*Price drop to $0.99 at Amazon US, 1/5/21*
Re-read 10/18/15
Interesting reading this book a second time. I still loved it, still stand by my original rating, but I found myself wishing this book was 2x longer. I also didn't mind the ending like I did the first time. The steam was still steamy but less than it was in my memory. Very deserving of my 5 star rating.
*******Original Review********
My first book by Lisa Henry and boooooooyyy can that girl write!!
Can I start by saying that that guy on the cover is exactly how I pictured Brady. Such a delicious mix of innocent and hot! Okay, now onto my actual review...
Dark Space has me written all over it. I love a good sci-fi book, emphasis on good. When sci-fi makes sense it takes me into my head like no other genre. So when you combine a fantastic sci-fi concept with smoking hot MM lovin', DAMN do you get a winner! And this book is winner winner chicken dinner.
The telepathy between Brady and Cam was amazing to read about. Lisa Henry did a fabulous job showing the whole range of emotions that Brady had while being forced to share his head-space with Cam. His wavering between frustration, lust, anger... it just felt so real and so on point. I went through the whole gamut of feelings with Brady. I was totally in this story.
This book is also the most realistic gay-for-you book that I have ever read. I have really never believed that true GFY exists, but instead that the person was just gay and one particular person made them realize it. However, here, with Cam's lust and emotions fueling Brady's emotions... shaping them, changing them, I felt like Brady could have truly could have become gay for Cam. I also loved how Brady reacted to feeling attracted to a man. He really rolled with the punches, so to speak, and after some internal debate, seemed at peace with his attraction to Cam. There was no self-loathing about his man-loving feelings. It was really well done.
And thank you Lisa Henry for answering my smutty smutty sci-fi prayers!! There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that gets me going like a first-timer! Oh, you did not disappoint me! The way the sex was interwoven into the plot was just genius.
My only complaint is the ending. Lisa, this book was almost on my top faves of all time shelf. However, the ending was just so rushed. After all of that delicious, meticulous build-up, it just seemed like an incredibly fast way to end things. I actually might have preferred a bittersweet ending. This ending just seemed forced.
Despite my problems with the way things closed out, this book was just an astounding work of fiction. I loved it, I loved it, I loved it!
**Find this review and others like it on www.myfictionnook.com :D ** Lisa Henry It must remain still—and it puts the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again.
What do you get when you take...
- a battered 16yo kid
- draft him into the military
- put him on the interstellar equivalent of the Maginot Line
- rough him up over the next three years
- and then lock him in a room for ten days with the most famous prisoner of war in the galaxy, who may or may not be carrying a weapon of biological warfare intended to exterminate all of humanity, but who also says it won't happen like that and that everything is okay because the baddie is on his way to personally sort them all out, and if you could just be so good as to kindly ignore his throbbing erection, that would be lovely, thanks?
You get a story that is by turns funny, bleak, hopeful, suspenseful, mysterious, terrifying, angry, violent, sexually charged, and horribly, horribly sad.
You get an ungodly fuckton of great writing.
You also get to have your cake and eat it, too. If you read this scandalously good book, you'll see what I mean, but I will decline to explain further—because I'll be damned if I'll let my friends with poor impulse-control ruin what is a fairly excellently deployed head-fake by clicking on a stupid spoiler tag.
Lisa Henry, man... this is my first book of hers, but it won't be my last. Homegirl can friggin' write.
I read this in one sitting and nearly wet myself with dread.
Between the stabs of aching pathos and the surprising laughs, between truly ghastly violence and the sweet bloom of tenderness, I found myself marveling—and shuddering—with the highs and lows of a very, very expertly crafted emotional ride.
Never mind the nauseatingly drawn-out and ruthlessly escalated suspense—ratcheting up and up, over and over—because when the inevitable happens and it turns out even worse than you'd feared, you're already freaking out about the next crisis before you've even managed to mop-up the diarrhea from the first one.
This thing is scary, and dark. It's also tender, and sexy, and funny. It's just... that good. That ghastly.
That fun.
The shit—to quote a pop song of relatively middling antiquity—is bananas.
Lisa Henry Another awesome re-read 9/10/18
Well, what do you know. I have read my second sci-fi book and again...I loved the hell out of it. I was already in a sci-fi vibe from the last book, so I figured, why not give this one a go. I'm still shocked by how much I enjoyed reading this book. Guess I am more into sci-fi than I thought...
Anyways, I am gonna try and keep this review short (yeah right), because there are plenty of awesome reviews for this book already.
Let's start with Brady....my favorite ;)
Brady is 19 years old and has been working on a militairy Space Station for the last 3 years. The reason they are stationed in space...to protect the earth from aliens....or faceless as they are called. Brady is scared to death of space (the big black) and of the faceless, but since he was drafted at 16...he had no other choice.
He really wants to go home to his sick father and his baby sister, but he still has 7 years to serve. Brady is a bit of an angry dude, so I really connected with him from the start. He is of the opinion that life in general sucks...and his (pessimistic) thoughts throughout this book, made me laugh out loud...
I really understood where he was coming from. Being locked in dark outer space for the last 3 years...the life slowly being sucked out of you... all the while being afraid of freaking aliens coming and destroying you and anything around you. Yeah that's some freaky shit !!!
His fears and his pessimism get even worse, when one day an alien pod arrives. In it is non other than Luitenant Cameron Rushton, who was kidnapped by the faceless 4 years ago.
Brady is called to the medic bay to come help, but when he helps to cut Cameron out of the pod, he gets injured and comes into contact with the strange fluid surrounding Cameron. Apparently this causes a strange connection between the two of them, and soon it becomes clear that Cameron can't survive without Brady. He needs Brady's touch and heartbeat to stay alive. Brady sort of functions as his battery. Fucked up...but there you have it. They can also communicate telepathically and hear each other's thoughts.
“You’re my heartbeat, Brady .”
Cam also has a message for the military....the faceless are coming...Which makes Brady even more neurotic than he already was. He is convinced they are all going to die and this is his motto for most of the book :P
There is also a plus to all this though. Because Cam can't survive without Brady, the two of them are forced to stay close together in their own private little world. They share almost everything...and touching becomes more and more urgent. Which made for some very nice and steamy scenes.... ;)
But the faceless are coming....and what will happen when they do...
Huh...guess my review isn't as short as I promised...
I really enjoyed this one...I especially loved Brady and his anger and pessimism...
I can't wait to see what's gonna happen in book 2. I also want to thank my sweet sweet friend Susan, for recommending this one to me...Thanks babe ;)
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Lisa HenryThis review is posted on Wendy's Wycked Words
So this book is a little bit like this:
And there’s a 19 year old kid, scared and angry with quite a mouth on him.
Why am I using the cover? Cause the kid on the cover actually looks like a KID and not a pretty, muscular model that we’ve seen 1457 times. TAKE NOTE PUBLISHERS.
Anyway, our young hero is stuck in a room with a possible traitor waiting for the big bad to arrive:
But while they’re waiting they’re both dealing with boners so they’re all like this:
And then boners turn into feelings – You’re my heartbeat, Brady. -- and I’m all like:
And then there’s this:
Fuck the universe.So then I was all:
Fuck eternity and creation and a million colors boiling together in the black.
What the hell use was that to me?
My heart broke either way.
And then the shit really hits the fan and I was like:
And then a lot of other shit happens. But, you know, spoilers.
My favorite part of Dark Space is not all the space stuff or the aliens stuff or the military stuff – that’s just stuff. When you remove the setting, it's a story that could've easily taken place on a ship at sea 500 hundred years ago. The story is timeless. Love is love no matter which time period we're in or which outfit we're wearing (I'm thinking about the skin tight suits you find in Buck Rogers & similar).
Love is not loveHenry's use of the above sonnet, or part of a sonnet, is pretty fantastic. It tells us that true love is as constant as the north star. There may be storms, aliens may attack, the entire universe may seem to be against you -- but people who truly love, love even when the shit goes down. It's a lesson Garrett learns, or starts to learn, over the course of the novel.
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixèd mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
BR with Giulio, Otila, Sofia, & Therese!
Lisa Henry Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of Brady Garrett. His ten-year mission: to serve on a deep space military station, to protect Earth from new life and new civilizations, to boldly go... Oh fuck that.
Brady hates the vast, endless blackness with a passion. And he doesn't give a shit about protecting Earth. He just wants to care for his little sister.
Alas! Ever since the Faceless, a terrifying race of aliens who have beat the human race in terms of technology and military strength, attacked Earth, boys are to serve in space for ten long years. Brady had to leave behind his ill father and young sister when he turned sixteen. The homesickness, anger and angst have been gnawing at him every day, for the past three years that he spent on space station Defender Three. Angst, because everyone has seen the video material of the handsome pilot Cameron Rushton, propaganda's wet dream. His noble face graced posters on Earth. That is, until his space vessel was captured by the Faceless and everyone on board was murdered except him.
But now Cameron is back. His pale, unconscious body was floating around in outer space, drenched in the milky fluid of a semi-organic pod. Has he been turned into a bioweapon, some terminator, is this just a cruel gift from the faceless to mock the laughably weak humans? The war hero has suddenly become the stuff of nightmares...
Oh man, Dark Space is a knock-you-down cocktail of reluctant and shy, yet passionate GFY love, against the backdrop of a vast darkness in which stars twinkle and a destructive alien race creeps closer.
This book kickstarts in such an exciting and entertaining way. Safely snuggled up in the head of the expressive Brady (a perfectly executed first-person narrative is not something I come across every day, But Henry pulls it off, and how! This is a smartass, adorable and insecure 19 years old kid!), we zoom in on the action... and on the pod. Those Faceless bastards didn't include a manual, so Brady's clueless superiors just cut the darn thing open. BAD IDEA. Suddenly everything is awash in a slimy liquid, people start to panic and Cameron is dying on the floor amidst it all. Brady's desperately trying to keep Cameron alive when he discovers that his body functions as a battery. Before he has a chance to process what's going on, a creepy telepathic connection between the two is a fact and they are, quite literally, stuck together..
Wheww..I know, right!
So I just sat back and let the sliminess and awesomeness wash over me.
Throughout the book there's a delicious dark undercurrent of angsty anticipation. Will the Faceless come back to claim Cameron? And how will the telepathic bond between these two play out? Because Brady not only shares Cam's dark and twisted dreams, he gets a taste of the red, hot erotic ones as well. Are the lusty ideas that start swirling around in Brady's head merely echo's of Cam's own desires or are they -- shocker -- his own? And does it matter?
So maybe there's a little too much repetition in how the romance between these two unfolds. And maybe the actual story is smothered in the aww-material moments these boys share. But then again, the telepathy trope made their romance both intriguing and believable. I devoured their slow burning love, couldn't stop reading...and while doing so may have swooned once or twice.
I wish the same could be said about the ending. Oh dear, what a bummer! After a few zigging and zagging plot twists towards the end, there it was again, my enemy, my foe: a plastered on, contrived HEA. Oh nooo's! What happened here? Why did it happen? This book pretty much started with a BANG. The part in the middle took its sweet, sweet time. And then everything was suddenly wrapped up so sloppily and rushed.
FML.
But! The biggest chunk of Dark Space was good. Really, very, recommendably good. And that cover.. Guys, you have to agree with me that there are so many terrible covers out there for the m/m genre, that praise should be given when praise is due.
That IS Brady Garrett right there! And let me tell you, he's quite something, inside and out.
Lisa Henry
Brady Garrett needs to go home. He’s a conscripted recruit on Defender Three, one of a network of stations designed to protect the Earth from alien attack. He's also angry, homesick, and afraid. If he doesn’t get home he’ll lose his family, but there’s no way back except in a body bag.
Cameron Rushton needs a heartbeat. Four years ago Cam was taken by the Faceless — the alien race that almost destroyed Earth. Now he’s back, and when the doctors make a mess of getting him out of stasis, Brady becomes his temporary human pacemaker. Except they’re sharing more than a heartbeat: they’re sharing thoughts, memories, and some very vivid dreams.
Not that Brady’s got time to worry about his growing attraction to another guy, especially the one guy in the universe who can read his mind. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just biochemistry and electrical impulses. It doesn’t change the truth: Brady’s alone in the universe.
Now the Faceless are coming and there’s nothing anyone can do. You can’t stop your nightmares. Cam says everyone will live, but Cam’s probably a traitor and a liar like the military thinks. But that’s okay. Guys like Brady don’t expect happy endings. Dark Space (Dark Space, #1)
4.5 UNIVERSE-SHATTERING STARS
I never would have read this book had I not seen the multiple glowing reviews come across my feed. I don't usually read sci-fi. I don't do aliens. And it's not because I'm arrogant enough to think we're the only intelligent beings in the universe, but because I generally prefer not to speculate about the vastness of space and time.
But thank the gods for peer pressure. Because this book was BLOODY. BRILLIANT.
Everything in this novel felt real and right: the war with the Faceless; the bleak future filled with destruction and fear; the brutality of conscription; the harshness of life on the edge of death; Cam, Brady, and Cam AND Brady - in every possible way, I believed in THEM, their connection, their soul-searing love.
The only minor niggle (and one that has been mentioned in other reviews) is that the ending felt rushed and slightly incomplete.
There was ONE question in particular that I don't think was resolved. If you've read the book, please read the spoiler and help me understand. I may go out of my mind if left hanging.
Lisa Henry ⚡️ 2 stars.⚡️
this book had potential. it had a pretty cool setting overall, but i desperately wanted to actually see more of it. i needed more world building, more space, more aliens, etc.
i also needed more character development and relationship development. this book was lacking in those aspects for sure.
also, i was hoping this was more of a story of fighting aliens and shit, but there was disappointingly none of that here.😞
instead, we got the mcs - Cameron and Brady - basically just stuck in a room together for the majority of this book. which sucks btw, because i didn’t care about either of them. both mcs were mediocre as hell and i couldn’t get invested into their relationship at all.
the only times i felt something in general, while reading this book, were when Cam would get flashbacks of the alien world and Kai-Ren. i highkey wished i had been reading a romance about Cameron and the alien at those moments, not Cameron and Brady.💀
anywayssss... i expected to be fucking amazed by this book after all the great things i had heard about it. but sadly this book was just disappointing as hell for the most part. Lisa Henry Thanks to Marte and DoodlePanda for the BR!
Wow! I am still awake at 2:25am because I could not put this book down.
There are tons of reviews from our little corner of GR and I'm sleepy, so I'm not going to bother other than to say that Lisa Henry has written one hell of a book. Forget sci-fi, forget m/m, this is just a really great book. It's fun, sexy, suspenseful, sad, and all around AMAZING. Recommended to everybody! Loved it, loved it, loved it. Lisa Henry DNF at around 75%
I probably could have finished this one but I just couldn't be bothered. I was pretty bored.
Brady wasn't too likable either.
This was my first sci-fi type read and it was really interesting at first. I kind of dug the whole connection between Brady and Cam, and how Brady was essentially keeping Cam alive. It was kind of sweet and hot.
But then nothing really happened. And Brady just seemed to be on the same continuous loop inside his head. We're all going to die. We only have a few days left. Kai-Ren will kill us.
Apparently things picked up where I left off but I can assure you I would not have been pleased with much that followed.
So yeah, this one wasn't for me! Lisa Henry Written November 9, 2013
5 Stars - stunning in a very tranquil dreamy and beautiful way
I'm actually quite devout and overwhelmed after reading this amazing romance. Dark Space was not at all what I thought and expected. Instead I got something so much better.
So, so good... romantic, poetic, nicely written and with a story that is both surprising, amusing, affectionate and also quite scary at times. Full marks!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Dark Space takes place in a rather dark future, a half century after the Earth was attacked by the Faceless. Brady Garett makes his ten-year military service at space station number three. Brady wants nothing more than to go home again, but yet it has only been three years and as an angry and bitter 19 year old, it is now just to survive and endure.
Four years earlier was the now celebrated hero, the fighter pilot Cameron Rushton, captured by these invincible and dangerous aliens. One day he returns and he needs a second heart...
‘Cam lifted his free hand. He ran his fingertips along my jaw. The intensity of his gaze shocked me.
“You're my heartbeat, Brady.”
About a month ago I read another very good M/M novel (The Island) by this author. Even then, I was struck by how good terrible memories and very nasty experiences can be told in the most skilful manner so that the reader knows but doesn't have to experience them all. And I'm so grateful. ~ I know but don't need, or want, to be involved and learn every little cruel detail. Because there is a lot of dark topics in this story too but Dark Space is also so very bright and beautiful. It's about fear... hope and love.
For me is it always wonderful with manly men, heroes and other characters who may be small. Strong men who are allowed to cry, scream and be scared sometimes. Like Brady here. Then it becomes really good and believable stories about real people - even here in an quite unreal and fictional sci fi world. Sometimes it can also be too much anxiety and distress but these two MC's felt both credible, interesting, and very worthy of each other. They were just simply two lovely and believable guys and I felt stongly for them.
...Nothing was obvious, and up until the last page, I wondered how it would end. Skillfully done, Miss Henry!
Brady and Cam's inner thoughts, souls, hearts and desire are tied closer and closer to each page. Eventually, it becomes overwhelmingly beautiful and captivating. Two men in a room, an exterior terrible faceless enemy, incomprehension and dark secrets, a dark but fascinating future world and charged with excitement - ...you become embroiled in Brady's emotions, fears and thoughts... and get stuck there. A very interesting place to visit.
Sometimes I might need both more action, laughter, nonsense or big grand tears, but after two captivating well written five star's books are now this author, Lisa Henry, a given reading choice for me in the future.
Superb!! ~ better than this can hardly a romantic and atmospheric sci fi book be... for me. Recommended to all romance readers who dare to venture out into the vast darkness in space.
I LIKE - Very much!!
~~~~~~~~~~~
My wise friend Andrea (her review) recommended this lovely novel to me ~ Thank you, Andrea! Lisa Henry
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