Keep the Stars Running

***On sale this weekend (7/6/18 - 7/8/18) for 99 cents!

I don't think I've reviewed an anthology before, because I rarely read all the stories. But the premise of this one interested me a lot and I wanted to read them all. I'll review them separately. But overall, this anthology delivered exactly what it promised.

All of these stories are about gay (maybe bi) cis men, which is not a good or bad thing, just unusual for LT3's anthologies. Also, two of the stories (the first and last) involve non-con or dub-con in some way, in case anyone avoids those things.

1. The Prince and the Programmer by Cassandra Pierce. 2 stars. I can't imagine why this story was chosen to be first. If I had read it as a sample or something, there's no way I would've bought the book. There's a love triangle; the MC has a crush on his love interest, who is in love with another guy, but the MC meets guy #2 first. I didn't know for sure what the main pairing even was until the very end, so I can't say it was a very romantic story. I thought it might end as m/m/m, but instead, guy #2 turned out to be cartoonishly evil. The sci-fi elements felt a little ridiculous. The MC is a maintenance worker who aspires to be a chef, sort of - he wants to program food replicators with ancient Earth recipes. Okay. Well, I was glad when the story ended and I could move on.

2. About a Bot by Andrea Speed. 4 stars. This one is super cute, but it also has a decent plot, including some very exciting moments. It's about a janitor (in space!) who restores old bots as a hobby. His teenage crush comes aboard, and they reconnect. Something threatens the station, and the MC is the only one who can save the day. I liked it a lot. The writing has a really charming, immediate style. I'd never read this author before but will definitely seek out more of her work.

3. The Aurora Conspiracy by Lexi Ander. 5 stars. Excellent story! This has alternating PoVs, and it tells a story of corporate intrigue via two characters, a detective and a miner, who were once a couple before a tragic incident in the past. There's a great android side character, who provides some needed comic relief, as both MCs are pretty gloomy dudes, and the story overall has a sort of noir-ish feel. The action was exciting, and the characters were all very heroic. I would totally read a followup in which nice things happen for Danny. I definitely liked this as much as Lexi Ander's novel Alpha Trine.

4. Flight Risk by Talya Andor. 5 stars. Another great one. This was my second time reading sci-fi by Talya Andor, and I slightly preferred this short story to her novel Signal to Noise; I liked that book a lot, but it had some contrived plot elements. Like the last one, this story has alternating PoVs. The MCs are a low-level soldier and a mechanic who services the devices (I was imagining podracers but I'm not sure if that's correct) that the military uses. The setting is a planet in conflict, in which the military patrols for rebels who are constantly attacking. So it's very exciting from the beginning. Great worldbuilding, too. The mechanic is reluctant to act on his attraction; the relationship and the rest of the plot (which also deals with intrigue) play out at a good pace.

5. Survival by Leona Carver. 4 stars. This is the most interesting story in the anthology, in my opinion, focusing on the conflict between science and nature. It really is not the usual fare I expect from LT3. I don't mean that as a criticism, but I feel this story would be more at home in a standard sci-fi anthology, not one that concentrates on romance. The MC, who is a botanist's assistant, is awoken unexpectedly from cryosleep on a long space voyage because of a malfunction with the forest the ship is carrying. He unknowingly gets involved in a really strange love triangle. I'll be mulling over this one for a while, which is the highest compliment I can pay to sci-fi. I don't give it 5 stars because the pacing felt a little off to me; the story dragged in places, giving a lot of unnecessary details about everyday things like eating. Maybe it was partly because of the plot, but it reminded me somewhat of the movie Silent Running, which is a classic of course, but so slow-paced. However, once the action started, in probably the last 25% of the story, I was riveted. I'll keep an eye out for this author's work.