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A review by caughtbetweenpages
Risdaverse Tales by Ruby Dixon
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Sometimes, formulaic is exactly what you want a book to be: comfortable, tried and true, and predictable in all the right ways. For me, Ruby Dixon delivers. Her Risdaverse includes the masaka, the same aliens from her Ice Planet books, and the utter devotion to their partners and baseline gentle protectiveness just do it for me. Regardless of the underlying hero trope—royalty, bodyguard, grumpy isolationist with a heart of gold—and their levels of charisma/jokiness, they’ve all got that in common! And the heroines are varied in desire and somehow perfect for their respective partners.
Also, though the stories are quite short and need to focus even more deeply on the partnerships than standard, we still get more information about/develop nuance in this world. The stories aren’t sequential in the Risdaverse series, and I’m pretty sure a few take place before some of books in the Ruby Dixon Literary Universe that I’ve already read, but that didn’t impact my enjoyment, nor did I feel lost in the chronology of the universe at any point.
Overall, I feel this collection was just long enough to keep from feeling repetitive, and was a great way to escape a reading slump and read what felt like complete stories despite only having the brain space for a very short thing at a time.
Also, though the stories are quite short and need to focus even more deeply on the partnerships than standard, we still get more information about/develop nuance in this world. The stories aren’t sequential in the Risdaverse series, and I’m pretty sure a few take place before some of books in the Ruby Dixon Literary Universe that I’ve already read, but that didn’t impact my enjoyment, nor did I feel lost in the chronology of the universe at any point.
Overall, I feel this collection was just long enough to keep from feeling repetitive, and was a great way to escape a reading slump and read what felt like complete stories despite only having the brain space for a very short thing at a time.