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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
While investigating on the arctic planet, Frebu, secret agent Lilline Renault encounters a mysterious being that tries to “feed” on her thoughts. This thoughtform seems to be connected to strange events that have happened across the galaxy, including a billionaire game designer and possibly to a GAM-OPs mission from many cycles ago, when Lilline’s grandmother worked as an agent. Lilline has to work quickly to connect the dots in these missions, and maybe get her poetry published along the way.
Lilline Renault is a smart, no-nonsense GAM-OPs agent who relies on her vast experience and instinct to complete missions. She has faced some of the most fearsome beings in the galaxy and saved countless people, and her travels/work often serve as inspiration for her other love: poetry. Lilline is kind, witty and honest; she’s a character that readers will find it easy to root for. I really appreciated Lilline as a character not only because she trusted herself and her abilities, but because she encouraged other characters to succeed, as well. Lilli’s interactions with Pin were wonderful and I loved seeing two characters interact in such a fun and positive way.
Kissy, Lilline’s retired agent grandmother, is a capable, sarcastic character with a relatively unknown past. She provides levity throughout the story and I loved that she became a bigger part of the story later on. I did think that the earlier scenes where Kissy is portrayed at her retirement home were a little corny, but I didn’t find them off putting by any means. and think it was just an attempt to portray some of the zaniness of Kissy’s personality. I appreciated the character arc and how her story has the potential to be developed in the future (this is me asking for more books about Lilli and Kissy).
Beyond the Renaults, we are introduced to a wide range of characters, species, and planets. While the pace of the book is very quick, the descriptions and world building worked perfectly for me. I was easily able to picture the settings and thought that the detail provided on nature and technology was great. Nevair does a great job at keeping readers guessing and engaged. The different characters/species all had unique characteristics, but couldn’t be easily designated as “heroes or villains” within the story because of these traits. As a reader, you’re never totally sure which characters you can trust and I found that to be a lot of fun and it helped me to appreciate some of the characters more.
Stellar Instinct is a short book, but it is so effective in how it handles the storyline. There aren’t any dull moments, but the pace does change appropriately throughout giving the reader “time to breathe.” The use of augmented/virtual realities and gaming within the plot was really interesting to me and I thought it was a really creative way to show how a villain can gain a following and become powerful. I also really enjoyed Nevair’s occasional use of second person narrative to portray the AR and Astral Mind and the way it becomes part of a person. It helped me to feel like I was involved in the story and gave me a better understanding of what the villain was trying to do.
While I don’t read too many books in the sci-fi genre, I found that I became quickly absorbed in Stellar Instinct. This is a really fun, character-driven novel, with plenty of twists to keep you guessing. I would love to read another book (or many!) within this universe or follow Lilline through another mission to save the galaxy! Highly recommend this book to my fellow readers!
Lilline Renault is a smart, no-nonsense GAM-OPs agent who relies on her vast experience and instinct to complete missions. She has faced some of the most fearsome beings in the galaxy and saved countless people, and her travels/work often serve as inspiration for her other love: poetry. Lilline is kind, witty and honest; she’s a character that readers will find it easy to root for. I really appreciated Lilline as a character not only because she trusted herself and her abilities, but because she encouraged other characters to succeed, as well. Lilli’s interactions with Pin were wonderful and I loved seeing two characters interact in such a fun and positive way.
Kissy, Lilline’s retired agent grandmother, is a capable, sarcastic character with a relatively unknown past. She provides levity throughout the story and I loved that she became a bigger part of the story later on. I did think that the earlier scenes where Kissy is portrayed at her retirement home were a little corny, but I didn’t find them off putting by any means. and think it was just an attempt to portray some of the zaniness of Kissy’s personality. I appreciated the character arc and how her story has the potential to be developed in the future (this is me asking for more books about Lilli and Kissy).
Beyond the Renaults, we are introduced to a wide range of characters, species, and planets. While the pace of the book is very quick, the descriptions and world building worked perfectly for me. I was easily able to picture the settings and thought that the detail provided on nature and technology was great. Nevair does a great job at keeping readers guessing and engaged. The different characters/species all had unique characteristics, but couldn’t be easily designated as “heroes or villains” within the story because of these traits. As a reader, you’re never totally sure which characters you can trust and I found that to be a lot of fun and it helped me to appreciate some of the characters more.
Stellar Instinct is a short book, but it is so effective in how it handles the storyline. There aren’t any dull moments, but the pace does change appropriately throughout giving the reader “time to breathe.” The use of augmented/virtual realities and gaming within the plot was really interesting to me and I thought it was a really creative way to show how a villain can gain a following and become powerful. I also really enjoyed Nevair’s occasional use of second person narrative to portray the AR and Astral Mind and the way it becomes part of a person. It helped me to feel like I was involved in the story and gave me a better understanding of what the villain was trying to do.
While I don’t read too many books in the sci-fi genre, I found that I became quickly absorbed in Stellar Instinct. This is a really fun, character-driven novel, with plenty of twists to keep you guessing. I would love to read another book (or many!) within this universe or follow Lilline through another mission to save the galaxy! Highly recommend this book to my fellow readers!
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A James Bond in space story, Stellar Instinct is an entertaining, fun romp with cool aliens and exciting action scenes.
One of the things that take me out of spy/espionage stories is when the agent is a complete douche. Lilline is not. While tough and rather arrogant at times, she also has a self-identify thread that travels through the entire book. She has personality, aside from being a spy, in that she loves her grandmother, debates her career choices (in that they limit her interpersonal relationships), and wants to be a poet. She’s also a consummate badass and has a huge list of skills (the one she prefers is flying fast ships). She’s a seasoned agent, high up in the company she works for, and while her competency is never in question, she isn’t a superwoman. I also loved that there wasn’t a romance in the novel - that was refreshing.
My favourite character was her boss, Asher Lauden, a fish-like dude (in that he has gills, black eyes, and translucent skin), who smokes a pipe constantly. That felt like a throwback to classic spy movies, which was fun. There is a line that was repeated a bit too much though, about him exhaling smoke from his gills, but Lauden was so fun I can overlook that. In fact, all the characters are fun because there are a lot of aliens! Lilline travels to different planets, running into and fighting with a few different species of various body shapes. It’s one of those futures/realities without alien xenophobia (like Star Trek and Star Wars, in a general sense). It was a great world-build in that regard.
The story is okay - the immensity of the problem seemed like a “third book in a trilogy” issue, not a stand-alone, but it made sense, and I liked the way it poked fun at demented trillionaires. There was a twist I expected, but it came from a different angle than I anticipated. We basically have the typical espionage format - a mystery to solve which turns into a person to hunt down, interspersed with a few action scenes against hired goons, a couple of fights against the right-hand person, and then the climax with the villain. There are also a few tropes of the genre, such as the fancy party, the gadgets, the techie, and car chases (though these are far beyond cars).
There is honestly nothing else I can really say in critique of the novel. It has moments of humour, the prose is great, easy to follow, and balanced. There are a few chapters in the second person which was surprising but while I wasn’t sure why the second person was necessary, it was well done.
Overall, if you like spy stories, aliens, high-tech space adventure, and struggling poets, you’d likely get a real kick out of this one. I highly recommend it.
One of the things that take me out of spy/espionage stories is when the agent is a complete douche. Lilline is not. While tough and rather arrogant at times, she also has a self-identify thread that travels through the entire book. She has personality, aside from being a spy, in that she loves her grandmother, debates her career choices (in that they limit her interpersonal relationships), and wants to be a poet. She’s also a consummate badass and has a huge list of skills (the one she prefers is flying fast ships). She’s a seasoned agent, high up in the company she works for, and while her competency is never in question, she isn’t a superwoman. I also loved that there wasn’t a romance in the novel - that was refreshing.
My favourite character was her boss, Asher Lauden, a fish-like dude (in that he has gills, black eyes, and translucent skin), who smokes a pipe constantly. That felt like a throwback to classic spy movies, which was fun. There is a line that was repeated a bit too much though, about him exhaling smoke from his gills, but Lauden was so fun I can overlook that. In fact, all the characters are fun because there are a lot of aliens! Lilline travels to different planets, running into and fighting with a few different species of various body shapes. It’s one of those futures/realities without alien xenophobia (like Star Trek and Star Wars, in a general sense). It was a great world-build in that regard.
The story is okay - the immensity of the problem seemed like a “third book in a trilogy” issue, not a stand-alone, but it made sense, and I liked the way it poked fun at demented trillionaires. There was a twist I expected, but it came from a different angle than I anticipated. We basically have the typical espionage format - a mystery to solve which turns into a person to hunt down, interspersed with a few action scenes against hired goons, a couple of fights against the right-hand person, and then the climax with the villain. There are also a few tropes of the genre, such as the fancy party, the gadgets, the techie, and car chases (though these are far beyond cars).
There is honestly nothing else I can really say in critique of the novel. It has moments of humour, the prose is great, easy to follow, and balanced. There are a few chapters in the second person which was surprising but while I wasn’t sure why the second person was necessary, it was well done.
Overall, if you like spy stories, aliens, high-tech space adventure, and struggling poets, you’d likely get a real kick out of this one. I highly recommend it.
I came in to the month of May looking to add more sci-fi to my library since I am doing my year end best of, based on categories rather than just a regular top 10 like I typically do. Another blogger had posted that they were planning to read Stellar Instinct this month, and when I saw the cover, I knew I had to add it to the other Sci-fi May reads. The description of it being a “Spy-fi” made me even more interested because I don’t read a lot of spy type of books either, so it added to intrigue of this sub-genre in sci-fi.
I really hate writing negative reviews and contemplated not even writing it at all, but I felt it was my duty as a book blogger to do so. This had all the makings of something that could be really good, it was a little bit of Men in Black meets Gamer with its spy like nature and the plot revolving around a virtual reality game that is being used deviously. The first 30% was not very good, and I almost put this down after chapter 10, but I decided to stick with it hoping that it would improve. While it did get better, it just never got to where I was hoping it could get to. Bland characters, a predictable plot and sub-par narration made this something I just couldn’t like, no matter how much I tried to keep going in hopes that it would get better.
Unfortunately, this just wasn’t for me despite how much I was looking forward to it. The story had its fun and interesting parts, but they were few and far between. The most interesting thing about the main character, Renault, was that her civilian identity Keely, liked poetry, which kind of reminded me of Sylvester Stallone’s character in Demolition Man where he’s programmed to like knitting, only her poetry matters in this story unlike Stallone’s. I like that Nevair wanted to add some depth to the character by doing this, but it didn’t change that she just wasn’t very interesting. With that said, her grandmother, Kissy, was actually a good character that I wish had a far larger role, but by the time I met her, I had already contemplated stopping and moving on to something else. I did like Carbrook though, he is a nerdy tech guy that likes video games and added some much needed goofiness, but like Kissy, just didn’t get the time that could’ve helped draw away from the main character.
The narration by Erica Garraffa was something that I was left wishing was better for a few reasons, the first is that the narration of several characters was actually quite nice voice, like Renault, Kissy, Carbrook and Pin, but when in narration mode it was just a bit too monotone, which forced me to take more breaks than normal because I was losing focus, it reminded me of the way Siri’s voice sounds, always the same and a bit robotic. The other issue I had is something that feels like cheating, like using chatGPT to write or using AI to create a cover, and I don’t know if it’s the blame of the narrator or the production, but using a voice distorter for characters because the narrator can’t reach a deep voice was just the wrong choice and something I hope I never experience in another audiobook again.
I should have DNF'ed this. I wanted to DNF this after 50 pages, but I have a hard time giving up on books, especially indie ones.
In short, I did not like this. From the stereotypical, unoriginal characters, to the predictable twists, Stellar Instinct is so bog-standard as to defy belief. Lilline is two-dimensional, and uninteresting both as a person, and as a protagonist. The world is shallow. The villain is comical, and his motivations are predictable and banal. No amount of nonsensical metaphysical prattling or weird forays into made up poetical conventions can make up for any of it.
Oh, and that scene with Lilline flirting with the bartender was awkward and cringy.
The only saving grace was Kissy, but she wasn't in the story enough to make much of a difference.
This is the trird Nevair book I've read, and at this point, I'm just going to have to concede that he is not the author for me.
What a pathetic whimper of beginning to the reading year. I sincerely hope it's not an omen for things to come, or I'm not sure there'll be getting me out of the inevitable reading slump.
In short, I did not like this. From the stereotypical, unoriginal characters, to the predictable twists, Stellar Instinct is so bog-standard as to defy belief. Lilline is two-dimensional, and uninteresting both as a person, and as a protagonist. The world is shallow. The villain is comical, and his motivations are predictable and banal. No amount of nonsensical metaphysical prattling or weird forays into made up poetical conventions can make up for any of it.
Oh, and that scene with Lilline flirting with the bartender was awkward and cringy.
The only saving grace was Kissy, but she wasn't in the story enough to make much of a difference.
This is the trird Nevair book I've read, and at this point, I'm just going to have to concede that he is not the author for me.
What a pathetic whimper of beginning to the reading year. I sincerely hope it's not an omen for things to come, or I'm not sure there'll be getting me out of the inevitable reading slump.