by Ashley Payne, Okazu Staff Writer

Star Sword Nemesis, a new novella from Christine Love, wears its robot anime influences on its supremely fashionable sleeves. You might think that a novel where on the ninth page someone puts up a slide that consists solely of the sentence: “GIANT ROBOTS MAKE YOU STUPID.” would be more of a subversion but no, this story is doing what I have been asking for: make a robot story for the lesbians.

Our heroine Eris is struck with a profoundly relatable problem. Her instructor Halley is so cool and competent Eris’s crush on her is making it hard to focus on their lessons on wielding Star Sword Nemesis. Having a crush on Halley is a profoundly foolish idea, not just because Halley is Eris’ instructor, as Halley was an enemy combatant until a few months ago.

This results in the irresistible force of “I can fix her” meeting the immovable object of “This is the real world kid”. What is truly impressive is that it chooses very different points of tension than you might be expecting if you were familiar with kissing books. It has great fun indulging in the expected peaks of confession and heartbreak and then pushing past them with a refreshing resolution that spins the story forward. The momentum really shifts up at the halfway point, becoming almost impossible to put down.

While the core of the story is Eris rushing headlong into what appears to be obvious betrayal, it is entwined with some of the most impressive sci-fi world building I have had the pleasure to read in a while. We learn about the semi-untopian society of the Trans-Neptunians both directly, with Eris talking with her friends and in the moments when Eris and Halley miss-communicate. It really reminded me of the brief moments in an Ian M. Banks Culture novel. Only here the Trans-Neptunians are not an idealised, post scarcity society, but a small collective holding on to their ideals in the face of direct hostility from the Earth Sphere.

Star Sword Nemesis is only one hundred and fifty-eight pages but it is broken up with wonderful art from Max Schwartz, who illiterates key events light novel style. Only we get more art per page in Star Sword Nemesis in delightful colour too. Frankly, comparing Star Sword Nemesis to a fun light novel is the ideal comparison. It is short, straightforward, has a powerful sense of its world and characters and has a denouement better than most novels.

Ratings:

Art: 10
Story: 7
Characters: 8
Service: 10
Yuri: 10
LGBTQ+: 10

Overall: 9

I know for most of the people who read this blog Star Sword Nemesis is barely an afternoon’s reading and it is well worth one afternoon.