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The Cognate Coefficient #2
If Else Paradise
Drawn into an extraterrestrial war, Ingvild Tang will do anything to meet her anchor, the cognate meant to be the other half of her quantum pair.
When sent to retrieve an anomaly—the husk of an alien neither dead nor alive—she encounters an enemy agent who looks too Hua Ziyi, a version of a woman she loved and lost, but from another timeline.
They soon begin a chase, cat and mouse, seducer and seduced, as warring factions fight for supremacy. Each of the women has a unique connection to the anomaly. Each of them could make or break the war—or shatter spacetime for good.
All they have to do is to each other, or their factions victory?
When sent to retrieve an anomaly—the husk of an alien neither dead nor alive—she encounters an enemy agent who looks too Hua Ziyi, a version of a woman she loved and lost, but from another timeline.
They soon begin a chase, cat and mouse, seducer and seduced, as warring factions fight for supremacy. Each of the women has a unique connection to the anomaly. Each of them could make or break the war—or shatter spacetime for good.
All they have to do is to each other, or their factions victory?
- GenresScience Fiction
160 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 3, 2023
7 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
About the author
Benjanun Sriduangkaew
83 books402 followersScience fiction, fantasy, and others in the between. Cute kissing ladies? I write those. Ruthless genocidal commanders? Got that covered too! 2014 finalist for Campbell Award for Best New Writer, 2015 BSFA finalist for Best Short Fiction (SCALE-BRIGHT). I like beautiful bugs and strange cities.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 22, 2025
The second book in this duology is every bit as good as the first, with perhaps a slightly different/less classically romantic tone. That said, of course, there's an HEA of sorts, but as is often the case with the author's books, it's complicated.
I will confess to having the occasional challenge following parts of the timeline shifting/alien civil war stuff, but that's a me problem. I was more than happy to go with the flow, of which there was plenty. The prose is, as always, sublime, and the winding of plot threads always feels seamless, even when my mind felt too puny to fully comprehend the machinations behind it all.
Of special note are the viciously hilarious attacks on England, and London in particular--a favorite of the author's, as evidenced by similarly hilarious depictions in her other books. Europe is shown as a mostly fallen empire, and America even more so, again, in keeping with the rest of Sriduangkaew's books. It's a rare treat to find a book that seems so prescient, and one that sets the action and the centers of power squarely in Asia (which is not depicted as perfect, but at least it's civilized).
Another interesting side note is that this book contains a lot of literary criticism, both of the publishing world itself and of the books the literary establishment enshrines as valuable. Of special interest to nerds like me is a fictional book described in the book, which I would happily devour if it existed.
It's a fascinating read, with delicious brief side quests of cultural, culinary, historical, and literary topics, all while never losing the tightly wound thread of action, romance, and sci-fi goodness.
No one does it better than Sriduangkaew.
I will confess to having the occasional challenge following parts of the timeline shifting/alien civil war stuff, but that's a me problem. I was more than happy to go with the flow, of which there was plenty. The prose is, as always, sublime, and the winding of plot threads always feels seamless, even when my mind felt too puny to fully comprehend the machinations behind it all.
Of special note are the viciously hilarious attacks on England, and London in particular--a favorite of the author's, as evidenced by similarly hilarious depictions in her other books. Europe is shown as a mostly fallen empire, and America even more so, again, in keeping with the rest of Sriduangkaew's books. It's a rare treat to find a book that seems so prescient, and one that sets the action and the centers of power squarely in Asia (which is not depicted as perfect, but at least it's civilized).
Another interesting side note is that this book contains a lot of literary criticism, both of the publishing world itself and of the books the literary establishment enshrines as valuable. Of special interest to nerds like me is a fictional book described in the book, which I would happily devour if it existed.
It's a fascinating read, with delicious brief side quests of cultural, culinary, historical, and literary topics, all while never losing the tightly wound thread of action, romance, and sci-fi goodness.
No one does it better than Sriduangkaew.
July 15, 2023
Amazingly, these dystopian/utopian fictions are above all romances
Sriduangkaew has a gift for crafting spec fic narratives in which vivid description effectively patches over the gaps in narrative logic to allow the reader to experience something like time-space travel, where a woman who has allied with near-omnipotent aliens (the Cognate) is able to translate across infinitely diverse iterations of her world in the search for her Anchor--her fated Other. In other words, these are lesbian love stories, but set in a properly weird universe where the aliens function as an interfering deus ex machina with its own opaque agenda. Certain humans suit the purposes of two particular alien factions (the Bulwark opposing the Vector) in providing a kind of stabilizing bridge for their interventions. Other than the binary alignment of alien factions being a bit too conveniently straightforward (what are binaries doing in alien dimensions that subvert all binaries?), the blending of love-story, thriller, and meditation on possible worlds works really well. I love the writing style, the mashup of cultural horizons (polymorphous to the max), the deeply romantic drive of characters who exist beyond conventional morality, but always are clear-eyed about their ethical options.
Sriduangkaew has a gift for crafting spec fic narratives in which vivid description effectively patches over the gaps in narrative logic to allow the reader to experience something like time-space travel, where a woman who has allied with near-omnipotent aliens (the Cognate) is able to translate across infinitely diverse iterations of her world in the search for her Anchor--her fated Other. In other words, these are lesbian love stories, but set in a properly weird universe where the aliens function as an interfering deus ex machina with its own opaque agenda. Certain humans suit the purposes of two particular alien factions (the Bulwark opposing the Vector) in providing a kind of stabilizing bridge for their interventions. Other than the binary alignment of alien factions being a bit too conveniently straightforward (what are binaries doing in alien dimensions that subvert all binaries?), the blending of love-story, thriller, and meditation on possible worlds works really well. I love the writing style, the mashup of cultural horizons (polymorphous to the max), the deeply romantic drive of characters who exist beyond conventional morality, but always are clear-eyed about their ethical options.
July 23, 2024
4/5
If More Than Utopia is about love as obsession, then If Else Paradise is about fixating on the idea of love as obsession.
Ingvild Tang is a cognate, a human pawn in an alien war fought between dimensions. When she finds out about the existence of an anchor—someone meant to be the other half to her whole—she becomes fixated on finding this person, her “soulmate.”
“Why did I grow so quickly obsessed with a hypothetical person who may or may not exist? Just this—I want to experience something transcendent, something so absolute that the universe itself affirms you.”
So if you’re intrigued by the idea of soulmates crossed with world-hopping, double-crossing super agents, and you’re content with deeply genre-specific endings that refuse to tie up all of a story’s loose ends, then strap in.
If More Than Utopia is about love as obsession, then If Else Paradise is about fixating on the idea of love as obsession.
Ingvild Tang is a cognate, a human pawn in an alien war fought between dimensions. When she finds out about the existence of an anchor—someone meant to be the other half to her whole—she becomes fixated on finding this person, her “soulmate.”
“Why did I grow so quickly obsessed with a hypothetical person who may or may not exist? Just this—I want to experience something transcendent, something so absolute that the universe itself affirms you.”
So if you’re intrigued by the idea of soulmates crossed with world-hopping, double-crossing super agents, and you’re content with deeply genre-specific endings that refuse to tie up all of a story’s loose ends, then strap in.
July 30, 2023
great ending just slow to warm up
Benjanun delivers another thoughtful multiverse novel, a little over novella length and ripe with twisty endings. It does take about 80% of the book to properly set up the plot — the first half is super slow.
Worth it for sure, just soldier through the beginning.
Benjanun delivers another thoughtful multiverse novel, a little over novella length and ripe with twisty endings. It does take about 80% of the book to properly set up the plot — the first half is super slow.
Worth it for sure, just soldier through the beginning.
July 5, 2023
This book was very very hot and romantic and the aliens were awesome and scary.
If you enjoyed "This Is How You Lose The Time War" then you will love this book!
If you enjoyed "This Is How You Lose The Time War" then you will love this book!
February 19, 2024
Highly recommended.
July 5, 2023
More weird aliens, action, multiverse shenanigans and actually sweet romance in this series. I read this one first by mistake when it showed up in my preorders and I forgot I had been saving the first one but it actually worked okay.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews