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The Alien Trace #2
Time Twister
Cord, A Mehiran empath, agrees to find and rescue Duke Ashek's concubine, Edwina, from the space pirates who kidnapped her.
255 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published December 4, 1984
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 9, 2024
((A Brief Warning for sexual themes!))
I've made some interesting finds browsing used book-shops and grabbing old pulpy novels I know absolutely nothing about, except that the name, the covers, and the blurb appealed to me. Alien Trace #1 was one such interesting find. It wasn't GREAT, but the world was neat, and it was tarty enough (without being too rapey or misogynistic) and kept me wondering what was going to happen next to compel me.
Alien Trace 2 drops a star for me, but still remained entertaining enough to finish.
On the plus side, this felt a bit like what the author (or rather, authors plural, hiding behind their pseudonym) actually wanted to write about. Where book number one could now in retrospect be seen as an origin story of "Cord the Hunter" - taking place all on one planet - this one jumps out into the galaxy, and seems to indulge a desire for lots of different worlds and cultures, though none were particularly drastic or unique (With the exception of the book's final world, which was hiding a rather nasty secret!)
In the detractions column however I have two particular criticisms.
The first is a general statement of "The story didn't feel tidy". Things just sort of 'seemed to happen', as though they were ideas that occurred to the authors while they were writing, but were not woven in particularly well. (The bad guy has a secret police officer following the protagonists across space for the entire book, only for the officer to be unceremoniously killed by some group of goons without Cord ever knowing he was even there?). This sloppiness seemed to reach a peak at the book's end, when it was revealed, with as little fanfare as possible, that not only was a side-character dead (for no particular reason) but that the bad guy was also dead by the way so the book could now be over.
The second criticism I have is the sex.
I'm always saying, time and again, that I like the idea of a tarty book, and I liked Alien Trace 1 for that reason. But here we enter a galaxy of rape; there are planets of slavery where rape is abundant, any woman taken prisoner by pirates or anyone is sure to be raped (because why wouldn't she be?) our main heroine - before being rescued - was raped countless times, and the aforementioned secret police officer is a serial rapist who not only uses his position as an officer to sexually torture people, but just loves to do it in general because that's what he's all about. At the very least it's all a pretty passionless bunch of rape; I wasn't squirming in my seat in discomfort, and no character shed much in the way of tears about it a page after it happened. yet, all the same, it just doesn't make the galaxy seem like a very fun place to be.
And when it WASN'T rape, well... It still felt a touch gratuitous. Because boy howdy is Cord the Hunter a horny fella, who can drop literally everything he's doing (never mind if he's rushing to try and save someone from being kidnapped) in order to have a little tumble. It almost felt like, every chapter or so, a timer would 'ding', and announce that it had been too long without a bit of sex... ...and every time the authors re-set that timer they'd set it a little bit shorter, so as the book went on the more sex kept happening.
...SO, with all of that said... It was fun enough, but not as fun as the first book. I might have still liked to see more adventures from Cord the Hunter, and find out if he ever caught that dastardly Julia McKay, but alas, it appears that only two were ever written, and so such adventures must be left up to the imagination.
If I do care to imagine it, I'll tone back the sexual assault and slavery, and put that mind-reading device to good use that Cord and his family labored upon in book one, but that he barely had a chance to employ in this volume.
I've made some interesting finds browsing used book-shops and grabbing old pulpy novels I know absolutely nothing about, except that the name, the covers, and the blurb appealed to me. Alien Trace #1 was one such interesting find. It wasn't GREAT, but the world was neat, and it was tarty enough (without being too rapey or misogynistic) and kept me wondering what was going to happen next to compel me.
Alien Trace 2 drops a star for me, but still remained entertaining enough to finish.
On the plus side, this felt a bit like what the author (or rather, authors plural, hiding behind their pseudonym) actually wanted to write about. Where book number one could now in retrospect be seen as an origin story of "Cord the Hunter" - taking place all on one planet - this one jumps out into the galaxy, and seems to indulge a desire for lots of different worlds and cultures, though none were particularly drastic or unique (With the exception of the book's final world, which was hiding a rather nasty secret!)
In the detractions column however I have two particular criticisms.
The first is a general statement of "The story didn't feel tidy". Things just sort of 'seemed to happen', as though they were ideas that occurred to the authors while they were writing, but were not woven in particularly well. (The bad guy has a secret police officer following the protagonists across space for the entire book, only for the officer to be unceremoniously killed by some group of goons without Cord ever knowing he was even there?). This sloppiness seemed to reach a peak at the book's end, when it was revealed, with as little fanfare as possible, that not only was a side-character dead (for no particular reason) but that the bad guy was also dead by the way so the book could now be over.
The second criticism I have is the sex.
I'm always saying, time and again, that I like the idea of a tarty book, and I liked Alien Trace 1 for that reason. But here we enter a galaxy of rape; there are planets of slavery where rape is abundant, any woman taken prisoner by pirates or anyone is sure to be raped (because why wouldn't she be?) our main heroine - before being rescued - was raped countless times, and the aforementioned secret police officer is a serial rapist who not only uses his position as an officer to sexually torture people, but just loves to do it in general because that's what he's all about. At the very least it's all a pretty passionless bunch of rape; I wasn't squirming in my seat in discomfort, and no character shed much in the way of tears about it a page after it happened. yet, all the same, it just doesn't make the galaxy seem like a very fun place to be.
And when it WASN'T rape, well... It still felt a touch gratuitous. Because boy howdy is Cord the Hunter a horny fella, who can drop literally everything he's doing (never mind if he's rushing to try and save someone from being kidnapped) in order to have a little tumble. It almost felt like, every chapter or so, a timer would 'ding', and announce that it had been too long without a bit of sex... ...and every time the authors re-set that timer they'd set it a little bit shorter, so as the book went on the more sex kept happening.
...SO, with all of that said... It was fun enough, but not as fun as the first book. I might have still liked to see more adventures from Cord the Hunter, and find out if he ever caught that dastardly Julia McKay, but alas, it appears that only two were ever written, and so such adventures must be left up to the imagination.
If I do care to imagine it, I'll tone back the sexual assault and slavery, and put that mind-reading device to good use that Cord and his family labored upon in book one, but that he barely had a chance to employ in this volume.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 21, 2021
An excellent part 2 and end to this adventure. I need more! Cord is an amazing character. Please Sharon Jarvis. I have read all your fantasy and I love them! You are awesome!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews