Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - And Shall Machines Surrender

I truly am obsessed with the way Benjanun Sriduangkaew writes. The most exquisite, baroque, sensual prose that just captivates me. This sexy little horror scifi queer bdsm novella series is glorious.

Content warnings: sexual content including bdsm themes such as knife play, blood and gore, violence, graphic descriptions of injuries, homophobia

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ylvalovisa's review

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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ril_amber's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

This gave me strong Twilight Mirage vibes, which is why having a dominatrix character using knife play and like… mental fisting? as an interrogation technique gave me such whiplash.

A fine sci-fi piece but I did not care for the character dynamics and generally prefer books without explicit sex scenes.

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franklywrites's review against another edition

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challenging

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

No rating, as I'm unsure on this one. I initially found the premise and the setting very interesting and depicted in beautiful detail, but I certainly lost track of everything towards the end. There were some unexpectedly graphic sex scenes that would have been fine, I guess, but I barely detected any chemistry between the characters (other than being told they had shacked up in the past). The two main characters initially felt very different, but later on where it started flipping between their PoVs (sometimes I swear in the middle of scenes), I could barely tell the difference. I think the main reason I didn't get what was going on towards the end is because I never realised the viewpoint had changed until about two or three pages into the change.

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