Haze

by Katharine Kerr

Once, Dan flew amongst the stars as a decorated Fleet Officer. Now destitute, he sleeps on the streets of Gleam, trading his body for a drug called Haze that dulls the pain of what he’s lost with nothing left to his name but a battered knife, a damaged mind, and a past he can’t escape. But he is given a rare second chance when former comrades track him down and make an offer that he never expected.

Across the galaxy, the invisible lanes of faster-than-light travel—the shunts—are beginning to fail. One has already vanished without warning. If the rest collapse, entire civilizations will be cut off, stranded, and left to die. The Fleet needs someone who can read the hyperspace currents like no one else. Someone like Dan. But bringing him back into the fold won’t be easy—and keeping him alive may be even harder.

Thrown together with a crew of misfits and old friends carrying wounds of their own, Dan boards a disguised merchant ship on a secret mission to uncover the truth. What they find will challenge everything they believe—about the shunts, about the Fleet, and each other. And through it all, Dan must battle the addiction that nearly destroyed him… and still might.

Haze is a bold, character-driven space adventure that blends high-stakes intrigue with raw emotional depth. Gritty, moving, and impossible to put down, it’s a story of redemption, found family, and the fragile ties that hold the stars—and ourselves—together.

Genres: Science Fiction

428 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 14, 2025

About the author

Born in Ohio, 1944. Moved to San Francisco Bay Area in 1962 and has lived there ever since. Katharine Kerr has read extensively in the fields of classical archeology, and medieval and dark ages history and literature, and these influences are clear in her work. Her epic Deverry series has won widespread praise and millions of fans around the world.

Reviews

[Harrison · Rating 2 out of 5]

2⭐️
Oof.

What initially drew me to this book was (a) a LGBTQIA+ (b) sci-fi novel that (c) deals with or touches on addiction.

I'm sad to say, this book may have them, but I was bored to tears about 25% of the way through.I think the idea had a lot of potential, but the execution was just flubbed from the start.

The narrative seems - and I use that purposefully - to center around Dan Brennan, a disgraced pilot dealing with his addiction to Haze. He's given an opportunity to redeem himself, but I'd be remiss if I didn't say that I had not the faintest idea what that "endeavor" was that he is hired for.

I liked the secondary characters and found them far more interesting than the protagonist, but when you're flitting back and forth between the POVs or focuses, it'd be nice if there was a separation or way to differentiate that you are moving from one character to the other.

Maybe because I'm not the biggest sci-fi reader a lot of the tehno-mumbo-jumbo just goes way over my head. I would have appreciated if there were a bit more relatabulity when describing how the technology works, what are these institutions repeatedly being mentioned, why are these systems in place, etc. Just some simple terminology would have helped at least give me a visual of what I was dealing with.

Also, the chapters were wayyyyy too long for my liking.

Sadly, I can't recommend this book to anyone. I just don't think the writing is there to back up what this story could have been.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this novel!

[Deborah Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Katharine Kerr is one of the most versatile writers of speculative fiction. Although many readers know her best for her long-running “Deverry” fantasy series, she also writes superb urban fantasy and hard science fiction, with such works as Polar City Blues and Freeze Frames. Now she returns to a far future when interstellar civilization depends on travel through hyperspace stargate shunts. Kerr’s universe is richly detailed, enormous in scope of space and history, replete with ancient grudges between sapient races, current politics, and plots-within-plots. And a mystery: the shunts are supposed to be permanent, anchored at each end to nearby planets, but something—or some ONE—has accomplished the impossible and destroyed a shunt. Which vital route will be the next target?

We are drawn into the story through Dan, an immensely talented starship pilot capable of linking with a ship’s AI to navigate the shunts. Like other pilots, he uses the drug Haze to blunt his craving for the transcendent experience of hyperspace when he’s not working. But Haze is highly addictive, and Dan’s use of it has gotten him cashiered out of Fleet, destitute, and turning tricks on Nowhere Street on a backwater planet to feed his habit. When Fleet offers him a way back to his old job, under the care of his former lover, Devit, and enough Haze to keep him functional, Dan doesn’t have a choice. There’s a reason he’s refused treatment for Haze addiction, a secret he guards with his life. Disguised as merchant traders, he and his new crew begin investigating the disappearance of the shunt. And that’s when things start to go seriously wrong.

Kerr’s use of Dan as an initial viewpoint character who introduces us to this world is brilliant. He’s at turns fallible, aggravating, and heart-breakingly attractive. The offspring of a noted film beauty, he’s been genetically modified to be sexually irresistible to both men and women, and to unconsciously respond to their advances. Devit has been the only person in his life to care about him as a person, but at a terrible cost. In this society, both bisexuality and polyamory are widely accepted, but relationships like theirs are fraught with challenges. Anyone who’s ever loved a person with substance abuse issues knows how painful and impossibly difficult it can be. As Devit grows closer to legendary cyberjock Jorja, their problems and the choices both must face become more urgent.

As the mystery unfolds, with a nuanced pacing of plot reversals and surprises, layers of both human and alien cultures emerge. One of the more fascinating of these is the relationship—sometimes symbiotic, often sullenly adversarial—between human pilots or cyberjocks and the AIs that run ships, stations, archives, and more. Scholars find themselves at cross-purposes with the military that is supposed to protect them. Old feuds between species simmer just below the surface. The revelation at the end is highly satisfactory, meticulously plotted, and a fresh surprise.

It's hard to list the strengths of this remarkable novel because there are so many. They include exceptional world-building, social systems and relationships, hardware and AIs, and most of all, the characters. People find themselves trapped with no healthy way forward, like Dan and Devit. They try new strategies and alliances, not always successful. As they confront new situations or old ones come back to haunt them, they struggle to move beyond the past. Wounded, recovering, and scarred, their lives can never be the same. In other words, Kerr’s fully rounded characters change and grow in ways that drive the story forward.

Award-worthy and highly recommended for lovers of space science fiction.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haze is a story about relationships. No, Haze is a story about addiction. No, Haze is a story about adventure (in space!). No, Haze is a story about what people will do in desperation.

Haze is all of those things and more. It is a story, at its heart, about people. Complicated, unreliable, flawed, majestic, people.

Haze is set in the same universe as Kerr's other science fiction works, but you don't need to have read any of them as it stands alone. If you have though, there are some Easter eggs that link in subtly with Snare in particular. A book that could be described as space opera, it has a multi-species cast that share the limelight as a small crew travels and fights their way through space battles and sabotage to try to save the shunts that provide linkages between settled worlds.

This is a really engaging read that has enough action with plenty of reflection and characters that are real sapients (but not all real people).

[Meredith Katz · Rating 2 out of 5]

My feelings on Haze are very complicated, so I'm getting a bit in depth on this one. I'd say it has a lot of concepts I like, some executions that don't work well for me, and some elements I greatly disliked.

However, many a time I've picked up a book from a negative review if a reviewer made it clear what they didn't like, because I could tell that I WOULD like it. My hope with this review is just that: that the people who have tastes similar to mine will not pick it up and avoid being frustrated, and that people who have other personal preferences will pick it up and get to enjoy what it has to offer.

So, in theory this book has everything I like in it: a messy bisexual protagonist who is addicted to drugs and can't get off the drugs not just due to addiction but because all pilots who access space warps actually need to take this drug to be able to do their job. He's sexually turned on by getting to do (essentially) warp drive maneuvers while piloting, and genetically engineered in ways that deeply mess him up ie to have a great deal of difficulty NOT on his sexual impulses whenever they happen. Add into that a devoted male lover who is handling his addiction the best he can, mysterious AIs getting abandoned, visual things only he can see while in warp (shunt), a political conspiracy, and more, and it should be everything I want. This was even more so from the cover promising a diverse cast with normative bisexuality and polyamory. Conceptually, this is entirely up my alley, and there's a part of me that appreciates very much that Kerr went for this and made a work that includes all these things.

However, for all these things, the execution was done in a way that kept me at arm's length from my ability to enjoy it.

First up: the narrative writing choices are odd. Sometimes it feels like Kerr wrote out a full outline in flow form, because it's in 3rd person present tense with very little emotional interiority, i,.e., not letting us see what the characters are feeling. When dialogue happens, it is often pages of back to back dialogue exchanges with no emotional markers and few markers of who's talking -- when it gets a few pages in, I often have to go back a few pages and count to see who's saying what, because the voices are a bit similar (more on that in a moment).

The lack of emotional markers is arguably worse -- if you're promising me messy characters having messy situations, not getting a read on their tone when they talk to each other was isolating to me as a reader (though other readers may disagree). It doesn't need to be constant, of course, but having any in there at all would help bring me into their inner lives. Example off the dome (not actual dialogue) "Are you going to meet up with (x) on shore leave?" "Sure, I was thinking of it. Is that a problem?" "No problem. Do what you like." Ok. Are they actually being chill here? Are they being anything but chill? Especially if the story doesn't bring it up later it feels like we have to read it as chill but we won't know if it will be brought up later at the time we read it. Without knowing the overtones of what they're saying, we have to read into it -- which I'm fine with when done deliberately as something to make a point, but because it was so constant, I spent a lot of time feeling as if I wasn't able to 'hear' the dialogue, only see the words with no tone implied in them. Again, for some readers, this might be really enjoyable, but the execution wasn't what I was hoping for.

When I mentioned that their voices weren't terribly differentiated, it actually ties into a narrative choice Kerr makes* that is theoretically very cool but I found didn't work for me, which is that instead of having section breaks between POV exchanges, there's either a sudden switch or this sort of narrative handover point in the text. For example, Captain Evans will get information about the docks they're pulling in at in dialogue, and the resulting description of the docks apparently from her POV will be given, and then we'll see Devit on the docks and it becomes clear the 3rd person POV is now his. And because of these handover points, it's not clear in retrospect whether the docks bit was actually her POV as we thought or if it was actually Devit's. It's a bit like a camera following one character with a pan over a scene and then the pan lands on another character and continues with them.

* at least, I think this is a choice she makes. It's possible the ARC simply removed all section breaks. But regardless, in the version I read, there was no break between any paragraph where pov fully shifted.

Again, theoretically I think this is really, really cool. But again, in execution, I struggled to actually read it because it happens so often. I counted up the number of them in a random chapter -- 13 switches like this occur in chapter 9. By doing it so often, I found it confusing, and was constantly rereading back a paragraph or two to try to figure out when I started 'following' a specific character. In addition, in order to make them work, every piece of narrative needs to be held at a distance so there's no character voice being included in the narrative writing. In general, I prefer 3rd person subjective POVs, where the narrative camera is in alignment with that character's feelings and opinions. In order to do narrative switches like this and do it so often, the camera stays objective, so that each of those moments can flow into each other without a clear sudden shift in tone.

Between that, the lack of the aforementioned interiority, and the lack of any dialogue markers, I feel really isolated from the emotional beats of the story, kept at arm's length when I didn't want to be. Again, it often felt like reading an outline rather than a final version, more bones than meat to chew on, at least to me.

Finally, I want to touch on the subject of diversity. Definitely, there are queer characters, polyamorous characters, and non-default whiteness, which is great, again. For me, and as my followers know, I'm primarily a queer reviewer, the queer rep was disappointing. The thing is: I love bisexual characters regardless of the makeup of their relationships (a bi woman with a man is still bi, and that relationship is fundamentally queer because of their bisexuality) and I adore reading polyamory (all our ships can happen! And there's more room for romantic confusion or beats if more relationship options are on the table!). I want to establish that up front.

However, the problem I had here was twofold. First, the pre-established relationship was queer (between two male leads), but their relationship was written very dry; there was no sexual chemistry in their interactions and basically no romantic moments, while their interactions with female characters were dripping with sexuality (often describing nipples swelling, erections, etc). Beyond that, despite a mention of four-directional marriages being common to establish a default-polyamory, the characters were constantly jealous of each other's hooking up with other people, which is reasonable because at no point do they communicate with their partners about wanting to before they've actually hooked up. Obviously there's open relationships that rely on not talking about it, but they communicate in advance to decide not to talk about it. I wouldn't even mind per se if this was deliberate to portray the messiness and strains on their relationship, but it is kind of portrayed as normative jealousy (one of the first scenes in a book is a jealous boyfriend attacking one of our male leads for flirting with his girlfriend, and the jealousy also continues between these two leads; we don't have any examples of these open relationship hookups where they talk to each other or are happy for each other about them -- and no wonder, since they don't find out until after when they're hurt about it). Whenever the jealousy is resolved, it's offscreen. They don't communicate. And the way this relationship ends up feels, well... I'm not spoiling it, and I can see ways a second book can fix it, but I did not enjoy it. This does come down a bit to taste; I don't know that I'd say this is problematic, but it felt like some relationships were receiving more sexual and romantic approval than others, and whether on purpose or not, this aligned with a traditional male-and-female relationship. On the one hand, individual relationships certainly can go this way, and many people don't handle open relationships as well as they expect to (and I am sure a polyamory-normative life wouldn't change that fact in all cases). On the other, with no other onscreen examples of the situations that worked, we're left with only this situation as-is, and the outcome of it.

There was also a scene that almost made me stop reading, because it was so anti-neurodivergent and ablest. The plot as a whole has a heavy subplot about eugenics (in this case building certain humans, called "Throwbacks," with genetic functions). Most of them are DNA taken from old earth animals, but at one point it's revealed the Throwbacks with good math skills were bred from... well, old earth people who have autism. They use the word (though slightly sci-fi-ized, in the same way "border collie" became borracolls, it was autiz or something like that, and was specifically described as people who have"amazing skills with numbers and math, even though they couldn't do much else." 1. I think we can all agree here that it's ablest to say autistic people can't do anything but math, holy wow, this is an incredibly outdated and horrible stereotype. 2. Actually, only a limited number of people with autism have superior mathematical abilities, and mathematical difficulties are actually more common than in neurotypical people and it's clear Kerr threw this detail in based on her own common knowledge (often incorrect for us all) with no research. 3. Autism is a spectrum, with a wide variety of challenges, behaviors (beneficial and disadvantageous), severity, etc, but primarily regarding communication, learning, and social behaviors. 4. There is no good-at-math gene. 5. While I doubt this was deliberate, it equates autistic people to animals, given the rest of the Throwbacks have animal genes. (This could be the characters misunderstanding, but there was clearly a whole, ah, breeding program for it at one point, so that means all those scientists did as well, if so.)

I only continued past that because at 70% in, I wanted to see it through to be able to comment on the whole ARC. But your mileage may vary, and I felt it was important to talk about that moment and my reaction to it. It did only happen once, but it really impacted me hard.

In short: It wasn't for me. But, this is probably really good for someone who loves a more objective narrative voice that plays with form, and is looking for a distant camera observing messy characters without putting you in the mess itself, and who wants the rest of what this has to offer, this might be exactly what you're craving.

Thank you to Arc Manor and to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book just never got exciting or interesting to me - there wasn't any characters that I really cared about and the ending just sort of fizzled out.

[Ruth L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dan is a pilot with a drug habit and a secret.
He’s also genetically modified to be unusually sexy. This can be a drawback in a society that takes ‘free sex’ literally.

As always, Katharine Kerr’s characters are compelling, the plot line impeccable, the action fast-paced. This time, we’re taken into a universe of four races of very different origins: chimpies, lizards, doggies, and hoppers, to be vulgar. Oh, and the very sapient AI units. And there are heros, sheros, and villains in all of them.

Do I need to mention that Kerr's books seldom have English or typing errors? This counts very highly with me.

The ending is satisfying. That is to say, Our Hero survives, people get married, and there’s just enough left over to leave room for a sequel.

[Marlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

As much as I’ve loved this author’s fantasy series, the sprawling and awesome Deverry Cycle, I couldn’t have stopped myself from diving into Haze if I tried. Her fantasies are so good that I couldn’t resist the impulse to see if her science fiction would be just as addictive.

Which is an appropriate turn of phrase with which to open a review of Haze, because its strung-out, washed up protagonist is irrevocably addicted to the drug Haze, and has not even a flickering impulse to go to rehab, no matter how low he has to sink in pursuit of his next fix.

Which turns out to be as low as it gets. In a place called Nowhere Street on a dead end planet, crawling in search of someone who will buy his ass so he take the money to the nearest dealer afterwards. It’s definitely NOT a living after the Fleet dishonorably discharged him for being addicted to the drug they encouraged him to use to improve his piloting skills.

Dan thinks there’s nowhere left to go but death until a dubious rescue arrives in the form of Fleet reinstatement AND a guaranteed supply of Haze AND permission to use it as needed arrives in the form of new orders and a clandestine mission. He’s more than willing to sign because even if the job kills him, because, well, that’s where he was heading anyway.

At least this way he has a chance of going out in a haze of altered consciousness among the stars, riding the light.

Because that’s what Haze does, at least for starship pilots. It helps them literally ride the light through ‘shunt space’ that makes interstellar travel possible, and forms the backbone of the Rim Coalition of sapient species. Without the mysterious but providential stargates, and pilots with the genetic legacy to guide ships through them, the far flung coalition, its government and its commerce, could not exist.

Which is what makes it such an emergency that rumors have sprung up around the Coalition that the stargates are disappearing. One did. ONCE. Nearly 400 years ago. It happened, it was big news and a huge tragedy as there were colony ships lost in that event, but it dropped out of the news when nothing happened again. Now those old rumors are being riled up. Even worse, anyone who even hints at investigating either the original event or the new focus on it, gets disappeared. Or kidnapped. Or killed along with the ship they happen to be on.

Fleet is worried, because these are just the kind of rumors that lead to panic, which leads to violence, which destabilizes the Coalition. They want to nip this in the bud before the teacup this tempest is boiling in gets any bigger.

And that’s where Dan Brennan comes in. He’s the most talented pilot the Fleet has ever produced. He’s also the most deeply addicted to Haze, and those two things may be more connected than anyone even thought to imagine.

Keeping Dan functional becomes most of the focus of the crew of the Merchant ship Dancing Mary, part of a clandestine Fleet operation to find the source of the rumor and shut it down. As a part of a ‘Black Op’, the captain of the Mary can get Dan’s drugs and ignore the amount of time he spends sleeping off those drugs as long as he’s functional when it counts. Which he is.

So Dan pilots the ship and pursues the high he gets from Haze while the ship pursues the rumors and follows the money that seems to be behind them while the ship’s AI – and the whole entire network of AIs – seems to be pursuing an agenda of their own.

And it all comes together at the speed of light, when Dan’s addiction turns out to be the key to unlocking more different mysteries than the crew of the Dancing Mary – and in fact the whole entire Fleet – ever had an inkling might be being covered up by one panic-inducing rumor.

Escape Rating A+: I expected good things, but this turned out to be simply fantastic space opera, and an absolutely compelling read from beginning to surprising, utterly satisfying end. Which turned out to be an EXCELLENT thing all the way around, as the original estimated page count of 290 turned out to be a severe underestimate. Fortunately, it flies by at the speed of light.

On the surface, Dan Brennan seems like a poor choice for the hero of a space opera, and technically, he probably isn’t actually. The hero, that is. But he is our entry point to this far future world, showing just what it looks like from the very bottom of the ladder.

Also, and this may take a bit of a trigger warning, this is not his redemption story, well, not exactly. He does not get clean and sober. Instead, he discovers that his addiction to Haze is what he’s meant to do, and it gives him the talents that save them all. It’s a weird sideways evolutionary step forward and that’s not a narrative that gets looked for ever – even in SF.

What the story does do is combine the military operations/investigations backbone of K.G. Wagers’ NeoG series with its mercantile empire universe building of corporate greed and corruption. So there’s a mystery within a mystery within a plot to drive profits higher than a pilot on Haze. Hidden behind that, there’s a second mystery about human immortality by transferring consciousness, while underneath that there’s a big of good old-fashioned space piracy just to keep the plots from ever becoming clear.

I keep saying Dan isn’t the hero. The hero isn’t one person, it’s the crew of the Dancing Mary as a whole – including its ever so helpful but just a touch insubordinate AIs. One of the things that makes this story so much fun is that the four species that make up the Rim Coalition have recognized AIs as persons, and that the different species traditions and imperatives among them have meant that tolerance for others’ personal preferences and predilections is the norm for behavior and personal choice. There’s no soapbox about any of this, it simply is what it is in this universe and it’s lovely.

And I’m not saying that because this is a utopian future. People, even for an expanded definition of people, are always going to find something to hate and fear based on bigotry and prejudice. Howsomever, in this universe those things are not skin color, gender representation, sexual preferences or even gender itself. Instead, the triggers for that hate and fear are new, and they engender new and interesting responses even though the beings ginning up those prejudices are using the same old playbook.

The story in Haze, not so much Dan’s story as the story of the Dancing Mary’s mission, reminded me a LOT of K.B. Wagers’ NeoG series, but also Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga, as well as a bit of Tanya Huff’s Valor/Confederation/Peacekeeper series, Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s War and Vatta’s Peace, and even John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War. All of which are/were long-running series and I wouldn’t mind AT ALL if Haze turned out to be the first entry in something similar.

Which it absolutely looks like it is! Dan Brennan’s second adventure, Zyon, is coming out in March. YAY!

Originally published at Reading Reality

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 3.5 of 5

Katharine Kerr is a name I recognize from my days browsing through the science fiction/fantasy bookstore shelves many years ago. For no particular reason (except possibly money was tight and I wasn't ready to spend it on someone I wasn't sure about) I never read any of her work. When I saw this book - not apparently part of a longer series - I thought it was time to give Kerr a try.

We're three thousand years in the future with a republic of planets governed by the Rim Council and protected by a military known simply as The Fleet. This multi-planet civilization uses hyperspace travel to get around among the planets. But there are rumors coming from the outer rim that these hyperspace 'shunts' are having problems.

To explore and study this problem, The Fleet puts together a special ops team of misfits - an AI expert, an alien gunner with perfect aim, a soldier who has an uncanny ability to detect patterns in time and space, a medic and engineer married couple, and a steadfast captain who has to hold the misfits together. But perhaps the most important is star pilot Dan Brennan. Once a respected fleet pilot, he'd been knocked so far down the ranks people forgot about him. Rumor was he turned down a sexual liaison with a superior who took it as an insult.

Dan's biggest issue isn't that he's been kicked down in rank - it's his addiction to the drug Haze. All pilots use Haze - it's likely necessary in order to make the hyperspace jumps. Dan may be one of the best and perhaps the only pilot who can help the special ops team, but he's also got it in his contract to have a steady supply of Haze on hand during the mission.

Can Dan stay clear-headed long enough to get them to a successful mission? Or will his drug-addled brain put them in a danger that can't escape from?

This isn't the most original of story ideas - drugs putting people in a place where they can succeed (even exceed) but also making them unpredictable. I liked the little touch that Haze gets Dan sexually turned on while doing his piloting maneuvers. Fortunately, despite the title, Haze isn't the focus of the story. Well, sort of... more on that in a minute.

This is primarily a character-driven story and Dan is our primary character. The problem with this is that Dan doesn't really experience any growth. Those around him on the mission come to get used to him but even they don't see much growth in him and question whether or not he can handle the big event near the end. The character who do seem to grow through the story are the Captain, Evans, and Chief Warrant Officer Peter Devit who looks after Dan. These two have a more interesting story going on but it relegated to being in the background.

There's an attempt to portray sexual union and encounters in a more liberal light. Three thousand years from now we're all more apt to enjoy group sex and/or same gender sex more than what is now traditional. It's fine. It doesn't feel as natural as it's intended to be. Instead of including a more ambitious partnering, Kerr feels it's necessary to make a point of it:

"Just the two of them?" Dan says.
"Yes, and still together. They've never joined a quartet. Huh, I didn't think that a one-pair marriage could work. Only two people? It seems so unnatural. But anyway ... (on to the story)"
The book also features queer and gender-fluid characters. This makes sense given the freedom to have sex with just about anyone regardless of gender in the future. But this feels more 'tacked on' than integral. Or...

I guess I would probably be disappointed if I was specifically looking for LGBTQ+ literature. What's here is pretty vanilla for 3,000 years in the future!

I mentioned earlier that the focus of the book is not Haze. It's not the focus, but it IS important. Although we don't understand why or how, Dan and his use of Haze is integral to solving the problems ahead. But of course we knew that because Haze was mentioned SO often and usually disparagingly in relation to Dan's addiction. So of course it's going to be important!

For me, this is a true 3-1/2 star book. The writing is smooth and easy to read, making this better than a 3 star book, but the stereotyped group of misfits and the need to make a point of the liberal attitude toward non-gender-specific sex keep this from being a true 4 star book. Of course I have to give it a whole number rating on Goodreads so I'll base my rating depending on how the overall rating is.

Looking for a good book? Haze, by Katharine Kerr, is a space opera on drugs. Literally.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

[Holly · Rating 1 out of 5]

⭐ 1 Star – ARC Review of Haze by Katharine Kerr

This is a book full of ambition, packed with intriguing sci-fi concepts that should have worked for me. Queer characters, polyamory, genetic engineering, space pilots navigating warp gates while euphoric on drugs—on paper, this sounded like something I’d love. Unfortunately, the execution made it a difficult and often frustrating read.

This review isn’t about bashing the author. It’s about helping readers with similar tastes make an informed decision—and maybe helping readers with different tastes discover something they might actually enjoy.

🧪 What Hooked Me (and What Didn't Deliver)
I was drawn to this story for its bold premise:

A bisexual protagonist grappling with addiction and sexual compulsion due to genetic modifications

A queer relationship between two emotionally complicated men

Polyamorous worldbuilding

Mysterious AIs, political conspiracies, and warp travel through "shunt" space

It sounded like the kind of messy, high-concept queer sci-fi I usually devour. But from the start, the writing style kept me at a distance. The third-person present-tense narration is emotionally flat, with minimal internal perspective. Dialogue stretches on for pages without attribution or tone, and characters frequently blur together due to similar voices and phrasing.

🌀 Structure & POV Challenges
This is a multi-POV book—but there are no scene breaks, chapter headings, or visual indicators when we shift between characters. In one chapter alone, I counted over a dozen POV transitions. Because the narrative voice remains emotionally neutral throughout, the story feels disjointed and impersonal. I constantly had to reread just to figure out who I was following.

💔 Relationship Disappointments & Queer Rep
The emotional core of the book is supposed to be the relationship between Dan and Devit—but it reads more like a logistical arrangement than a romance. There’s little chemistry, no real intimacy, and the narrative devotes far more erotic energy to heterosexual interactions. Despite a supposedly poly-normative society, nearly every hookup is followed by jealousy, miscommunication, or off-page drama.

It’s not that I expect perfect relationships—but I do want queer characters to be treated with the same emotional weight as anyone else. Instead, the only “happy” ending is given to a male/female pairing, while Dan—the messy, bisexual, emotionally unwell lead—is quietly pushed aside.

⚠️ Trigger Warnings (potentially distressing content):
Addiction & drug dependence (on-page use, central to plot)

Sexual coercion / dubious consent tied to genetic modification

Ablest depictions of autism (including eugenics-like breeding programs)

Slut shaming & internalized shame (directed toward queer MC)

Emotional manipulation in relationships

Infidelity / non-consensual polyamory (partners don't communicate or establish open boundaries)

Rape minimization ("It would be [rape] if the person asking was repellent or brutal")

Psychological trauma & emotional neglect

🔍 Tropes & Elements Included:
Bisexual Protagonist

Queer Sci-Fi

Found Family Vibes (mostly in concept)

Space Pilots + Drug Interface

Polyamory-Normative Society (in theory)

Genetic Engineering / Eugenics

Emotionally Messy Main Character

Queer Pain (with minimal payoff)

Lovers-to-Not-Quite-Enemies

Political Intrigue

Abandoned AIs

Tragic Gay → Straight Love Triangle

✅ What Did Work
The warp interface concept: Pilots using drugs to navigate wormholes is fascinating and original

The AI and interstellar conspiracy subplot had real potential

Kerr clearly had a complex world in mind—if you're a reader who thrives on dense lore and distant prose, this might work better for you

📚 Final Thoughts
Haze feels like a book trying very hard to be both edgy and inclusive—but falling short on both fronts. The structural choices—while bold—made the narrative hard to follow. The emotional distance made it hard to care. And the handling of addiction, consent, and neurodivergence made it hard to trust.

It’s absolutely possible that readers with different expectations or stylistic preferences may enjoy this more. But if you’re here for grounded queer emotion, healthy (or even intentionally messy-but-acknowledged) polyamory, or deep POV storytelling—this one may leave you cold.

[East of Reality · Rating 2 out of 5]

Highlights of this book include (but are not limited to):

Your genes make you slut
It’s not rape if your rapist is hot
Exploiting drug addicts for profit is cool
If you’re a messy person, your true love is better off with someone else
Happy endings are only for male/female pairings

This book wants to be more aware than it is. At the beginning the author asks us to envision her characters as having dark skin, unless otherwise stated, and many characters have various shades of skin … and that’s fine. It’s a little clunky, but fine. However, the rape joke didn’t work for me at all.

It turns out that Dan, due to and because of genetic tinkering in his past, is a whore. Generations ago, to curb violence upon ships, humanity tinkered with the genes of a certain group and made a group of people genetically predisposed to arousal and compliance; people who find it hard to say no because their bodies and hormones are almost always active. “Recreational Personnel.” It’s why Dan finds it hard to refuse when someone flirts with him, wants to fuck him. It’s in his genes. (Which … I really wasn’t fond of.) But when two members of his crew are discussing this, Davit, Dan’s lover and babysitter, says that’s pretty close to rape.

The doctor on the ship says: “It would be, yes, if the person asking was repellent or brutal.”

So it’s only rape if the rapist is ugly? Or causes pain? I’m sorry, but that’s disgusting. Sexual assault is still assault even if the person raping you is drop dead gorgeous; even if the person raping you uses kind words and doesn’t leave bruises behind. It’s gross, it tasteless. Dan is always either being shamed for having sex with people -- past or present -- or shamed for thinking about sex, or shamed for vaguely sexual comments. Honestly, it’s tiring, and it left me feeling very sour about this book.

Then there’s the fact that Dan’s addiction proves useful, which means that now every other pilot is going to be forced to be, encouraged to be, trained to be an addict. And this is seen as a good thing. After all, they’re saving lives! So what matter if they’re addicted; they’re doing their jobs! So what matter if their lives are hell. Hooray for drugs!

Then Devit, the man Dan loves, falls in love with a woman — Jorja — and accepts that, being a member of the Fleet, he and Dan can’t be together. Oh well. Devit gets the woman he loves and Dan hooks up with some other guy he’s fucked before — a guy Devit was upset at him for fucking — so it’s all good? Dan is heartbroken, but gets laid; David and Jorja (who hates Dan) get a happy ending,

POV shifts from paragraph to paragraph, sometimes, making it hard to know exactly which him, her, she or he is having this thought or that thought. The writing itself is competent, but the pace could be smoother. I never had a sense of the flow of the story because there was so much plotting going on, and almost no mention or indication of how the crew was taking things. There was no weight to anything and no importance. And, at times, it felt scattered.

Character A is having a moment in a place in this paragraph, but the paragraph right after has characters B and C in a conversation, and the following paragraph has character D talking with character E.None of this is helped by the fact that they all sound the same, talk with the same voice, use the same slang and have the same two dimensional feel to them.

There are, however, two parts of this book that I did like. One, the plot itself with Dan chasing down a mystical pilot who, like him, could see stargates while riding the light. Where this pilot was, what happened to him and the ships he was escorting, and how it all tied into current fanatics and xenophobic religious racists was well constructed. The second was the way Dan — and pilots like him — made ships fly. The connecting with AI, the euphoric feelings, the drugs that pilots became addicted to … it was well done and, in theory, interesting.

I just wish there’d been a single character who had any emotions, reactions, or personality. And less slut shaming, less punishment for being sexually active and gay.

[Rustic Red Reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

thanks to edelweiss/netgalley and CAEZIK SF for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review

TW (on review): rape

Katherine Kerr is one of the authors in my long list of tbr, her Deverry Cycle to be specific. So when I saw that she's going to have a new novel I requested it, but honestly I was disappointed, almost DNF'd it but continued on and skimmed some parts.

The e-ARC problem. I don't mind long chapters, but reading this arc gives me a headache since it doesn't have chapter breaks every time there's a change of POV or setting. This really impacted my enjoyment of reading this book and wanted it to be over. This e-ARC also neither include the illustrations nor the short story included in the final release, so I can't say about the quality of those.

The story and characters. I decided to just group these up since I personally found not really engaging. It started really interesting with one of the Shunts closing, then it seems to drag on, really don't care about the mystery in the end. The HAZE drug, gene modification, seems interesting but it seems very generic to me. It didn't really stand out.

The Worldbuilding. Another one that is just fine, but I feel not really explored. One example is the polyamory, we have marriages between 4 people but nothing was thoroughly explained or shown. It just there's polyamory in this world and it's fine. This was promoted as and LGBT novel, with a bisexual protagonist, in netgalley.

Some reviews already pointed out they're disappointed about the lack of "interaction" between the 2 MCs, Dan and Devit. Yeah, they got some history together. But in there's kind of a wall between them already, not to mention there's a female romantic interest later on. The relationship between the 2 MCs are just messy, didn't really enjoy the romance part of this book.

The gene editing and warped-minded characters. Some of the negative reviews in here focused on these two a lot. The gene modification is really weird, where one can edit someone's genes so they can always be horny or they literally can't say no when asked. That should be an interesting topic but it never really went in depth with that one. It was mentioned, the character was shown suffering from it, and tried to resist the temptation (succesfully)

TW! Another topic that was brushed aside, connected to gene modification is that one of the characters, a doctor even, mentioned that (not in exact words + TW) the it's called rape when it's only done by ugly people. Reviewers were angry at that one, which is truly an infuriating statement because (TW) rape is rape. But the main character the doctor was conversing was disgusted with that thought and even asked if that's how the doctor really feels - the doctor confirms that he truly believes that. And then it was just dropped.

Kerr don't support this ideal, but it's just disappointing that it was not much resistance or maybe even a few paragraphs of debate on this. It just ended with the main character being disgusted.

I think with people expecting a somewhat positive bisexual/polyamory representation, but didn't really found any - again not really shown in negative light, it's just our main MC is just a messy character, with a gene modified for him to be sexually active. Then they got hit with *that* ideal from the doctor - they sure is going to be infuriated.

I think I going to browse the book in library or bookstore when it's finally released to see the illustrations and the short story.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you are writing a Space Opera, your first decision is how the FTL works. (Trust me, if your characters don’t have Faster Than Light travel, they will spend the ENTIRE novel trying to get to their FIRST destination planet.) Ms. Kerr went with space shunts, anchored at each end by a gravity well (that is, a planet). OK, that’s new. Good so far!

Second, you need to decide if you will have an all-human crew (that’s OK if you do) OR if you are going to have a mix of alien races among your human crew. I like the latter best. In this book, there are four sapient races. Humans, Leps (resemble lizards), Kar-Li (resemble dogs), and Hoppers (resemble insects). [To be fair, humans resemble chimps.]

[And we need to mention that the first three races had a major war with the Hoppers, that ended not that far in the past.]

So, our protagonist has humans and a Lep on his crew. Other human ships have Leps and Kar-Lis.

The third major decision you need to make is how smart to make your computers. Ms. Kerr has AIs that are fairly intelligent. They can and do fly the ship when necessary. But the humans are clearly in charge.

The fourth major decision you need to make is whether your human crew has genetic enhancements. In this world, designer genes are common and the people who have them are largely in the military (which takes advantage of the better reaction times, better recall, etc. etc. ). Of course, our protagonist starpilot definitely has designer genes.

The fifth major decision you need to make is whether you will be writing about a military or civilian/trader crew. In this case, we have a military crew going undercover and presenting themselves as a trader crew because they need to be inconspicuous.

Now you are ready to tell your story.

Haze is the name of the drug that the starpilots (human, Lep, and Kar-Li) take to be able to navigate during FTL flight. Our particular protagonist starpilot is addicted to Haze (he’s apparently more the exception. Other starpilots take just enough to get their job done).

The problem is that the shunts are failing, and people are dying because they are literally becoming lost in transit. Our protagonist starpilot, Dan, however, can SEE what is out there during FTL as opposed to his fellow starpilots who are literally flying blind compared to how well Dan can see where the ship is going.

This is Ms. Kerr’s first space opera, and, for my money, she definitely hit the ball out of the ballpark! I totally loved this book.

I was worried that this was a standalone. But a second starpilot Dan book called Zyon is due to be published in March of 2026, which isn’t even that far away. Hooray! I can’t wait for the next starpilot Dan adventure!

[Lauren Burka · Rating 1 out of 5]

Other reviewers have noted that the author writes about an ancient human genetic group, "ahtiz," who are good at math and useless at anything else. I would just like to add that as an autistic person who can't math my way out of a wet paper bag but has written four books in the past year and knit four sweaters and three pairs of socks, I'd like to sit down with the author over a nice cup of tea and ask her what she was thinking.

I've read books by authors who make present tense work. Erin Morgenstern comes to mind. This book is not an example I'd recommend.

The flat characterization, repetitive dialogue, acronym-heavy technobabble and choppy pace remind me exactly of the book Triplanetary by EE "Doc" Smith, a scifi novel serialized in a pulp magazine in the 1930's. You can get Triplanetary free from Project Gutenberg. Go see if I'm wrong.

The author keeps using the term "IED." I don't think it means what she thinks it means. There's nothing improvised about any of the explosive devices; she seems to think that "IED" stands for "go boom plot device."

In the far distant future, nobody has figured out how to make offline backups of important data. This is either a criminal failure of imagination or depressingly accurate--for humans. You'd think the ship AIs at least would figure out how to back themselves up so that they wouldn't disappear when the IED go boom. Also, the author thinks that if someone hacks your computer and incompletely deletes the data, you might find some letters left over at the edge like you would if you incompletely burned a letter in the fireplace in an Agatha Christie novel.

It's not just the lack of facility with the scifi idiom that earned the book only one star from me. The novel pulled me in because, according to the blurb, it takes place in a society where people are frequently bi and poly, but the author doesn't seem to be comfortable with either of these things. The strongest emotional note going between characters is jealousy, which is probably supposed to provide emotional drama in a novel that otherwise doesn't have any.

And don't get me started about how she handles the drug addiction that is a central plot point. She has Dan, the pilot, craving the drug and not, say, the absence of withdrawal symptoms, the absence of the symptoms that the drug was originally supposed to treat, or just a couple of hours of being a normal, functioning human being until the dose wears off. Instead, the drug is primarily there to make Dan fall asleep so she can write about someone else until he wakes up and embarrasses everyone by not having taken a shower.

[Online Eccentric Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/

None of the characters appealed here and a constantly changing narrative that switches POVs between paragraphs also made it difficult to really get into any of the plot or story. At the same time, this is a book that wants to hit you over the head with a message (sure, it's a good message but I still don't need it shoved in my face every other page).

Story: Dan Brennen has been found in a gutter, addicted to the drug Haze and selling his body to anyone willing to give him enough money for the next hit. Dan once was one of the best pilots in the military - until he spurned the advances of a senior officer and was summarily discharged. But he is back with his old crew new and they have a great need of his talent - can they work together through Dan's addiction and save worlds?

Right off the bad, I greatly disliked the Dan character. He's been genetically altered to be perfect and beautiful but for the most part all we get is a sad sack. We're supposed to see growth and why his crew respects him and are willing to stand up for him - but without any history, it is very, very difficult to like him at all. He spends most of the book high or having sex with anything that moves.

I never really got into the plot and don't have much of an idea what was going on. The author changes POVs all the time and it gets very confusing and distracting having to reorient oneself/figure out that suddenly you are reading about another character. I'm not really into descriptions of how being high is sexually fun, either.

In all, I gave up halfway through. I really didn't like any of the characters and found I just wasn't caring what happened to them. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

[Lorraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a science fiction novel with a lot of humanity, even though the majority of characters are not human as we’d understand it. I thoroughly enjoyed it; strong, empathetic characters drew me in and then a strong plot kept me hooked.

The basic plot here is a variation on “let’s get the old gang together for one last mission”, done remarkably well. This is a hard science fiction plot, carefully worked out and cleverly executed. The basic framework isn’t all that surprising, but Kerr inserts enough twists to keep readers alert and interested.

The real strength of the novel is the characters; although through the centuries they’ve mutated or been changed by genetic manipulation, they’re still very recognisably human. Many characters are flat out alien, but Kerr imbues them with emotions and motivations that are still clearly understandable and empathetic. I really cared about what was going to happen with this crew.

And – no spoilers – I really loved the ending. The last few pages in particular brought a conclusion that just felt so viscerally satisfying. It was a real pleasure, even as I was a bit sorry to be finishing such a good book.

My only real problem with this novel was quite possibly the fault of the copy I was reading. There were constant jumps between characters, locations, and times, without even a line break to signal them. This was occasionally disorientating, and even confusing. It’s possible this was a formatting problem with my electronic copy though, and it wasn’t an insurmountable problem in the end.

Highly recommended for anyone who likes either character driven stories, or hard science fiction – or even better, a melding of the two. I loved this.

If you enjoyed this review, please visit www.otherdreamsotherlives.home.blog to read more.

[Sonia Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the late 80s and through the 90s the series I was hooked on was the Deverry Cycle by Katharine Kerr, a masterpiece of fantasy writing. There has been a lull in her writing and so I was intrigued to see what this novel would bring, especially as set in the sci-fi genre.
Haze is set in the far future, at least three thousand years and follows the space opera theme of an overarching controlling body, hyperspace travel and a militaristic bent. The story focuses on washed out pilot Dan Brennan, however there are a host of supporting characters ( Chief warrant officer Peter Devit, Captain Evans and Lieutenant Jorja Santreeza) whose voices are heard and who have equal stakes in the story.
In this universe intersellar travel is facilitated by a drug - Haze, much in the same way as melange or spice was used by pilots in Dune. Haze is highly addictive but essential to make hyperspace jumps, allowing the pilot to meld with the onboard AI, and Dan was one of the best of the best. However when we meet Dan he is living on the streets of Nowhere Street, doing anything that will score him a hit of Haze - desperate does not even cover it.
When the Rim Council ( a multispecies controlling body - Federation?) hears rumours of an attack on the shunt point networks they form a special ops team which includes Dan. This is an offer he can't resist as it allows him as much Haze as he wants and along the way who knows what redemption may come.
Great themes explored including sexuality, addiction, terrorism, diplomatic shenanigans and a whole lot more, making this a great read.
My thanks to the Publisher and Netgalley for access to this ARC. All views are my own.

[Kathy Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

HAZE is a space opera with engaging characters and intriguing worldbuilding.

Dan is a pilot who is addicted to Haze. His addiction and a run-in with a superior officer led to his court martial. Now, he has been recruited to be part of a Special Ops team tracking down rumors. His reinstatement comes with a ready supply of Haze and a chance to reunite with old friends.

Rumors are spreading through space about ways to collapse the shunts that are used to quickly travel from planet to planet. The Special Ops branch of the Fleet in the persons of Captain Evans and her motley crew are investigating the rumors. They are under cover as merchanters who are just a bit down on their luck.

This was an engaging story. I thought the world building was interesting. I liked the variety of aliens and humans in the world. I also liked their various social customs including four-way marriages. I thought the whole idea of throwbacks with different skills was interesting. Most of the human characters in the crew are throwbacks with the captain who can sense and control energy fields, a pilot able to find previously unknown shunts, and a Chief of Security with the ability to detect patterns. The world is also inhabited by AIs who control a lot of the systems including space travel.

This story is hard to describe because so many things are happening. It was great to follow along on all the adventures and relationships.

[Paige · Rating 2 out of 5]

Based on its description, Haze has seemingly everything that I’d love to encounter in a book. We’ve got a bisexual main character, addicted to Haze (a drug that allows star pilots to navigate warp gates), with a love for the stars and a dishonourable discharge keeping him grounded. Then, along comes the chance to get back into the great expanse of space, alongside the man he once loved.

It all sounds fantastic, right?

I very much think this book could be really good for other folks, but it just didn’t work for me. I ended up DNF halfway through the second chapter (the first chapter was 42 pages on my ereader). I DNF for a few reasons, but the main issues I had were the immense amount of exposition, the lack of character emotion in the narrative, and the strange way POV was presented. There were no page breaks or anything to indicate POV change, but it changed frequently, in unclear ways. I’m not sure if this was a style choice made by Kerr, or a formatting issue with the ARC file, but it made it really difficult to follow who was doing what.

I really wanted to love this book, and I think it has great potential, and is likely well worth the high ratings I see on Goodreads. However, it didn’t work for me. Maybe I’ll try again when it is officially released, to see if the POV issue is resolved as a formatting problem.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing the free ARC.

[Hope · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF @10%

First of all, 3rd person present tense is a hard no for me and alas, that was how it was written. Add to that this was also very dialogue heavy with minimal descriptions and it was hard to ground myself in the story.

The worldbuilding for the FTL travel and the premise with our Haze addicted pilot sounded interesting, but I couldn't get past the writing style. Readers who don't mind the style may enjoy it more. I also imagine it would work better as an audiobook.

A final small complaint is how the author's note says that unless otherwise stated, assume all Human characters are not white. Well, duh, the universe is a big place. However, in practice, the only purpose of this seems to be so the white main character, Dan, can be described as "exotic" and a "throwback" with his pale skin, blue eyes, and blond hair. There is very little description of anyone else's appearance. While I assume the author was trying to be inclusive with the author's note, the choice of saying that and then describing the white main character like that was a bit cringe.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy.

[Joyfully Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Joyfully Jay review.

2.5 stars

As you can tell from the star rating, I did not enjoy this book. In fact, I think this book is downright harmful in some of its messaging. Warnings for the review — and the book — include so much slut shaming, rape jokes, rape apologies, ableism, eugenics, a poor understanding of addiction, and toxic relationships. All of this wrapped up in a book with paper thin characters who seemed to have no emotional reactions to anything, were indiscernible from one another, and felt like they had zero chemistry.

This is not a romance, this is not a healthy relationship, and I am left feeling the very toxic heteronormativity of having every character paired up. In a world where, remember, a marriage between two people is seen as unhealthy. Why didn’t the three of them end up together? Who knows.

Read Elizabeth’s review in its entirety here.

[Alysha Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @ 40%

I was intrigued by the premise of this story but the writing just didn’t deliver.

It is meant to follow a pilot that got kicked out of the space fleet because he was an addict. He gets picked up by some of his old crew for a secret mission investigating why the ‘portals’, which link galaxies together, are shutting.

I say “is meant to” because the pilot is always drug addled so is maybe there for a page per chapter. He is meant to be the key to it all but I can’t work out how because he is never there.

The chapters in this book are looooooooong, with no rhyme or reason to why there is a break. No cliff hanger, no POV change, no topic change.

Talking of POV, this is a multi POV book, however, there is no break or chapter change to indicate we have changed POV which was very confusing.

All in all I wouldn’t recommend this as a read.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Briar Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oof. While some of the worldbuilding in this novel was interesting (for example, how the pilots were able to fly), this will not be the feedback I hoped to give when I requested a free ARC from NetGalley to voluntarily review.

For starters, there were some serious editing issues, more than just the typos you might expect from an uncorrected proof; tenses switched back and forth between paragraphs, for example. That problem, though, paled in comparison to how poorly I felt this book handled subjects such as addiction, sex work, ableism, polyamory and queerness. The characters often felt interchangeable, and their emotions were difficult to read unless explicitly stated. This was only worsened by the constant unmarked POV changes, which made it difficult to track who was doing what.

A big miss for me, unfortunately; I’d hoped this was a book I’d be able to love.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readers will find themselves hooked on this book from page one to the last page. The characters are lovable misfits, the world-building is nuanced and makes sense to 21st century readers, and the writing is very good. There are some saggy parts toward the middle of the book, but after that, things pick up as the events start taking interesting and sometimes unexpected turns. Considering that the book takes place 3000 years in the future, the author does a credible job of making the events and science believable and not so complicated and/or outlandish as to leave readers’ minds wandering.

If you are ready to read a book of hard core science from an author who clearly gave her story and character a great deal of thought, this is the book for you.

My thanks to Caezik and Edelweiss for an eARC.

[Henry Lazarus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I still have Katharine Kerr fantasies from the nineties in my collection. I was amazed to find that her dip into science fiction was equally masterful. Her latest is about a special ops ship, the Dancing Mary. hidden as a merchant ship. Their pilot, Dan, had been cashiered from the fleet for Haze (hard from CAEZIK SF & Fantasy) addiction. The ship is following the trail of a murder, but complications soon ravel into very problems related to a destroyed shunt point centuries before, and a group placing bombs on planetary ports. There are eight major species in the Known Space. A war had created human genetic super-soldiers, and their genes show in throwbacks with various talents, including pilots who can see the complications of shunt space. The tale also depicts AI constructs that match what the future of such intelligence might look like. Wow! I hope this wins tons of awards.

[Eddie Joo · Rating 2 out of 5]

2/5

Haze was a difficult read for me. Mostly because there is no POV text to tell you who is the character viewpoint, and the monotone voices of the characters blend together and makes it difficult to enjoy the characters.

While some may enjoy the descriptions and story telling it wasn't really for me.

Some other things that made me want to put the book down was the way rape was conveyed to be only if it was done by an ugly person, and that because they are genetically modified to be horny and can't say no it's fine.

There were some other things like the implied use of the dna from people with savant syndrome/autism to make better mathematicians.

It felt like it was trying to be inclusive to everything, but making it all crash and burn from all the baggage.

Others may like it, but it was not for me.

[MAB LongBeach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absorbing far-future tale of space travel and true AI, focusing on a drug-addicted pilot. Most pilots use Haze, a drug that smooths out the harsh natural light and mimics the blue light of the hyperspace shunts that pilots navigate. But Dan used too much and is now out of the Fleet, scratching out a desperate planet-bound existence on Nowhere Street. An offer to reinstate him for a desperate mission leads to some amazing discoveries.

Good characterizations, believable aliens, and awe-inspiring puzzles make for solid SF. This is written in first-person, which always throws me out of the story a little. But that's a Me problem, and this is good enough to keep me reading despite that.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[H · Rating 2 out of 5]

Haze is a character-driven novel featuring a diverse cast of POC and alien characters, set in a future where humanity embraces bisexuality and polyamory,says the blurb.

Authors Note: Out of habit, readers tend to assume all characters in a SF book are human, and that all humans are white. She says. With a picture of a white human on the cover...

And the sex: The gene editing where one can edit someone's genes so they can always be horny
Another character, a doctor even, mentioned that it's rape when it's only done by ugly people.

The gay stuff? SOunds like she tried, to be "modern" and sadly failed. If you want good relationships with alternate sex or marriages, read Ursula Le Guin. She did it years ago and really really well.

This just came out forced and wrong.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the same universe as Snare and Palace this definitely benefits from some familiarity with those books. Genetic modifications have given some humans special talents such as perfect recall or in Dan’s case, the ability to take a ship through special shunts that knit the sapient worlds together. In this book both the “throwbacks” and the shunts are at risk and a fleet crew have been sent undercover to investigate.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of little easter eggs for readers of Palace, Snare and Polar City Blues. I enjoyed this and am looking forward to the sequel which should be out mid 2026. One main character (Dan) is a very sad person but is in a better position by the end of the book, but no happy ending.
There are a heap of reviews on here telling the story for varied POV's so I won't repeat them. I am not overly keen on books written in present tense, which is my main caveat and why I have't given this 5 stars.

[Per Hellgren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally

I have read Snare a book in the same universe andcwaited a long time for a book devloping the story further.
This book is diffrent a good scfi opera with intressting concepts and idees nicly fleshed out.
A great book regardless if you have read Snare or not and looking forward to the continuation.