What do you think?
Rate this book
As Born to Rule the Storm
The star-crossed temporal romance of THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR meets the vintage setting and yearning of DIVINE RIVALS in AS BORN TO RULE THE STORM.
Cadet Charlotte Amsel will trade her life to win a war- but not all at once. As part of an elite group of experimental soldiers, she can move through time, with each jump taking months from her own fated lifespan as she struggles to prevent the cold war from boiling over into an apocalypse. With her own side just as untrustworthy as the enemy, the only thing she cares about is keeping her best friend and fellow soldier (and in some timelines, lover) safe. But each time loop adds violent complications, and saving anyone before she runs out of life to give may prove impossible.
Praise for AS BORN TO RULE THE STORM:
“As Born to Rule the Storm elegantly renders lifetimes of love and loss in 120 pages. With emotional, cutting prose and a clever conceit, Baumer explores what it means to fight for glimmers of happiness in the darkness of certain doom. Bittersweet and perfect. “ — Allison Saft, New York Times bestselling author of A Far Wilder Magic
“With prose and plotting as precise and intricate as clockwork, As Born to Rule the Storm layers timelines like syncopated music, exploring the inevitability of war, loss, sacrifice—and love.”- Leanne Schwartz, author of A Prayer for Vengeance
“In As Born to Rule the Storm, Baumer expertly weaves the moving drama of both a war story and love story into one seamless, heartache of a book. If you read any novella this year, make it this one.” - Hayley Stone, author of Make Me No Grave
Cadet Charlotte Amsel will trade her life to win a war- but not all at once. As part of an elite group of experimental soldiers, she can move through time, with each jump taking months from her own fated lifespan as she struggles to prevent the cold war from boiling over into an apocalypse. With her own side just as untrustworthy as the enemy, the only thing she cares about is keeping her best friend and fellow soldier (and in some timelines, lover) safe. But each time loop adds violent complications, and saving anyone before she runs out of life to give may prove impossible.
Praise for AS BORN TO RULE THE STORM:
“As Born to Rule the Storm elegantly renders lifetimes of love and loss in 120 pages. With emotional, cutting prose and a clever conceit, Baumer explores what it means to fight for glimmers of happiness in the darkness of certain doom. Bittersweet and perfect. “ — Allison Saft, New York Times bestselling author of A Far Wilder Magic
“With prose and plotting as precise and intricate as clockwork, As Born to Rule the Storm layers timelines like syncopated music, exploring the inevitability of war, loss, sacrifice—and love.”- Leanne Schwartz, author of A Prayer for Vengeance
“In As Born to Rule the Storm, Baumer expertly weaves the moving drama of both a war story and love story into one seamless, heartache of a book. If you read any novella this year, make it this one.” - Hayley Stone, author of Make Me No Grave
111 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 3, 2023
19 people are currently reading
886 people want to read
About the author
Cate Baumer
3 books57 followersCate Baumer (she/her) is a fantasy writer who lived half her life in Japan but currently resides in the heart of Appalachia, a setting that inspires her work. When not writing, she can be found exploring the woods on horseback, putting her degree in art history to use at museums and antique shops, or searching for the perfect cup of coffee.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
January 5, 2025
Review originally on JamReads
As Born To Rule the Storm is an excellent fantasy novel, written by Cate Baumer, and that we read as part of the SFINCS2 semifinals. A beautifully written story that smartly plays with possibilities and timelines, creating a tale of war, love and time travel with excellently drawn characters.
Cadet Charlotte Amsel is part of an elite group of experimental soldiers of one of the two powers that are currently in a cold war state; she can move through time and visualize possible futures, but at a cost of her own lifespan. In her jumps, she tries to prevent the war from escalating into a full-blown destruction situation, but both sides are equally prone to aggression, so she focuses instead on getting the time loop in which her best friend is still safe; but in each loop, there are more elements outside of her control, and with her own life running out, she might not be able to save anyone.
Despite being a relatively short proposal, Baumer manages to capture the intensity of Lottie's struggles, how she's doing her best to understand which future is the correct, but how she's also failing, losing her own life in the process. She's fighting to get a better future while trading in exchange her own future; and with more loops, the more she understands that the escalation is probably inevitable, so focusing on saving her best friend (who becomes a lover in some timelines) becomes the logical decision. However, each loop reveals more variables, leading her towards paths she wouldn't guess at the start.
Baumer's prose is another of the highlights of this novella. Not only is gorgeously written, but perfectly portrays the desperate quest of our main character, while also leaving many remarkable sentences.
While the worldbuilding is a bit limited by the length, there are some interesting touches here and there, such as the two big powers in a cold war state, the experiments to get an advantage over the enemy; much that could be drawn as a parallel to the own Cold War.
In a few pages, As Born to Rule the Storm is an intense and captivating novella, impactful and heart-wrenching at moments. A remarkable title that I totally recommend if you enjoy well-woven stories around time loops.
Disclaimer: This review represents my personal opinion. Score and review from the whole team might vary.
As Born To Rule the Storm is an excellent fantasy novel, written by Cate Baumer, and that we read as part of the SFINCS2 semifinals. A beautifully written story that smartly plays with possibilities and timelines, creating a tale of war, love and time travel with excellently drawn characters.
Cadet Charlotte Amsel is part of an elite group of experimental soldiers of one of the two powers that are currently in a cold war state; she can move through time and visualize possible futures, but at a cost of her own lifespan. In her jumps, she tries to prevent the war from escalating into a full-blown destruction situation, but both sides are equally prone to aggression, so she focuses instead on getting the time loop in which her best friend is still safe; but in each loop, there are more elements outside of her control, and with her own life running out, she might not be able to save anyone.
Despite being a relatively short proposal, Baumer manages to capture the intensity of Lottie's struggles, how she's doing her best to understand which future is the correct, but how she's also failing, losing her own life in the process. She's fighting to get a better future while trading in exchange her own future; and with more loops, the more she understands that the escalation is probably inevitable, so focusing on saving her best friend (who becomes a lover in some timelines) becomes the logical decision. However, each loop reveals more variables, leading her towards paths she wouldn't guess at the start.
Baumer's prose is another of the highlights of this novella. Not only is gorgeously written, but perfectly portrays the desperate quest of our main character, while also leaving many remarkable sentences.
While the worldbuilding is a bit limited by the length, there are some interesting touches here and there, such as the two big powers in a cold war state, the experiments to get an advantage over the enemy; much that could be drawn as a parallel to the own Cold War.
In a few pages, As Born to Rule the Storm is an intense and captivating novella, impactful and heart-wrenching at moments. A remarkable title that I totally recommend if you enjoy well-woven stories around time loops.
Disclaimer: This review represents my personal opinion. Score and review from the whole team might vary.
December 27, 2024
“When you’ve killed god for your people, there’s nothing to stop you from becoming one.”
Masterpiece. May be the best novella I’ve ever read
Masterpiece. May be the best novella I’ve ever read
March 25, 2025
I read this novella as part of the Secret Scribes judging group for the Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship (SFINCS) Finals, and this is my personal review.
Born to Rule the Storm is one of those stories that completely pulls you into its world and heart. I was lost in the storm myself—the emotions in this piece are so well-written and absorbing. The characters of Lottie, Stephen, and Min tie it all together beautifully. I just finished reading it, and I know I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.
The themes of the Cold War and the possibility of changing the future when all outcomes seem bleak are powerfully woven into the narrative, adding depth and urgency to the story. The tension, the hope, and the heartbreak all felt so vivid, and the author’s prose carried me effortlessly through every moment.
If not for this competition, I might never have picked this up—and that’s unthinkable. Luckily, I became a judge, and perhaps that changed my future. In another timeline, I didn’t read this, and who knows what might have gone wrong?
I highly recommend Born to Rule the Storm to readers who enjoy speculative fiction with emotional depth and historical resonance. A more-than-worthy finalist in this competition, and I’ll definitely be looking up Cate Baumer's other works. The pacing, the flow—just perfect.
Born to Rule the Storm is one of those stories that completely pulls you into its world and heart. I was lost in the storm myself—the emotions in this piece are so well-written and absorbing. The characters of Lottie, Stephen, and Min tie it all together beautifully. I just finished reading it, and I know I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.
The themes of the Cold War and the possibility of changing the future when all outcomes seem bleak are powerfully woven into the narrative, adding depth and urgency to the story. The tension, the hope, and the heartbreak all felt so vivid, and the author’s prose carried me effortlessly through every moment.
If not for this competition, I might never have picked this up—and that’s unthinkable. Luckily, I became a judge, and perhaps that changed my future. In another timeline, I didn’t read this, and who knows what might have gone wrong?
I highly recommend Born to Rule the Storm to readers who enjoy speculative fiction with emotional depth and historical resonance. A more-than-worthy finalist in this competition, and I’ll definitely be looking up Cate Baumer's other works. The pacing, the flow—just perfect.
Read
April 8, 2025I read this books as part of judging the SFINCS novella competition for Team Booked Solid. This review reflects only my own thoughts and does not represent the team’s final score.. I received a free copy of the book for the purpose of judging.
Please note that this book passed two rounds of qualifiers and is one of ten books (out of one hundred) that made it to the competition finals.
---
Lottie has the ability to move forward in time and then return - at the cost of her own remaining time to live. When a seer predicts a coming war will bring about the end of civilisation, Lottie is pressed into finding a way to avoid it.
As Born to Rule the Storm is beautiful, intimate, and tragic, but despite this, the book didn't work for me.
The concept of moving forward in time to see what outcome a certain course of action might bring about is intriguing to say the least. The cost - Lottie pays with her own life - is terrible, and that doesn't even factor in the things she sees. Learning when and how her friends and family will die and the seeming inevitability of it is a terrible burden.
Will you tell your loved ones what you've seen, and will they want you to find a way to change that future? What change will telling them bring about?
The concept has a ton of potential, but I never really gelled with the way the story is told. Much of what's happening is shown through short micro fiction-like moments.
Like in a movie, or an anime show, when something important, dramatic, and tragic happens. That scene when the action ends, the sound cuts out, and everything moves in slow motion. A body falls to the ground. Blood drips into a puddle of rain water. A sword pierces the hero's chest. That dramatic moment when everything changes in a heartbeat, but played out ever so slowly to let it really sink in.
As Born to Rule the Storm is full of scenes written as moments like this, in painstaking, heartbreaking detail. It's well done, and it absolutely sets the mood of the story. A sense of tragic inevitability hangs over Lottie and everything she does, but it also crowds out everything else.
I often say that I want my novellas to be focused on one or a few things, and As Born to Rule the Storm is certainly focused. In words, it paints a stark and beautiful picture of a young woman heading to her doom - alone, yet surrounded by the people she loves and cares for.
For the longest time, I couldn't figure out why I couldn't connect with the story, or with Lottie. I feel like I ought to have, but something's not quite there, and I think it's character development. Everything's so focused on the situation Lottie finds herself in that there's no room for the rest of her.
Perhaps that's unfair of me? Perhaps I wasn't in the right frame of mind for this story when I read it? Maybe it's just not for me?
What I'll whine about
Pacing and moments. With the way the story includes so many slow-motion moments, the pace keeps fluctuating a lot, and it's hard to get into the flow of reading. To add to this, the descriptions are often vivid to the point where they pull attention to themselves and away from the story.
The ending. The story did not end at all like I expected it to, and while that in itself isn't an issue, I felt like the end didn't match with the rest of the story.
What I'll gush about
Doom and gloom. There's an almost smothering sense of impending, inevitable doom hanging over everything, and while it's not necessarily pleasant (it's not supposed to be), it's really well done.
Beauty. There's no denying that this book is full of terrible and beautiful moments, and if that's your thing, you'll love this book.
Final Words
As Born to Rule the Storm is a collection of beautiful snapshots from a life lived exploring the consequences of the butterfly effect.
Please note that this book passed two rounds of qualifiers and is one of ten books (out of one hundred) that made it to the competition finals.
---
Lottie has the ability to move forward in time and then return - at the cost of her own remaining time to live. When a seer predicts a coming war will bring about the end of civilisation, Lottie is pressed into finding a way to avoid it.
As Born to Rule the Storm is beautiful, intimate, and tragic, but despite this, the book didn't work for me.
The concept of moving forward in time to see what outcome a certain course of action might bring about is intriguing to say the least. The cost - Lottie pays with her own life - is terrible, and that doesn't even factor in the things she sees. Learning when and how her friends and family will die and the seeming inevitability of it is a terrible burden.
Will you tell your loved ones what you've seen, and will they want you to find a way to change that future? What change will telling them bring about?
The concept has a ton of potential, but I never really gelled with the way the story is told. Much of what's happening is shown through short micro fiction-like moments.
Like in a movie, or an anime show, when something important, dramatic, and tragic happens. That scene when the action ends, the sound cuts out, and everything moves in slow motion. A body falls to the ground. Blood drips into a puddle of rain water. A sword pierces the hero's chest. That dramatic moment when everything changes in a heartbeat, but played out ever so slowly to let it really sink in.
As Born to Rule the Storm is full of scenes written as moments like this, in painstaking, heartbreaking detail. It's well done, and it absolutely sets the mood of the story. A sense of tragic inevitability hangs over Lottie and everything she does, but it also crowds out everything else.
I often say that I want my novellas to be focused on one or a few things, and As Born to Rule the Storm is certainly focused. In words, it paints a stark and beautiful picture of a young woman heading to her doom - alone, yet surrounded by the people she loves and cares for.
For the longest time, I couldn't figure out why I couldn't connect with the story, or with Lottie. I feel like I ought to have, but something's not quite there, and I think it's character development. Everything's so focused on the situation Lottie finds herself in that there's no room for the rest of her.
Perhaps that's unfair of me? Perhaps I wasn't in the right frame of mind for this story when I read it? Maybe it's just not for me?
What I'll whine about
Pacing and moments. With the way the story includes so many slow-motion moments, the pace keeps fluctuating a lot, and it's hard to get into the flow of reading. To add to this, the descriptions are often vivid to the point where they pull attention to themselves and away from the story.
The ending. The story did not end at all like I expected it to, and while that in itself isn't an issue, I felt like the end didn't match with the rest of the story.
What I'll gush about
Doom and gloom. There's an almost smothering sense of impending, inevitable doom hanging over everything, and while it's not necessarily pleasant (it's not supposed to be), it's really well done.
Beauty. There's no denying that this book is full of terrible and beautiful moments, and if that's your thing, you'll love this book.
Final Words
As Born to Rule the Storm is a collection of beautiful snapshots from a life lived exploring the consequences of the butterfly effect.
July 21, 2025
Some absolutely gorgeous writing but something about it just didn't work for me. Baumer is immensely talented though and I'm def curious to see what else she has in store
January 1, 2026
This time-travel book hurt my heart repeatedly in such a good way. I highly recommend the experience.
September 21, 2023
Thank you so much to the author for the ARC!
Wow— truly gorgeous and heart wrenching. Set in a Cold War inspired world and telling the story of two time-crossed lovers caught in the cogs of two warring countries, As Born to Rule the Storm is a stunning novella that combines the time travel and bittersweet romance of This is How You Lose the Time War with the speculative twist and yearning of Divine Rivals, and a touch of the evocative prose of Six Deaths of the Saint. In short— literally my perfect book. I’m in absolute awe of how beautifully Cate was able to craft Lottie and Stephen’s story in such a short space of time. The world was beautifully wrought, the love full of pining and that all-important slow burn that makes me adore the friends to lovers trope. I read this in one sitting and am still reeling by the ending. Couldn’t recommend it more and I will definitely be picking up more of the author’s work in the future!
I believe this will be on Kindle Unlimited, and as a story under 200 pages you really have no reason not to pick it up!
Wow— truly gorgeous and heart wrenching. Set in a Cold War inspired world and telling the story of two time-crossed lovers caught in the cogs of two warring countries, As Born to Rule the Storm is a stunning novella that combines the time travel and bittersweet romance of This is How You Lose the Time War with the speculative twist and yearning of Divine Rivals, and a touch of the evocative prose of Six Deaths of the Saint. In short— literally my perfect book. I’m in absolute awe of how beautifully Cate was able to craft Lottie and Stephen’s story in such a short space of time. The world was beautifully wrought, the love full of pining and that all-important slow burn that makes me adore the friends to lovers trope. I read this in one sitting and am still reeling by the ending. Couldn’t recommend it more and I will definitely be picking up more of the author’s work in the future!
I believe this will be on Kindle Unlimited, and as a story under 200 pages you really have no reason not to pick it up!
October 4, 2023
Absolutely incredible. Baumer has crafted a spectacular novella that made me cry multiple times. Seriously, have tissues on hand while reading.
Content warnings: War-typical violence, Character death, Parent death, Child death, Brief mentions and depictions of suicide
Content warnings: War-typical violence, Character death, Parent death, Child death, Brief mentions and depictions of suicide
December 26, 2025
Reviewed as part of the finalist round of the SFINCS2 novella contest. Rating witheld until the end of the round.
As Born to Rule the Storm is a beautiful, at times bleak and heart-wrenching novella set during a time of war. The bleakness of their situation is offset by the heartwarming relationships between the main characters, Charlotte and her fellow cadets Stephen and Min.
In this world certain family lines are born with superpowers which are passed on to a close relative at death. Children with these powers are taken away from their families and rigorously trained as cadets with the hopes that their powers will eventually sway the outcome of the war. The story is told from a deeply human perspective, which makes the sacrifices made by these children even more moving.
The main character, Charlotte, is able to jump through time to the future and is urged to do so to try and make changes that will alter the war. However, she tragically loses time from her own lifespan each time she travels. Her childhood friendship with Stephen, whose power is to use shadows to camouflage objects and people, develops over the years into a deep, unshakeable love. Their lives (and deaths) figure heavily in each of the futures she observes when she travels.
Will she choose to save her beloved Stephen and escape with him; allow him to die if that seems to create a better future; become a traitor to her country; or sacrifice herself to end the war? Only she can make this ultimate decision, but she has to witness the deaths of her friends, and sometimes her own children, over and over in order to figure out what she should do. There is a very unexpected and thought-provoking twist involving one of the characters, Dr Vogel, which I did not see coming and it took me totally by surprise!
As Born to Rule the Storm is a really well-written, moving and unputdownable short novella and I look forward to reading more from this author.
As Born to Rule the Storm is a beautiful, at times bleak and heart-wrenching novella set during a time of war. The bleakness of their situation is offset by the heartwarming relationships between the main characters, Charlotte and her fellow cadets Stephen and Min.
In this world certain family lines are born with superpowers which are passed on to a close relative at death. Children with these powers are taken away from their families and rigorously trained as cadets with the hopes that their powers will eventually sway the outcome of the war. The story is told from a deeply human perspective, which makes the sacrifices made by these children even more moving.
The main character, Charlotte, is able to jump through time to the future and is urged to do so to try and make changes that will alter the war. However, she tragically loses time from her own lifespan each time she travels. Her childhood friendship with Stephen, whose power is to use shadows to camouflage objects and people, develops over the years into a deep, unshakeable love. Their lives (and deaths) figure heavily in each of the futures she observes when she travels.
Will she choose to save her beloved Stephen and escape with him; allow him to die if that seems to create a better future; become a traitor to her country; or sacrifice herself to end the war? Only she can make this ultimate decision, but she has to witness the deaths of her friends, and sometimes her own children, over and over in order to figure out what she should do. There is a very unexpected and thought-provoking twist involving one of the characters, Dr Vogel, which I did not see coming and it took me totally by surprise!
As Born to Rule the Storm is a really well-written, moving and unputdownable short novella and I look forward to reading more from this author.
October 24, 2023
What a great little book!! A debut fantasy, it didn’t disappoint. Even though it was short and I personally would have liked more character development and location description, I understand why it was written the way it was. It was quick, intelligent, expected the reader to keep up, and completely delivered despite its brevity. The story had great action and characters. I like the ending as well. I look forward to more from this author.
September 6, 2023
A heart-wrenching exploration of the lengths we’ll go for the people we love, As Born to Rule the Storm is a poignant addition to the time travel genre.
April 11, 2025
This was read as part of SFINCS2!
This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: As Born to Rule the Storm
Charlotte is involved in a war she never enlisted in and has a power she never asked for. Forced to fight alongside fellow super powered soldiers, the army sees them as nothing but tools. Each use of their power takes something away, draining away pieces of being. Yet the army doesn't care. If they die, a relative will inherit their power and be conscripted to start the vicious cycle over once more. Charlotte is coerced into using her power of time to live multiple lives in the future, trying to counteract an unfavorable outcome for her side. But in the process she will discover unknown things about herself that will change everything.
While the novella focuses on Charlotte, her pain and suffering are only a fraction of what takes place. Cate Baumer does a beautiful job showing the tragedy surrounding the secondary characters as much as the first. Charlotte's tale serves as the focus point, yet also emphasizes the mental and physical hardships the soldiers face. Forced to see people she loves die over and over again, timeline and timeline again is terrifying.
Within a short amount of time, As Born to Rule the Storm builds a bleak and dangerous world. One where people desperate for money are experimented on, leaving future generations to suffer for their choices. The characters will win their way into your heart with their steadfast love and connection to each other. And just a quickly cause heartbreak at what they must endure in each timeline as well as the utter disrespect and belief they are even human.
I recommend As Born to Rule the Storm for those who enjoy militaristic stories featuring emotionally captivating characters and a grim dark feel.
This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: As Born to Rule the Storm
Charlotte is involved in a war she never enlisted in and has a power she never asked for. Forced to fight alongside fellow super powered soldiers, the army sees them as nothing but tools. Each use of their power takes something away, draining away pieces of being. Yet the army doesn't care. If they die, a relative will inherit their power and be conscripted to start the vicious cycle over once more. Charlotte is coerced into using her power of time to live multiple lives in the future, trying to counteract an unfavorable outcome for her side. But in the process she will discover unknown things about herself that will change everything.
While the novella focuses on Charlotte, her pain and suffering are only a fraction of what takes place. Cate Baumer does a beautiful job showing the tragedy surrounding the secondary characters as much as the first. Charlotte's tale serves as the focus point, yet also emphasizes the mental and physical hardships the soldiers face. Forced to see people she loves die over and over again, timeline and timeline again is terrifying.
Within a short amount of time, As Born to Rule the Storm builds a bleak and dangerous world. One where people desperate for money are experimented on, leaving future generations to suffer for their choices. The characters will win their way into your heart with their steadfast love and connection to each other. And just a quickly cause heartbreak at what they must endure in each timeline as well as the utter disrespect and belief they are even human.
I recommend As Born to Rule the Storm for those who enjoy militaristic stories featuring emotionally captivating characters and a grim dark feel.
March 4, 2025
A military fantasy/Sci Fi with a time-splitting plot hook. Shades of All You Need Is Kill (the good graphic novel not the crummy Tom Cruise movie remake). Main character Lottie uses her temporal powers to avoid a war-ravaged future to little effect.
There are moments of bleakness and loss that are poignant, and a strong ending. Ultimately a little muddled and slow to get going dampened my enjoyment of an otherwise solid title.
There are moments of bleakness and loss that are poignant, and a strong ending. Ultimately a little muddled and slow to get going dampened my enjoyment of an otherwise solid title.
Read
January 14, 2025really cool concept that is really well executed imo
i was hooked beginning to end, and loved the writing, i got attached to the characters quickly too.
i'm happy i got another book from this author on my shelf :)
i was hooked beginning to end, and loved the writing, i got attached to the characters quickly too.
i'm happy i got another book from this author on my shelf :)
December 31, 2025
Such a stunning novella that packed an emotional punch. This love story??! The themes of being present, loyal, and resilience were relatable, even being science fiction. I loved this. So so happy to end my 2025 with this.
February 26, 2025
Such an impact in just around 100 pages! I loved the writing and the time travel aspect was really well done - among a thousand other things, but I won't spoil it by listing everything. Read it!
September 14, 2025
I really loved how fleshed out and raw this was in just over 100 pages. Beautifully written and the concept is unreal. Execution was flawless!
Read
October 17, 2024This review was originally posted on SFFINSIDERS.COM
By way of potentially unnecessary disclosure, Cate Baumer’s As Born to the Rule the Storm is in the same SFINCS judging pool (team Secret Scribes, which includes fellow SFFI contributor Dave Lawson. Hey, Dave!) as my own novella (which Dave has told me he will not judge for the contest, for obvious conflict-of-interest reasons). As with SPSFC3, I want to be a team player, and so sought out a few of my fellow contestants’ novellas to do what I could to give them a boost, and to ideally find a good pool of new indie authors to read! And I’d say that on this first attempt, I have been wildly successful.
I was drawn first to As Born to Rule the Storm over some of the other books in the Secret Scribes allotment because of the World War II fighter pilot texture of its cover (literally sitting on my desk next to me right now is a copy of David Mondey’s The Concise Guide to American Aircraft of World War II). The story follows a trio of genetically enhanced soldiers—Charlotte (or “Lottie” as her friends call her), Stephen, and Min—as they attempt to prevent all out war with the neighboring sovereign state; though the main thrust of this responsibility falls to Charlotte, since her power is of the greatest import in this effort. You see, Charlotte can move through time. Her importance to the story is cemented in the story’s presentation, as Charlotte is the single POV character in the novella, and all the events of the story are recounted inner-monologued-ly in first person.
The back cover pitches this novella as This Is How You Lose the Time War crossed with The Umbrella Academy (though the Goodreads description swaps out Umbrella Academy for Divine Rivals); but since I’ve not read or seen any of those (yet!) I would pitch it like this: As Born to Rule the Storm is like a mid-century Edge of Tomorrow. Both stories are quite clearly works of imaginative science-fiction, but their sci-fi elements are really just a vehicle to get to the interpersonal relationships contained therein. As Born to Rule the Storm is not really even about time travel but is much more about how such power can and will affect your life and the lives of those around you.
Time travel is an interesting tool in the science-fiction author’s toolbox. Oftentimes the first question one asks before writing or partaking of a time travel story is: how much of an explanation are we going to get? Because inevitably, the depth of the explanation can have a profound effect on our enjoyment of the story. Overcomplicate it, and you open yourself up to the scrutiny of “plot hole” enthusiasts. Underbake it, and you might be accused of lazy writing. But luckily we’re at a time in history where enough time travel fiction has been produced that new writers of it don’t really need to explain it at all. It has, after decades of use in the genre, become ubiquitous. Few modern authors would feel like they’d need to explain a wormhole or a hyperdrive any more than they’d need to explain a hammer or a telephone. Audiences (or at the very least the audience of this kind of genre fiction) know what these things are now, and how they traditionally work; and so perhaps then the writer might even lampshade our unconscious acceptance of it, like in Rian Johnson’s 2012 time travel thriller Looper, where Bruce Willis’ “Joe” is talking to his Joseph Gordon-Levitt’ed younger version of himself and—when asked about how the logistics of such an interaction is possible—says:
“If we start talking about it then we’re going to be here all day talking about it and making diagrams with straws. It doesn’t matter.”
And at the end of the day, Bruce Willis is right. It doesn’t matter, and so Baumer spends little time outlining the specifics of how Charlotte’s gift works. The first jump occurs, we absorb the texture of it, we accept these newly established rules of the story, and the narrative progresses. Time travel is a means to an end, and the end to which Baumer deploys it is an exploration of the relationship between Charlotte and Stephen. That’s what matters.
And that relationship is, as I said in a tweet immediately after I finished reading this novella, exceptionally tender. Due to the time-jumping construction of the narrative, the story of Charlotte and Stephen spans decades, but the breadth of storytelling is not merely chronological. I was shocked at just how dense Baumer was able to make this novella. For as thin as the spine of this book is, Baumer has packed it with far more of Lottie’s potential futures than I ever expected; more of which surprised me than didn’t. Given the texture of the early chapters and the art direction of the cover, I entered into this novella with certain preconceptions about where its story might lead, and I’m happy to say that Baumer shattered those preconceptions at every available opportunity.
But perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised. In hindsight, it was unreasonable for me to think that a book like this wouldn’t contain at least an implicit anti-war message (its anti-war message is quite explicit). After all, a story about two lovers doomed to be repeatedly separated by a war that, not only did they not begin, but also are unwilling participants—if such a thing ended in a jingoistic hurrah it would surely be unsatisfying.
But the war comes, again and again; and Charlotte’s attempts to stop the war fail, and fail, and fail. With each failure the stakes increase—because there’s a bit of worldbuilding we haven’t discussed yet. You see, unlike Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow, time does not simply reset the moment Charlotte dies. No, she does not have infinite time with which to experiment. Every jump takes time off of her own life; so we know that at some point, there will be a final failure from which she cannot reset. This failure looms large as the narrative progresses; casting long shadows over what moments of happiness she is able to find amidst the storm of time. Her life then becomes, despite her best efforts, defined by these numbers, as she remarks:
“Most awful things in the world boil down to calculations. Even our weapons come not from the men on the fields, but from a dozen engineers in a dozen rooms drafting ways to murder on blueprint.”
A knot tightened in my gut as, far too early in the book, Charlotte settled into a series of far happier scenes than anything that had come before it. But I could see how many pages were left, and so each new page turn was done in fear, knowing something must end this. And something did. And time reset. And my melancholy became all consuming.
Despite how dour all this must seem from how I’m describing it, Cate Baumer has written an extraordinarily beautiful book, heart-wrenching and uplifting in equal measure; but some of the most painful moments in the book though are the most simple—the times just after Charlotte jumps back through time and is confronted by Stephen or Min and their timelost ignorance of the world she just left. Charlotte remembers moments with them that will no longer happen, and she must carry those memories in solitude. She cannot share her happiness and she cannot share her grief; for it would not be fair to them to know. It would not be fair to tell them about what happiness will never come. To know the future is not a gift, it is a curse—an omnipresent weight upon the mind and heart of the bearer of that power.
I loved this book, and I think you’ll love it too.
By way of potentially unnecessary disclosure, Cate Baumer’s As Born to the Rule the Storm is in the same SFINCS judging pool (team Secret Scribes, which includes fellow SFFI contributor Dave Lawson. Hey, Dave!) as my own novella (which Dave has told me he will not judge for the contest, for obvious conflict-of-interest reasons). As with SPSFC3, I want to be a team player, and so sought out a few of my fellow contestants’ novellas to do what I could to give them a boost, and to ideally find a good pool of new indie authors to read! And I’d say that on this first attempt, I have been wildly successful.
I was drawn first to As Born to Rule the Storm over some of the other books in the Secret Scribes allotment because of the World War II fighter pilot texture of its cover (literally sitting on my desk next to me right now is a copy of David Mondey’s The Concise Guide to American Aircraft of World War II). The story follows a trio of genetically enhanced soldiers—Charlotte (or “Lottie” as her friends call her), Stephen, and Min—as they attempt to prevent all out war with the neighboring sovereign state; though the main thrust of this responsibility falls to Charlotte, since her power is of the greatest import in this effort. You see, Charlotte can move through time. Her importance to the story is cemented in the story’s presentation, as Charlotte is the single POV character in the novella, and all the events of the story are recounted inner-monologued-ly in first person.
The back cover pitches this novella as This Is How You Lose the Time War crossed with The Umbrella Academy (though the Goodreads description swaps out Umbrella Academy for Divine Rivals); but since I’ve not read or seen any of those (yet!) I would pitch it like this: As Born to Rule the Storm is like a mid-century Edge of Tomorrow. Both stories are quite clearly works of imaginative science-fiction, but their sci-fi elements are really just a vehicle to get to the interpersonal relationships contained therein. As Born to Rule the Storm is not really even about time travel but is much more about how such power can and will affect your life and the lives of those around you.
Time travel is an interesting tool in the science-fiction author’s toolbox. Oftentimes the first question one asks before writing or partaking of a time travel story is: how much of an explanation are we going to get? Because inevitably, the depth of the explanation can have a profound effect on our enjoyment of the story. Overcomplicate it, and you open yourself up to the scrutiny of “plot hole” enthusiasts. Underbake it, and you might be accused of lazy writing. But luckily we’re at a time in history where enough time travel fiction has been produced that new writers of it don’t really need to explain it at all. It has, after decades of use in the genre, become ubiquitous. Few modern authors would feel like they’d need to explain a wormhole or a hyperdrive any more than they’d need to explain a hammer or a telephone. Audiences (or at the very least the audience of this kind of genre fiction) know what these things are now, and how they traditionally work; and so perhaps then the writer might even lampshade our unconscious acceptance of it, like in Rian Johnson’s 2012 time travel thriller Looper, where Bruce Willis’ “Joe” is talking to his Joseph Gordon-Levitt’ed younger version of himself and—when asked about how the logistics of such an interaction is possible—says:
“If we start talking about it then we’re going to be here all day talking about it and making diagrams with straws. It doesn’t matter.”
And at the end of the day, Bruce Willis is right. It doesn’t matter, and so Baumer spends little time outlining the specifics of how Charlotte’s gift works. The first jump occurs, we absorb the texture of it, we accept these newly established rules of the story, and the narrative progresses. Time travel is a means to an end, and the end to which Baumer deploys it is an exploration of the relationship between Charlotte and Stephen. That’s what matters.
And that relationship is, as I said in a tweet immediately after I finished reading this novella, exceptionally tender. Due to the time-jumping construction of the narrative, the story of Charlotte and Stephen spans decades, but the breadth of storytelling is not merely chronological. I was shocked at just how dense Baumer was able to make this novella. For as thin as the spine of this book is, Baumer has packed it with far more of Lottie’s potential futures than I ever expected; more of which surprised me than didn’t. Given the texture of the early chapters and the art direction of the cover, I entered into this novella with certain preconceptions about where its story might lead, and I’m happy to say that Baumer shattered those preconceptions at every available opportunity.
But perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised. In hindsight, it was unreasonable for me to think that a book like this wouldn’t contain at least an implicit anti-war message (its anti-war message is quite explicit). After all, a story about two lovers doomed to be repeatedly separated by a war that, not only did they not begin, but also are unwilling participants—if such a thing ended in a jingoistic hurrah it would surely be unsatisfying.
But the war comes, again and again; and Charlotte’s attempts to stop the war fail, and fail, and fail. With each failure the stakes increase—because there’s a bit of worldbuilding we haven’t discussed yet. You see, unlike Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow, time does not simply reset the moment Charlotte dies. No, she does not have infinite time with which to experiment. Every jump takes time off of her own life; so we know that at some point, there will be a final failure from which she cannot reset. This failure looms large as the narrative progresses; casting long shadows over what moments of happiness she is able to find amidst the storm of time. Her life then becomes, despite her best efforts, defined by these numbers, as she remarks:
“Most awful things in the world boil down to calculations. Even our weapons come not from the men on the fields, but from a dozen engineers in a dozen rooms drafting ways to murder on blueprint.”
A knot tightened in my gut as, far too early in the book, Charlotte settled into a series of far happier scenes than anything that had come before it. But I could see how many pages were left, and so each new page turn was done in fear, knowing something must end this. And something did. And time reset. And my melancholy became all consuming.
Despite how dour all this must seem from how I’m describing it, Cate Baumer has written an extraordinarily beautiful book, heart-wrenching and uplifting in equal measure; but some of the most painful moments in the book though are the most simple—the times just after Charlotte jumps back through time and is confronted by Stephen or Min and their timelost ignorance of the world she just left. Charlotte remembers moments with them that will no longer happen, and she must carry those memories in solitude. She cannot share her happiness and she cannot share her grief; for it would not be fair to them to know. It would not be fair to tell them about what happiness will never come. To know the future is not a gift, it is a curse—an omnipresent weight upon the mind and heart of the bearer of that power.
I loved this book, and I think you’ll love it too.
May 28, 2025
I’ve read a lot of amazing books during SFINCS, and have been privileged to do. The top two finalists of the first SFINCS, A Sorrow Named Joy and Shattered Spirits, really represented the best of SFF novellas to me. They were a self-contained story with twists, a satisfying conclusion, and plenty of heart that put many full-sized novellas to shame.
As Born to Rule the Storm is one of those stories.
This a World War-themed story centred around Charlotte or Lottie and her fellow cadets who have special abilities that her country wants to put to use. Her childhood friend, Stephen, can manipulate shadows, whereas Lottie can travel through time, looking at possible futures. She’s refused to indulge her powers, having seen many futures where her friends are killed, until she’s paired with a mysterious tutor who encourages her to follow certain timelines to find an outcome where they can survive, and maybe even thrive.
It’s a story you need to pay attention to, as there are adventures in time and different threads to follow. There’s a lot of emotion as Lottie tries to explore different outcomes to keep her friends safe. The story touches on themes of war and corruption, which isn’t always pretty, but is poignant, and relevant today. As Born to Rule the Storm is a fantastic novella, and I look forward to reading more from this author.
As Born to Rule the Storm is one of those stories.
This a World War-themed story centred around Charlotte or Lottie and her fellow cadets who have special abilities that her country wants to put to use. Her childhood friend, Stephen, can manipulate shadows, whereas Lottie can travel through time, looking at possible futures. She’s refused to indulge her powers, having seen many futures where her friends are killed, until she’s paired with a mysterious tutor who encourages her to follow certain timelines to find an outcome where they can survive, and maybe even thrive.
It’s a story you need to pay attention to, as there are adventures in time and different threads to follow. There’s a lot of emotion as Lottie tries to explore different outcomes to keep her friends safe. The story touches on themes of war and corruption, which isn’t always pretty, but is poignant, and relevant today. As Born to Rule the Storm is a fantastic novella, and I look forward to reading more from this author.
March 12, 2025
Reposted from Before We Go Blog: https://beforewegoblog.com/sfincs-rev...
As Born to Rule the Storm is a time-travelling dystopian sci-fi with romantic elements that will have you rooting for its characters while feeling its depressingly contemporary themes in your bones. Baumer deftly incorporates an anti-war message in a way that feels honest, raw, and specific rather than cloying or preachy, interweaving a sophisticated perspective on human nature and our relationship to government with what to me read like a deeply-felt expression of contemporary anxiety and the burden of living with mental illness during turbulent times. While the novella is marketed as adult, I do feel like it will have cross-audience appeal with YA readers. The concepts and ideas Baumer is playing with are unquestionably dark, but I've never been someone who believes that teen audiences can't handle rich, deep subject matter, and in fact, my experience has been that I was much better able to handle the rough stuff as a young adult than I am now that I'm middle-aged. Regardless of your age or your status as a YA or Adult reader, however, As Born to Rule the Storm is an important book that feels both relevant to the present moment, and which will simultaneously sweep you off your feet as you frenziedly turn the pages. Fans of The Hunger Games, Your Blood and Bones, and This is How You Lose the Time War should especially take a second look!
ABtRtS follows a conscripted soldier named Lottie as she struggles to use her time-travelling abilities to stop a simmering cold war from igniting and killing everyone she loves. Lottie and many of her fellow conscripts were specifically enlisted due to hereditary magical abilities that are passed on to living family members when one of them dies. Long ago, Lottie's grandmother and the ancestors of her colleagues essentially gave themselves over to the state in a desperate attempt to protect their country from destruction. As it's turned out, however, the governments of both warring nations are just as corrupt as each other and ultimately care little for lives on the ground. Lottie remains loyal to her government out of self-preservation rather than any sense that her side are the good guys, and indeed, Baumer paints a very grey picture of both sides in the conflict. Of more immediate concern to Lottie are the human beings she loves and wants to protect, namely, her friend Min and her lover, Stephen. Lottie's love for Stephen in particular was the beating heart of the story for me. I'm a hard sell on straight-passing romances (Baumer is a queer author and therefore I consider this a queer book), but Stephen isn't the bland, generic male love interest typical of dystopian, romance-adjacent books, nor is Lottie the generic dystopian heroine. Part of what adds to the depth of the characters is that Lottie feels much older than her young years, and in a sense, this is because she is older. Lottie's time travelling ability/prescience works in a way that veils the story in grim tension. It isn't just that Lottie can see the future; each time Lottie "returns" to the past/present with new information and insight it's because she's lived out a possible future in which she (and usually everyone she cares about) dies. Every life lived contributes to Lottie's knowledge and her trauma, and if that wasn't enough for stakes, she also loses years from her lifespan when she uses her ability. Lottie has seen Stephen, Min, and other, even closer family, die in any number of ways, and the story is quick to make it clear that each of these aborted lifetimes was real. Lottie's duty to her government and to the military is therefore enforced in part by her desire to keep those she cares for from harm. It's this bleakness and forced loyalty that actually occasioned (in part) my comparison of the book to The Hunger Games. Much like Katniss, Lottie's heroism is less glorious and more based on survival than is that of your typical fantasy hero.
It's difficult to discuss some of ABtRtS's more nuanced, war-oriented themes without spoilers, but one thing that struck me early on in the novella and that I think carries throughout, is that Baumer perfectly captures what it feels like to live with anxiety (and in particular, to live with anxiety at a time when it feels like we're on the precipice of world-ending events). Lottie's ability to see and experience the future involves constant slippage between the reality she currently occupies and endless variations in which she witnesses Stephen's death, Min's death, and even the death of her mother in the past. In my experience, my own anxiety disorder often manifests in the form of envisioning worst case scenarios, many of which involve the deaths (sometimes worse) of people I care about. Speaking frankly, living in a moment when the worst things I can imagine seem no longer to be the fevered imaginings of an overactive threat-response, but genuine possibilities for the near-future, Lottie's struggles and the toll taken on her mental health really spoke to me. This, along with Baumer's wise choice to focus on a very small cast so that she had room to develop the characters within the short word count, made sure that I was deeply invested in the outcome of Lottie's story. Its final thesis, that our governments and those with the money and power to influence them, don't care at all about the rest of us, and that the solution to war-mongering must be radical in less obvious ways, is both needed and appreciated.
I will say, the first two or three chapters of the novella were harder for me to connect with because of the prose. The book undeniably starts with a bang, but I did find that the prose was initially a little precious and self-conscious in a way that hurt immersion and clarity. Sometimes, it felt as though surface-level beauty was being treated as more important than the content, with the effect that I was at first very worried the book would prove shallow but pretty (with some questionable grammar). This was anything but the case once I was past those initial few chapters. As the story progressed, I found that Baumer's prose became more confident, marrying story with a graceful and measured style. If, like me, you find the first part of the story a little clunky, I would encourage you to read on. The prose is incredibly strong in the rest of the book, with an elegance and emotional weight that will have you unable to put it down.
Only two books into my semi-finalist reading and I'm already floored by the quality from both. If these two have been anything to go by, I'm in for a treat in terms of the rest of our assigned batch. On its own, As Born to Rule the Storm is a beautiful and insightful book that I can't wait for more people to read just so that I have the selfish opportunity to gush about it with others. It's the kind of ambitious, uncompromising work that I hoped to find as a judge in this competition, and that I'd love see get embraced by the indie community.
As Born to Rule the Storm is a time-travelling dystopian sci-fi with romantic elements that will have you rooting for its characters while feeling its depressingly contemporary themes in your bones. Baumer deftly incorporates an anti-war message in a way that feels honest, raw, and specific rather than cloying or preachy, interweaving a sophisticated perspective on human nature and our relationship to government with what to me read like a deeply-felt expression of contemporary anxiety and the burden of living with mental illness during turbulent times. While the novella is marketed as adult, I do feel like it will have cross-audience appeal with YA readers. The concepts and ideas Baumer is playing with are unquestionably dark, but I've never been someone who believes that teen audiences can't handle rich, deep subject matter, and in fact, my experience has been that I was much better able to handle the rough stuff as a young adult than I am now that I'm middle-aged. Regardless of your age or your status as a YA or Adult reader, however, As Born to Rule the Storm is an important book that feels both relevant to the present moment, and which will simultaneously sweep you off your feet as you frenziedly turn the pages. Fans of The Hunger Games, Your Blood and Bones, and This is How You Lose the Time War should especially take a second look!
ABtRtS follows a conscripted soldier named Lottie as she struggles to use her time-travelling abilities to stop a simmering cold war from igniting and killing everyone she loves. Lottie and many of her fellow conscripts were specifically enlisted due to hereditary magical abilities that are passed on to living family members when one of them dies. Long ago, Lottie's grandmother and the ancestors of her colleagues essentially gave themselves over to the state in a desperate attempt to protect their country from destruction. As it's turned out, however, the governments of both warring nations are just as corrupt as each other and ultimately care little for lives on the ground. Lottie remains loyal to her government out of self-preservation rather than any sense that her side are the good guys, and indeed, Baumer paints a very grey picture of both sides in the conflict. Of more immediate concern to Lottie are the human beings she loves and wants to protect, namely, her friend Min and her lover, Stephen. Lottie's love for Stephen in particular was the beating heart of the story for me. I'm a hard sell on straight-passing romances (Baumer is a queer author and therefore I consider this a queer book), but Stephen isn't the bland, generic male love interest typical of dystopian, romance-adjacent books, nor is Lottie the generic dystopian heroine. Part of what adds to the depth of the characters is that Lottie feels much older than her young years, and in a sense, this is because she is older. Lottie's time travelling ability/prescience works in a way that veils the story in grim tension. It isn't just that Lottie can see the future; each time Lottie "returns" to the past/present with new information and insight it's because she's lived out a possible future in which she (and usually everyone she cares about) dies. Every life lived contributes to Lottie's knowledge and her trauma, and if that wasn't enough for stakes, she also loses years from her lifespan when she uses her ability. Lottie has seen Stephen, Min, and other, even closer family, die in any number of ways, and the story is quick to make it clear that each of these aborted lifetimes was real. Lottie's duty to her government and to the military is therefore enforced in part by her desire to keep those she cares for from harm. It's this bleakness and forced loyalty that actually occasioned (in part) my comparison of the book to The Hunger Games. Much like Katniss, Lottie's heroism is less glorious and more based on survival than is that of your typical fantasy hero.
It's difficult to discuss some of ABtRtS's more nuanced, war-oriented themes without spoilers, but one thing that struck me early on in the novella and that I think carries throughout, is that Baumer perfectly captures what it feels like to live with anxiety (and in particular, to live with anxiety at a time when it feels like we're on the precipice of world-ending events). Lottie's ability to see and experience the future involves constant slippage between the reality she currently occupies and endless variations in which she witnesses Stephen's death, Min's death, and even the death of her mother in the past. In my experience, my own anxiety disorder often manifests in the form of envisioning worst case scenarios, many of which involve the deaths (sometimes worse) of people I care about. Speaking frankly, living in a moment when the worst things I can imagine seem no longer to be the fevered imaginings of an overactive threat-response, but genuine possibilities for the near-future, Lottie's struggles and the toll taken on her mental health really spoke to me. This, along with Baumer's wise choice to focus on a very small cast so that she had room to develop the characters within the short word count, made sure that I was deeply invested in the outcome of Lottie's story. Its final thesis, that our governments and those with the money and power to influence them, don't care at all about the rest of us, and that the solution to war-mongering must be radical in less obvious ways, is both needed and appreciated.
I will say, the first two or three chapters of the novella were harder for me to connect with because of the prose. The book undeniably starts with a bang, but I did find that the prose was initially a little precious and self-conscious in a way that hurt immersion and clarity. Sometimes, it felt as though surface-level beauty was being treated as more important than the content, with the effect that I was at first very worried the book would prove shallow but pretty (with some questionable grammar). This was anything but the case once I was past those initial few chapters. As the story progressed, I found that Baumer's prose became more confident, marrying story with a graceful and measured style. If, like me, you find the first part of the story a little clunky, I would encourage you to read on. The prose is incredibly strong in the rest of the book, with an elegance and emotional weight that will have you unable to put it down.
Only two books into my semi-finalist reading and I'm already floored by the quality from both. If these two have been anything to go by, I'm in for a treat in terms of the rest of our assigned batch. On its own, As Born to Rule the Storm is a beautiful and insightful book that I can't wait for more people to read just so that I have the selfish opportunity to gush about it with others. It's the kind of ambitious, uncompromising work that I hoped to find as a judge in this competition, and that I'd love see get embraced by the indie community.
April 7, 2025
You ever read any of those Tor.com sci-fi shorts and wished their bleak, high concept meandering could be just that little bit longer but not too much longer? This little slice of dystopian sci-fi may fool you into thinking it's following a well-worn YA "kids with special abilities" path, but it's far more mature and thoughtful than any of those mainstream reads.
In this novella, Charlotte is a special soldier in a world ravaged by empires at war. She and others like her bear some kind of genetically engineered power passed down through their blood. Her ability is time travel at the expense of her remaining life span. Her paramour can create illusions, her best friend call down fire... And yet their country still hasn't won against their enemies. Despairing at visions of a bleak future, Lottie is forced to try and find a timeline where things can work out right. Aged only 18, she doesn't quite realise the lifetime's task she's been set to save her country.
Things I Loved:
- It's so bleak. I mean that in the best, claustrophobic, atmospheric way.
- The first person narration really hammers home the detachment forced upon the characters by years of war and military training (not to mention the events of the story as Lottie is worn down by responsibility).
- The 1950s low-tech setting. Kind of WW2, but slightly more advanced plus genetically engineered super soldiers. The differences in the sides get explored with a nuanced (or maybe cynical) eye that anyone viewing a war from the outside could relate to.
Things I Noticed:
- Every so often, I'd have to stop and think about how the world worked. Implications and allusions didn't always convey enough about the world's situation to really make me feel I understood why things happened the way they did. I felt like I needed a tiny bit more from the world building to truly get it.
TL;DR: Emotive, evocative time travel sci-fi that wants you to feel the pain the character goes through.
In this novella, Charlotte is a special soldier in a world ravaged by empires at war. She and others like her bear some kind of genetically engineered power passed down through their blood. Her ability is time travel at the expense of her remaining life span. Her paramour can create illusions, her best friend call down fire... And yet their country still hasn't won against their enemies. Despairing at visions of a bleak future, Lottie is forced to try and find a timeline where things can work out right. Aged only 18, she doesn't quite realise the lifetime's task she's been set to save her country.
Things I Loved:
- It's so bleak. I mean that in the best, claustrophobic, atmospheric way.
- The first person narration really hammers home the detachment forced upon the characters by years of war and military training (not to mention the events of the story as Lottie is worn down by responsibility).
- The 1950s low-tech setting. Kind of WW2, but slightly more advanced plus genetically engineered super soldiers. The differences in the sides get explored with a nuanced (or maybe cynical) eye that anyone viewing a war from the outside could relate to.
Things I Noticed:
- Every so often, I'd have to stop and think about how the world worked. Implications and allusions didn't always convey enough about the world's situation to really make me feel I understood why things happened the way they did. I felt like I needed a tiny bit more from the world building to truly get it.
TL;DR: Emotive, evocative time travel sci-fi that wants you to feel the pain the character goes through.
January 9, 2025
2.5
Time travel is incredibly difficult to pull off in books, and I have vary rarely come across a time traveling book that I felt did the trope justice. This book unfortunately is no exception. The book is fastly paced and all too easily, you can read these shifts of time as incidents that are told out of order, and not as time travel.
Admittedly, that was me for the first half of the book. probably due to the writing style and the first person narration, which again, I rarely gravitate towards and enjoy, and again, no exception.
You follow a cadet trying to divert catastrophe and has to go back in time to "fix" the past, which of course has dire consequences. The idea is good, and there's an originality to it. It's like combining the Butterfly Effect and Looper, so to speak in how these things work and with the plot which was intriguing. There are stakes involved which is reminiscent of the past, but there is a significan amount of modernity to it.
There are other themes that are involved which is also more modern. It's war. War gets ugly and you're faced with ugly choices. Some people shut off their moral compasses, and during a war as trivial as the cold war, there was extreme patriotism on both sides, which sometimes lends itself to supporting crimes against humanity: the ends justify the means. While some defectors did exist in the war, there was little evidence to suggest anyone serious contemplated treason which was brazenly. But again, this could be me critiquing this book a little too closely to a historical narrative due to real events.
Time travel is incredibly difficult to pull off in books, and I have vary rarely come across a time traveling book that I felt did the trope justice. This book unfortunately is no exception. The book is fastly paced and all too easily, you can read these shifts of time as incidents that are told out of order, and not as time travel.
Admittedly, that was me for the first half of the book. probably due to the writing style and the first person narration, which again, I rarely gravitate towards and enjoy, and again, no exception.
You follow a cadet trying to divert catastrophe and has to go back in time to "fix" the past, which of course has dire consequences. The idea is good, and there's an originality to it. It's like combining the Butterfly Effect and Looper, so to speak in how these things work and with the plot which was intriguing. There are stakes involved which is reminiscent of the past, but there is a significan amount of modernity to it.
There are other themes that are involved which is also more modern. It's war. War gets ugly and you're faced with ugly choices. Some people shut off their moral compasses, and during a war as trivial as the cold war, there was extreme patriotism on both sides, which sometimes lends itself to supporting crimes against humanity: the ends justify the means. While some defectors did exist in the war, there was little evidence to suggest anyone serious contemplated treason which was brazenly. But again, this could be me critiquing this book a little too closely to a historical narrative due to real events.
April 3, 2025
I read this novella as part of the Secret Scribes judging group for the Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship (SFINCS). This review is my personal opinion and does not solely determine if this story will win the competition.
Charlotte (Lottie) Amsel isn't your typical soldier. With the power to move through time, she will stop at nothing to ensure that her friends Stephen and Min stay safe through the inevitable war. But she can only try to stop the war so many times before her life force is spent.
All facets of As Born to Rule the Storm meld into a gripping story of patriotism, love, and survival. The prose was beautiful and the characters compelling as we follow Lottie's struggle as a soldier, swept up in a conflict bigger than she can handle even with impressive powers.
Not many stories can make me emotional, but this one tugged at my heartstrings. At around the two thirds mark, Charlotte makes a selfish choice and it was beautifully written, forcing the reader to truly feel for her.
The relationship between Lottie and Stephen was cute but heartbreaking. And the desperation of the war situation palpable in every scene.
I cannot recommend As Born to Rule the Storm enough. Give this novella a read. You can thank me later.
Charlotte (Lottie) Amsel isn't your typical soldier. With the power to move through time, she will stop at nothing to ensure that her friends Stephen and Min stay safe through the inevitable war. But she can only try to stop the war so many times before her life force is spent.
All facets of As Born to Rule the Storm meld into a gripping story of patriotism, love, and survival. The prose was beautiful and the characters compelling as we follow Lottie's struggle as a soldier, swept up in a conflict bigger than she can handle even with impressive powers.
Not many stories can make me emotional, but this one tugged at my heartstrings. At around the two thirds mark, Charlotte makes a selfish choice and it was beautifully written, forcing the reader to truly feel for her.
The relationship between Lottie and Stephen was cute but heartbreaking. And the desperation of the war situation palpable in every scene.
I cannot recommend As Born to Rule the Storm enough. Give this novella a read. You can thank me later.
February 23, 2025
I received a copy of " As Born to Rule the Storm" as part of the Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Competition (SFINCS).
This is a first-POV military fantasy placed in a world about to be destroyed by a war between two powerful nations. Lottie is one of the young recruits who possess a superhuman ability: she can travel through time but refuses to do so until she learns of the bleak future ahead.
This plot is only the background for a haunting tale that will bring the reader to a path of hopelessness as Lottie jumps back and forth trying to prevent complete annihilation of her world, until realisation finally dawns on her.
Flawlessly written, Baumer weaves this tale with mastery, creating a powerful contrast between the high stakes of the plot and the simple human conflicts of the characters.
Rather than a happy ending, this tale will gift you a small spark of hope.
A fantastic novella! A must read!
This is a first-POV military fantasy placed in a world about to be destroyed by a war between two powerful nations. Lottie is one of the young recruits who possess a superhuman ability: she can travel through time but refuses to do so until she learns of the bleak future ahead.
This plot is only the background for a haunting tale that will bring the reader to a path of hopelessness as Lottie jumps back and forth trying to prevent complete annihilation of her world, until realisation finally dawns on her.
Flawlessly written, Baumer weaves this tale with mastery, creating a powerful contrast between the high stakes of the plot and the simple human conflicts of the characters.
Rather than a happy ending, this tale will gift you a small spark of hope.
A fantastic novella! A must read!
April 8, 2025
An emotional roller coaster propelled by excellent prose.
This story, in its own creative spin, joins the genre ranks of Edge of Tommorow and Groundhog Day. But Cate’s gritty style puts you through every tear-jerking life her MC experiences, along with the psychological turmoil this would cause.
By the end, I was left questioning what it really meant to have experiences, memories, and ‘could've been’s.
I would recommend this story to anyone looking for some emotional punch. Even in these fantastical circumstances, with superpowers and global war, the characters feel real and grounded and interconnected through complex relationships, forever burdened by insurmountable limitations beyond their control.
I read and reviewed this story for the SFINCs novella competition, however all opinions expressed here are my own and do not solely determine the standing of the novella within the greater competition.
This story, in its own creative spin, joins the genre ranks of Edge of Tommorow and Groundhog Day. But Cate’s gritty style puts you through every tear-jerking life her MC experiences, along with the psychological turmoil this would cause.
By the end, I was left questioning what it really meant to have experiences, memories, and ‘could've been’s.
I would recommend this story to anyone looking for some emotional punch. Even in these fantastical circumstances, with superpowers and global war, the characters feel real and grounded and interconnected through complex relationships, forever burdened by insurmountable limitations beyond their control.
I read and reviewed this story for the SFINCs novella competition, however all opinions expressed here are my own and do not solely determine the standing of the novella within the greater competition.
August 6, 2023
From the title to the last words, As Born to Rule the Storm grips and doesn’t let go. With gorgeous prose, characters that feel achingly real, and a deft hand, Cate Baumer captures the inevitability and cost of war, both personally and societally, while still managing to weave in the power of hope, love and sacrifice. It’s as much a love story as it is a war story - but keep the tissues on hand! The perfect length to tear through in a single sitting or savor over a few days, this is a story I highly recommend.
August 15, 2023
Raw, wrenching, and bittersweet in a way that will make you hungry for more work by this author, Baumer's novella is a gut-punch of a read with an evocative speculative twist—a breathtaking story about the horrors of war where the health, lifespans, and corporeality of its expendable child soldiers are gambled away on warfronts.
Instead of hitting readers with a blow-by-blow of those battles, this book comes in with a beautifully intimate focus on its main characters in the lead-up and aftermath. If you, like me, enjoy it when books kick you in the emotions, give this one a shot!
Instead of hitting readers with a blow-by-blow of those battles, this book comes in with a beautifully intimate focus on its main characters in the lead-up and aftermath. If you, like me, enjoy it when books kick you in the emotions, give this one a shot!
November 30, 2023
Lottie's country is in a cold war with their neighbors. Lottie and her friends are forced to fight in this war because they have special gifts. She can time travel. She uses this gift to relive the war over and over, trying to find the solution that doesn't end in compete destruction. But each time she travels, she loses a little more time from her actual timeline.
Coming in at just 99 pages, this novella packs a punch. It is free on Kindle Unlimited and I highly recommend! It has politics, action, and a bittersweet romance. A little bit of something for everyone. There were a few parts I found vague and confusing but I also think that was intentional.
Coming in at just 99 pages, this novella packs a punch. It is free on Kindle Unlimited and I highly recommend! It has politics, action, and a bittersweet romance. A little bit of something for everyone. There were a few parts I found vague and confusing but I also think that was intentional.
Read
August 17, 2024I don't think I'm meant for time travel stories. I was drawn into the cover, the marketing and the art the author has shared but I am just left confused.
I did not pick up on what the Alliance Year numbers meant or what the war was actually about. I found their powers to be confusing and the setting too vague.
The writing, though, I very much enjoyed and can totally see myself reading more by her.
(Picked this up because it has an austitic demi protagonist but fully knew that is was of little importance to the story.)
I did not pick up on what the Alliance Year numbers meant or what the war was actually about. I found their powers to be confusing and the setting too vague.
The writing, though, I very much enjoyed and can totally see myself reading more by her.
(Picked this up because it has an austitic demi protagonist but fully knew that is was of little importance to the story.)
August 26, 2024
This is such a fantastic novella that has strong This Is How You Lose The Time War vibes but is softer, more in love with its characters and their relationships and the quiet peaceful life they‘ve never even dared to dream of due to the Cold War/Hot War threat around them.
It packs an emotional punch with the love story but also has something to say about how to deal with failure and who really gains from war and who really desires it.
And Cate Baumer does it all in a few pages.
Amazing.
Please read.
It packs an emotional punch with the love story but also has something to say about how to deal with failure and who really gains from war and who really desires it.
And Cate Baumer does it all in a few pages.
Amazing.
Please read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews