Bond-Shattering

by William Maltese

Re-issue of Maltese's sci-fi adventure Bond-Shattering. Murder, espionage, intrigue, war of the worlds, destruction of planets, machinations, betrayals, form-changers, alien locales and creatures ... sensual bond-mating between two Warrior Clan Warriors and the burgeoning relationship between one of those warriors and a condemned barbarian (maybe not a barbarian). Exotic-erotic m/m sci-fi as literary fine dining.

Genres: M M Romance, Science Fiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published July 29, 2005

About the author

Pseudonym of William J. Lambert III.

I've been in the business of writing books for a very long time, and I derive particular enjoyment from visiting different places and then trying to relay the "essence" of those places to my readers. Likewise, I'm very adventuresome regarding trying new things, whether it be exotic and strange foods and/or other more personal "things".

Reviews

[Jay · Rating 2 out of 5]

SlashReader: My first suggestion in regards to this book is, just don't. I haven't read anything else by Maltese but this one was definitely not worth the paper it was printed on. Though it had good origins, it simply did not work.

My impression is that the author was trying too hard. I don’t know if you like/enjoy reading (books and such) that are written in this manor. When names and places are simply complicated by the addition of X's and/or Y's in the names to make them sound more foreign. I don't. Nor do I think that a great deal of the combined and/or made up words needed to be in there. It's a 'Computa' you might as well call it a bloody 'computer' instead of sounding all gangsta about it. Some of the hybrid words were easy to figure out and others were simply annoying in that you had to sit there and try and figure out what the author was referring to. Then the characters would come up with things like 'holyshit' and various other phrases that simply did not fit in with all the other made up things.

On top of this, I also found a great deal--especially the first few chapters--overly complicated with names and places. They were hard to follow and, I think could've done in a much less confusing manner. Granted once you meet the main characters of the book it's easier to follow. However, I nearly put it down a fair number of times while trying to follow the beginning of the book, which is not something that you want to inspire in your readers.

In terms of plot, I found that it was over complicated and that either you like Roynoldo do not figure things out until he does and are left with a great many loose ends until right at the end of the book. However, I feel as if the author expects you to put things together before the main characters does. And the events while intricately orchestrated simply were not tied together well enough. It was too much like random puzzle pieces that you know are going to fit together and yet they don't until far too late in the book. A great many of the transitions were weak as well simply jumping from one thing to another. As if, it was simply put together of a great many scenes--a dotted line of a story--and not a complete whole.

While the interactions between the two main characters (Roynoldo/Grenar), were interesting--if you like discretion's of overly hairy men. The outcome of their relationship was completely unbelievable and not well done. One minute Roynoldo's wiffling about actually becoming bond-mates, and then in the next chapter they suddenly are bond-mates and he's in on all the secrets he is not privy to for the majority of the book. In which case the back of the book is missing leading. After that, it all just goes much more quickly downhill in an explosion of Orchinid in which Grenar dies in a non stop orgasm and Roynoldo wants to fuck the inviting hole in the seat.

I do admit that up until that point I was impressed with the way the sexual content of the book was handled given the description of it. While I'm not overly fond of extremely hairy men, the sexual content was not over the top. However it wasn't worth reading either, horridly worded sex paragraphs aside at least you didn't have to read more of it. Yes, any book that can use 'penile erection' instead of anything else comes off as reading too much like a textbook in my opinion.

The last point that bothered me was the passages at the beginning of each chapter. While the biblical formatted, verses were interesting in bringing to light some of the issues revolving around religion and Medeek. I felt like they were unnecessary. They did not contribute enough to the story line to make them worth being in there. Had the author been a little bit more interested in the story and expanded it somewhat he could very easily have put in the information to enough of an extent in the story it's self. Without context in the story, I found them merely disturbing and detracting for the story line and what was actually happening in the book and then a good addition--albeit amusing at points.

The few things that I found amusing, though rather silly were mostly in terms of the computer technology. One being the 'OoTT', which was used in reference to computer glitches and stood for 'One of Those Things'. The other being the fact that apparently the computers can have mental breakdowns for no other reason than they do.

Needless to say, I was not impressed despite the fact that Maltese has a PhD after his name. Nor the fact that supposedly he's written over 100 various bits of this and that. I would not recommend anyone reading this work nor spending the money on it.