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A review by sapphistoire
Once & Future by A.R. Capetta, Cory McCarthy
4.0
I'm going to start by saying that I loved the representation in this book, and in this series overall. The main character, Ari, is pansexual, and in the wide cast of characters we also see trans, demi-boy, lesbian, bi gay and ace characters! Ari is also of Arab descent and many of the other characters (both main and side) are characters of colour! In the universe this series starts in there is no racism or homophobia/transphobia, which is something I always love to see in fantasy novels!
As for the characters themselves, I loved them! They all felt so three-dimensional and I cared about all of them. Ari, the forty-second reincarnation of King Arthur, is confident and strong throughout the whole novel and all the hardships she faces. Merlin is a great comedic relief to the book and I loved that his magic was controlled by using his voice (sometimes using Cher songs to conjure it!). Gwen was kind and soft but also a strong leader of her planet, alongside Val, who was intelligent and witty. And of course Lam, who was so loyal to their friends and who I'm sure so many people will see themselves in; Jordan, the beautiful, strong-willed female knight who I'm maybe in love with; and Kay, Ari's brother who would do anything to keep her safe. They quickly became an amazing found family that fought for each other and always had each other's backs, and are maybe one of my favourite found families that I have read!
I was also really intrigued by the world building. We're in a future universe where a giant tyrannical corporation, Mercer, has a monopoly over the galaxy. We see a strange Arthurian legend museum on the moon, an abandoned and exploited Earth, a dance club with oxygen bars, Ketch, Ari's home planet which was destroyed by Mercer, an ice prison scourged by a plague, Gwen's planet Lionel, which resembles Medieval Earth. It was so interesting and I loved exploring the galaxy with Ari's crew.
However, I did have two main problems with the book. The first being that I wasn't convinced by the romance between Ari and Gwen (not a spoiler, they get married within the first few chapters!). They had some feelings for each other prior to the novel and also a falling out of some sort. However, when they were together, although they did voice their romantic feelings frequently, to me it just felt like a purely sexual relationship. They seemed to just say their romantic feelings and not show them. The other problem I had was the pacing. Countless times whilst reading this book I had to stop reading, maybe even mid-sentence, and go back a couple of pages to figure out what on Earth (ha ha!) was going on. Things happened so quickly and we even moved from one planet to another in maybe the space of a paragraph and I was so lost 90% of the time (and judging by other reviews, this was not just a me problem!).
Despite this, I really did enjoy the book and I would 100% recommend it, even to those who are not really sci-fi readers!
As for the characters themselves, I loved them! They all felt so three-dimensional and I cared about all of them. Ari, the forty-second reincarnation of King Arthur, is confident and strong throughout the whole novel and all the hardships she faces. Merlin is a great comedic relief to the book and I loved that his magic was controlled by using his voice (sometimes using Cher songs to conjure it!). Gwen was kind and soft but also a strong leader of her planet, alongside Val, who was intelligent and witty. And of course Lam, who was so loyal to their friends and who I'm sure so many people will see themselves in; Jordan, the beautiful, strong-willed female knight who I'm maybe in love with; and Kay, Ari's brother who would do anything to keep her safe. They quickly became an amazing found family that fought for each other and always had each other's backs, and are maybe one of my favourite found families that I have read!
I was also really intrigued by the world building. We're in a future universe where a giant tyrannical corporation, Mercer, has a monopoly over the galaxy. We see a strange Arthurian legend museum on the moon, an abandoned and exploited Earth, a dance club with oxygen bars, Ketch, Ari's home planet which was destroyed by Mercer, an ice prison scourged by a plague, Gwen's planet Lionel, which resembles Medieval Earth. It was so interesting and I loved exploring the galaxy with Ari's crew.
However, I did have two main problems with the book. The first being that I wasn't convinced by the romance between Ari and Gwen (not a spoiler, they get married within the first few chapters!). They had some feelings for each other prior to the novel and also a falling out of some sort. However, when they were together, although they did voice their romantic feelings frequently, to me it just felt like a purely sexual relationship. They seemed to just say their romantic feelings and not show them. The other problem I had was the pacing. Countless times whilst reading this book I had to stop reading, maybe even mid-sentence, and go back a couple of pages to figure out what on Earth (ha ha!) was going on. Things happened so quickly and we even moved from one planet to another in maybe the space of a paragraph and I was so lost 90% of the time (and judging by other reviews, this was not just a me problem!).
Despite this, I really did enjoy the book and I would 100% recommend it, even to those who are not really sci-fi readers!