Reviews

I Will Meet You at Asphodel's Pit by Tinnean

marlobo's review

2.0

2.5 stars

fishreads's review

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.0

I had pretty high expectations of this story solely because it's title had such a great ring to it, I Will Meet You at Asphodel's Pit. Instead of fulfilling my expectations of an intriguing, explosive sci-fi short what I got was a confusing, lackluster story without much point to it.

We're thrown straight in the middle of the plot as the story opens with a dialogue between Protector and his lizard like alien companion Hssa, about a certain young sir, Treyson Jax (whoever that might be) and the Protector (?). I was pretty much lost as I could not even start to begin to unravel various threads from their conversation. One moment we were talking about a Protector then the next suddenly the Protector was in play and I had no clue who, what, where was I? I was confused up until we were granted an actual explanation but at that point (which admittedly wasn't too far into the story) I was already pretty miffed about it.

Ymper produced many men called Protectors, who, from the moment of birth, were raised to guard and protect, linked together by a mental bond. Of each generation, however, there was only one destined to be The Protector. The sole female, nothing deterred her. She was more deadly and more relentless than any of her comrades, and would stop at nothing to shield whoever had been deemed worthy to be put into her safekeeping.

To map it out we were dealing with a Protector who was looking for the Protector as she was taken on her assignment of protecting a H'asean (apparently extremely gorgeous race with long life expectancy, who stayed youthful looking right until the point they died, basically space elves) woman, on her way to marry a Thresian (apparently race less fortunate in terms of their looks and longevity) princeling. Because just as The Protector was tasked with protecting the woman a Protector was tasked with protecting The Protector (which, where was the logic in this) and while former succeeded in her assignment the later failed at his.

And the supposed romance of the story was between a Protector and Treyson, a H'asean man and mentioned H'asean woman's brother. Considering we were thrown into the story after all the aforementioned romance happens and we don't get any insight into the two characters involved I really couldn't give less of a rat's ass about their supposed romance and it's eventual outcome.

As the two lovers separate to hopefully be reunited once again we jump to the titular Asphodel's Pit, one of the oldest dives on space station orbiting a planet, whose name and position have no meaning to the reader. There we're introduced to two old friends just as they find each other again, Sloff, an amputee working as Asphodel's divekeeper, and Rinig, a scarred security tech and newly employed bouncer at the Asphodel's Pit. There is a possibility of a romantic potential between the two and maybe even likable characters for a change but we don't get to find out as the story wraps around far less interesting characters of Protector and Trey.

There was potential here but it was snuffed out with the help of uninteresting cardboard cutouts posing as main characters and insufficient word building (I am sorry but you can't just throw random words and designations at me and expect me to have innate understanding of them with hardly any explanation.)

Themes: over hyped bodyguards, space elves, space stations, character with an amputation, random aliens

mrella's review

1.0

I am not sure what that was all about and why it was published at all. The plot is non existent and so is editing.

There is no romance, no adventure, no good aliens.