Niko, short for Nicholette Larsen, as in the 70s ballad singer, confronts the head of the pirates, her long time nemesis, as well as an old flame whom she left there in the pirate haven decades ago.

The best part of the book for me was the ship.  It began not unlike many other spaceship computers in many other stories, but this one becomes more human, and a better cook, from knowing Niko and her crew.  I also liked Niko, despite her flaws.  I think the book would have been much better if it remained in her point of view throughout.  I wish I’d gotten to know her better than we do.  She has many interesting relationships, with her crew, with the ship, and with her long lost lover.

Of all the characters, I liked Princess Atlanta the least.  She was delivered to Niko in a stasis box at her restaurant.  Turns out she is heir to the Empress.  I found her to be very boring.  We spend too much time in her head through the middle part of the book.  Her observations and reminiscing held no interest for me, even when she witnesses the death of one of the crew by the pirate king.   

This book is part of a series called Disco Space Opera.  Except for the name of the ship, I found nothing very disco or disco-era related about the story.  And you’d think that with the ship’s name and the captain’s name, there’s be a lot more 70s references.  I kept looking for them, but there weren’t any that I could find.  I was very disappointed.  I felt misled by the series name.  I thought it would be more fun than it was.  In fact, I thought there was a lot more tragedy than there were things fun or comical. 

I also didn’t like the long periods where nothing happened.  And there were many.  The longest was perhaps the waiting while the crew is on the ship being taken to the pirate haven.  I think that part was intended to relay deeper understandings of the characters by their interactions with each other and the ship.  Instead, I found it to be terribly boring.  They also do a lot of waiting when they’re imprisoned by the pirate king waiting to be tortured or killed or whatnot.  

Lastly, I felt the ending was too nicely wrapped up.  Even though it has a cliffhanger for the next in the series, all the loose ends were resolved as you would expect.  

I give this book two stars out of five.  I thought the writing was uneven.  With the bouncing POVs and the long dry sections, I felt the author could have used a good editor.  And while some of the non-human characters were described decently, overall, I felt the world building was pretty weak.  I don’t have any intention of reading more of this series unless I hear overwhelmingly that the author has gotten better.