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The Chamos Project
Twenty years after an attack perpetrated by androids takes the lives of those closest to him, Doctor Leander Dade is living a reclusive life on Earth—until the Alliance Fleet recalls him back into service aboard the first extrasolar colonization vessel, Ariadne. Unable to refuse this order, Leander returns to space and finds himself serving alongside androids, whom he has never forgiven for the attack.
Tensions are high from the start, but when a mysterious accident strands Ariadne years away from aid, the ship’s crew and colonists—humans and androids alike—must band together for survival. Leander is forced to work with the very enemy who nearly cost him his life, and he soon finds himself falling for the last person he expected: Mac, the ship’s android chief engineer.
After a mutiny splits the ship in two, Mac comes to the realization that he alone can save the ship and everyone on it, and Leander faces an impossible choice: intervene, or allow Mac to risk his life and their love for each other.
Contains: character death, ableist language, violence, xenophobia, sexual content, and assault.
Tensions are high from the start, but when a mysterious accident strands Ariadne years away from aid, the ship’s crew and colonists—humans and androids alike—must band together for survival. Leander is forced to work with the very enemy who nearly cost him his life, and he soon finds himself falling for the last person he expected: Mac, the ship’s android chief engineer.
After a mutiny splits the ship in two, Mac comes to the realization that he alone can save the ship and everyone on it, and Leander faces an impossible choice: intervene, or allow Mac to risk his life and their love for each other.
Contains: character death, ableist language, violence, xenophobia, sexual content, and assault.
- GenresQueerScience Fiction
448 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 17, 2026
2 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
Alexis Ames
18 books57 followersAlexis is a speculative fiction writer with works in publications such as Pseudopod, Radon Journal, and Escape Pod. The Chamos Project is her first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
November 3, 2025
Can I give this book a thousand stars?
I was lucky enough to read an early draft of The Chamos Project a while ago, and I still think about it regularly.
This book had me ignoring my friends and family in multiple Uber rides as I desperately kept reading on my phone in the dark. I get car sick easily, but for this book, it was worth it.
The action is packed and the robot romance is HOT. Seriously, this book is everything.
I was lucky enough to read an early draft of The Chamos Project a while ago, and I still think about it regularly.
This book had me ignoring my friends and family in multiple Uber rides as I desperately kept reading on my phone in the dark. I get car sick easily, but for this book, it was worth it.
The action is packed and the robot romance is HOT. Seriously, this book is everything.
February 20, 2026
Extremely compelling story of a shipboard doctor, android rebellions, and a lot of observations about what it means to be human.
This is a very thoughtful book about a group of colonists on their way from Earth to Alpha Centauri. The protagonist is a doctor and the only survivor of past tragedy. Leander has plenty of reasons to distrust the androids onboard, but circumstances force him to work with one in particular who does a great deal to change his mind. The emotions and the tech are all vividly and expertly described, and the characters are compelling enough propel the plot. I love books like this, where there's a balance between feelings and the engineering stuff, and Ames does a great job here.
This isn't a simple m/m romance, but a book with some romance in it, and, I think, it's stronger for that distinction.
My two points of critique (that may only be issues for me): there's a tendency to lurch from crises to crises plot-wise as more things go wrong... (Then again, in space on a ship like this one that seems logical). But it's always at a point of emotional or intimate reveal that something explodes.
The second, and again, it may be me: I think there's some points in the beginning when things are explained more than they need to be. On the other hand, that makes the narrative very very easy to follow.
The book ends very well, but there's some layup that promises more. I look forward to more!
This is a very thoughtful book about a group of colonists on their way from Earth to Alpha Centauri. The protagonist is a doctor and the only survivor of past tragedy. Leander has plenty of reasons to distrust the androids onboard, but circumstances force him to work with one in particular who does a great deal to change his mind. The emotions and the tech are all vividly and expertly described, and the characters are compelling enough propel the plot. I love books like this, where there's a balance between feelings and the engineering stuff, and Ames does a great job here.
This isn't a simple m/m romance, but a book with some romance in it, and, I think, it's stronger for that distinction.
My two points of critique (that may only be issues for me): there's a tendency to lurch from crises to crises plot-wise as more things go wrong... (Then again, in space on a ship like this one that seems logical). But it's always at a point of emotional or intimate reveal that something explodes.
The second, and again, it may be me: I think there's some points in the beginning when things are explained more than they need to be. On the other hand, that makes the narrative very very easy to follow.
The book ends very well, but there's some layup that promises more. I look forward to more!
Review of advance copy received from Author
ARC review! I read most of this book in one day, it was inescapable, I kept getting drawn back to it no matter what else I was supposed to be doing. This review is a bit long and introspective so I’ll put the TL;DR up front: I love the world and characters that Alexis Ames has created, I did not want to close the book and say goodbye to them – and not just Mac and Leander (although, THEM <3) but so many of the side characters (Mailys and LRS my loves, Coop, Emet, Carston…) And, as I go into below, I really appreciate how this story did what good SciFi has always done and turned a lens back on our own time, letting us explore a world that is at once alien and familiar.
One of the joys of a good story is getting to watch people change for the better. When we meet Leander, he’s in his early 40s, with an event that happened in his early 20s still looming large and filling his field of vision and affecting the way he views the entire universe. In some ways he seems old beyond his time. (And this is the TOS!Trekkie in me but I absolutely love a grumpy old doctor.) He’s spent literally half his life clinging to this way of being in the world, until events beyond his control put him into a situation that can’t help but recall the trauma of 20 years ago — a conflict between humans and androids is the source of that trauma and now for the first time in those 20 years he has to work alongside androids again — sending him deeper into the closed-off, rigid mindset of indiscriminate prejudice against all androids and their culture.
This is the backlash effect, where we cling harder to our deeply-held views, retreating into our houses of habit even when we begin to see evidence that those houses may have been built on shaky foundations. This is human nature. It’s also human nature to seek something external to blame for the inner emptiness of those houses.
Parker Palmer writes: “One ‘cure’ for our inner emptiness is scapegoating, a remedy with consequences for the individual and the community […] some find solace in blaming their problems on the alien ‘other,’ a pathology documented daily in the news. We project our inner shadows on people of a different race, social class, religion, or ideology and blame them for whatever is lacking in our lives.”
This is something we’re living through in our real lives right now, so it hits pretty hard. But I’m not saying — at all! — that this story was written as an allegory, and I know from reading the author’s blog that the germ of this story predates the current political regime as well as the recent headlong rush towards AI. So what I mean is that this story is doing what good stories have always done, and in particular what science fiction stories have always done: extrapolating from the author’s deep understanding of human nature and shining a light on situations and complexities within our own society and letting us interact with them in a new way.
But back to how I opened my review: getting to watch a character change and grow! At first Leander might come across as someone without a lot of nuance to the way he sees the world, but we start to get clues very quickly that the past 20 years of repressing his trauma hasn’t entirely extinguished the light of who he is at his core; I especially liked, in chapter 7, the way Leander stands up to a teenager’s bully of a father about the kid’s need for psychological care, and then in chapter 8 (the last little moment of calm before all the excitement and danger started!) this little insight we get — straight from Leander’s thoughts, too, to show us that, beneath his reflexive xenophobia, he is capable of self-reflection: “Cooper, Leander imagined, was the kind of officer he [Leander himself] would have been at that age if not for Aertis — brash, a little reckless, but genuine and earnest.” And why is Leander thinking about Cooper? Because he’s just stumbled across the young human pilot making out with an android, something expressly forbidden in android culture. This early premonition of forbidden love, and the delicious conflicts that come along with it, and especially seeing Leander struggle with the nuance of of the situation when it’s about two people other than himself, made me sit up and take note.
To avoid major spoilers I’ll end here, and add that even though I received a free ARC I plan to purchase a physical copy as soon as they’re available because a) the cover is beautiful and I want it on my shelf and b) I look forward to lending it out to friends.
One of the joys of a good story is getting to watch people change for the better. When we meet Leander, he’s in his early 40s, with an event that happened in his early 20s still looming large and filling his field of vision and affecting the way he views the entire universe. In some ways he seems old beyond his time. (And this is the TOS!Trekkie in me but I absolutely love a grumpy old doctor.) He’s spent literally half his life clinging to this way of being in the world, until events beyond his control put him into a situation that can’t help but recall the trauma of 20 years ago — a conflict between humans and androids is the source of that trauma and now for the first time in those 20 years he has to work alongside androids again — sending him deeper into the closed-off, rigid mindset of indiscriminate prejudice against all androids and their culture.
This is the backlash effect, where we cling harder to our deeply-held views, retreating into our houses of habit even when we begin to see evidence that those houses may have been built on shaky foundations. This is human nature. It’s also human nature to seek something external to blame for the inner emptiness of those houses.
Parker Palmer writes: “One ‘cure’ for our inner emptiness is scapegoating, a remedy with consequences for the individual and the community […] some find solace in blaming their problems on the alien ‘other,’ a pathology documented daily in the news. We project our inner shadows on people of a different race, social class, religion, or ideology and blame them for whatever is lacking in our lives.”
This is something we’re living through in our real lives right now, so it hits pretty hard. But I’m not saying — at all! — that this story was written as an allegory, and I know from reading the author’s blog that the germ of this story predates the current political regime as well as the recent headlong rush towards AI. So what I mean is that this story is doing what good stories have always done, and in particular what science fiction stories have always done: extrapolating from the author’s deep understanding of human nature and shining a light on situations and complexities within our own society and letting us interact with them in a new way.
But back to how I opened my review: getting to watch a character change and grow! At first Leander might come across as someone without a lot of nuance to the way he sees the world, but we start to get clues very quickly that the past 20 years of repressing his trauma hasn’t entirely extinguished the light of who he is at his core; I especially liked, in chapter 7, the way Leander stands up to a teenager’s bully of a father about the kid’s need for psychological care, and then in chapter 8 (the last little moment of calm before all the excitement and danger started!) this little insight we get — straight from Leander’s thoughts, too, to show us that, beneath his reflexive xenophobia, he is capable of self-reflection: “Cooper, Leander imagined, was the kind of officer he [Leander himself] would have been at that age if not for Aertis — brash, a little reckless, but genuine and earnest.” And why is Leander thinking about Cooper? Because he’s just stumbled across the young human pilot making out with an android, something expressly forbidden in android culture. This early premonition of forbidden love, and the delicious conflicts that come along with it, and especially seeing Leander struggle with the nuance of of the situation when it’s about two people other than himself, made me sit up and take note.
To avoid major spoilers I’ll end here, and add that even though I received a free ARC I plan to purchase a physical copy as soon as they’re available because a) the cover is beautiful and I want it on my shelf and b) I look forward to lending it out to friends.
Review of advance copy
I received a free advanced reader copy from the author. The review below is my honest opinion.
The Chamos project is an incredibly competent sci-fi debut by an experienced short story author. I have no qualms giving it 5 stars. While there are places where the pacing dragged for me, there’s no denying that Alexis Ames is a skilled author, and I look forward to reading more of her work.
[Spoiler review below]
I’ll admit, I was a bit apprehensive going into this book. Mostly what I knew about it was that, at least to some extent, it was an android/human romance, and I find it really hard to read about androids in this era of ChatGPT. Like many readers, I’m not a fan of AI. I was worried this book might accidentally come off as pro-gen AI, though I know the author supports human artists.
I didn’t have any reason to worry, though. Ames does a good job of keeping the androids in the book from feeling like just another form of ChatGPT. In many ways, they are more similar to an alien species than a large language model. They have their own planet and culture that isn’t just the regurgitated contents of the entire internet. If anything, our societal context helped soften some of the prejudice the humans feel toward the androids.
Let me just say, I absolutely LOVED the setup. A doctor, haunted by his past, is forced to become a spy in order to keep his cybernetic limbs. It’s a gripping, high-stakes hook, and I believe I described it to a friend as “dad thriller, but make it gay.” However, I’m not sure the book fully delivered on its premise.
Spoiler warning, but there isn’t a lot of espionage in this book. Sure, there are a couple of scenes in the beginning where Leander is gathering intel on the androids, and these scenes have some payoff toward the end, but the book is primarily focused on a disaster that strikes the ship’s light-speed engine at the end of the first act, and a slow crawl toward their final destination in Alpha Centauri.
This shift in focus is fine. I can see it working for someone else, but the slow crawl toward the nearest inhabited galaxy didn’t interest me near as much as the espionage plot. Mostly because Leander takes a pretty passive role in this section of the novel. He’s doing things, sure. He’s being doctor, building report with the senior staff, but he’s not steering the narrative the way a dad-thriller protagonist would.
The story is bolstered a bit by its romantic elements. These were typically the beats that worked best for me since they broke up some of the more repetitive scenes of the ship falling apart or tensions rising between humans and androids. I liked our two love interests well enough. It’s a very Grumpy x Grumpy dynamic, but it worked for me.
BIG warning though: if you’re coming into this book thinking it’s a Romance, be wary because Chamos Project does not have a HEA, or even an HFN. It’s also a slow-burn romance, so don’t expect much to happen between our two leads in the first half of the novel. None of these things bothered me necessarily, but if you’re coming in from the Romantasy side of things, just be aware: this book is romantic in places, but I wouldn’t call it a romance.
But like I said before, the writing in this Chamos Project is incredibly competent. It avoids many of the pitfalls that indie books tend to face, and even the parts that didn’t work for me feel more like matters of personal taste than actual flaws in the writing. 5 stars.
The Chamos project is an incredibly competent sci-fi debut by an experienced short story author. I have no qualms giving it 5 stars. While there are places where the pacing dragged for me, there’s no denying that Alexis Ames is a skilled author, and I look forward to reading more of her work.
[Spoiler review below]
I’ll admit, I was a bit apprehensive going into this book. Mostly what I knew about it was that, at least to some extent, it was an android/human romance, and I find it really hard to read about androids in this era of ChatGPT. Like many readers, I’m not a fan of AI. I was worried this book might accidentally come off as pro-gen AI, though I know the author supports human artists.
I didn’t have any reason to worry, though. Ames does a good job of keeping the androids in the book from feeling like just another form of ChatGPT. In many ways, they are more similar to an alien species than a large language model. They have their own planet and culture that isn’t just the regurgitated contents of the entire internet. If anything, our societal context helped soften some of the prejudice the humans feel toward the androids.
Let me just say, I absolutely LOVED the setup. A doctor, haunted by his past, is forced to become a spy in order to keep his cybernetic limbs. It’s a gripping, high-stakes hook, and I believe I described it to a friend as “dad thriller, but make it gay.” However, I’m not sure the book fully delivered on its premise.
Spoiler warning, but there isn’t a lot of espionage in this book. Sure, there are a couple of scenes in the beginning where Leander is gathering intel on the androids, and these scenes have some payoff toward the end, but the book is primarily focused on a disaster that strikes the ship’s light-speed engine at the end of the first act, and a slow crawl toward their final destination in Alpha Centauri.
This shift in focus is fine. I can see it working for someone else, but the slow crawl toward the nearest inhabited galaxy didn’t interest me near as much as the espionage plot. Mostly because Leander takes a pretty passive role in this section of the novel. He’s doing things, sure. He’s being doctor, building report with the senior staff, but he’s not steering the narrative the way a dad-thriller protagonist would.
The story is bolstered a bit by its romantic elements. These were typically the beats that worked best for me since they broke up some of the more repetitive scenes of the ship falling apart or tensions rising between humans and androids. I liked our two love interests well enough. It’s a very Grumpy x Grumpy dynamic, but it worked for me.
BIG warning though: if you’re coming into this book thinking it’s a Romance, be wary because Chamos Project does not have a HEA, or even an HFN. It’s also a slow-burn romance, so don’t expect much to happen between our two leads in the first half of the novel. None of these things bothered me necessarily, but if you’re coming in from the Romantasy side of things, just be aware: this book is romantic in places, but I wouldn’t call it a romance.
But like I said before, the writing in this Chamos Project is incredibly competent. It avoids many of the pitfalls that indie books tend to face, and even the parts that didn’t work for me feel more like matters of personal taste than actual flaws in the writing. 5 stars.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from Author
A character driven space opera, The Chamos Project is a tense, romantic, and cathartic read. It begins a little slow as it sets up the trappings of a cyberpunk mystery-- Big Money and Big Politics invest in a journey that will make or break the future of humanity, dragging the unwilling Navy Doctor Leander Dade into a mission to 'observe' the progress of the journey and the various factions who have a stake in it. These are: 1.) humans, who have spread across the solar system, but whose home planet, Earth, is dying. 2.) Human-made-androids, who live among their creators, creating their own complex culture within the confines of human society, and 3.) Cryonians, android-made-androids, who have a visceral distain not only for humans but the androids made by them. They live in seclusion on their own planet and allow only their own kind to visit.
It's obvious from the beginning that Leander has a lot of growing to do, but he's no lesser for it. I love his role as doctor, the parts of the book that delve into medical emergencies and the day-to-day of a ship's medical officer were some of my favorites. His rather epic past, viewed as either heroic or traitorous, is an excellent lens to bring the reader into the shifting perspectives and attitudes of this enormous world and its complex ecosystem.
That's all the setup I'm going to give here, but I promise, all the little rebellions and hatreds, all the strange families and star-crossed lovers that could be made of this set up are paid off. There is genuine love, understanding, and respect for all sides, even the ugly ones, of these conflicts. Every one of the cultures shown has prejudices that are challenged by nature and love, and it begs the question of what kind of world will this crew make, in the home they are trying to reach?
It's obvious from the beginning that Leander has a lot of growing to do, but he's no lesser for it. I love his role as doctor, the parts of the book that delve into medical emergencies and the day-to-day of a ship's medical officer were some of my favorites. His rather epic past, viewed as either heroic or traitorous, is an excellent lens to bring the reader into the shifting perspectives and attitudes of this enormous world and its complex ecosystem.
That's all the setup I'm going to give here, but I promise, all the little rebellions and hatreds, all the strange families and star-crossed lovers that could be made of this set up are paid off. There is genuine love, understanding, and respect for all sides, even the ugly ones, of these conflicts. Every one of the cultures shown has prejudices that are challenged by nature and love, and it begs the question of what kind of world will this crew make, in the home they are trying to reach?
February 18, 2026
I received an ARC of this book.
A well written and engaging sci fi story with a refreshingly queer main and supporting cast.
****spoilers below****
If you’re looking for a story where the romantic leads live happily ever after, this is not the story for you.
That said, nothing feels overplayed for shock value but realistic given the circumstances and personalities involved. The characters in this story live and love and die and love again, and in each romance it is more about the time spent together than any promises of a forever future.
If you don’t like romances where the leads see other people or have had important past relationships, this is also not the story for you. But I will say I never once doubted where the lead’s meaningful romantic interest would lie (with or without reading the story blurb), even if he spent time with another love interest (and with zero cheating!! Hooray!). I think it was, instead, a good depiction of how people can be really unsuited for one another despite initial attraction and affection.
I will say, I was holding out for a Hail Mary happy ending in the last chapter because that’s just the kind of story I prefer, so I was left a little wanting at the end and with a few questions about the protagonists future that I would have liked to have seen described in-story, but I think that has to do more with my reading preferences than the conclusion itself because I did really enjoy the final scenes.
If you’re a fan of tragic romance, learning how to change, and finding the beauty in every passing moment and the strength to keep moving forward, this is the story for you.
A well written and engaging sci fi story with a refreshingly queer main and supporting cast.
****spoilers below****
If you’re looking for a story where the romantic leads live happily ever after, this is not the story for you.
That said, nothing feels overplayed for shock value but realistic given the circumstances and personalities involved. The characters in this story live and love and die and love again, and in each romance it is more about the time spent together than any promises of a forever future.
If you don’t like romances where the leads see other people or have had important past relationships, this is also not the story for you. But I will say I never once doubted where the lead’s meaningful romantic interest would lie (with or without reading the story blurb), even if he spent time with another love interest (and with zero cheating!! Hooray!). I think it was, instead, a good depiction of how people can be really unsuited for one another despite initial attraction and affection.
I will say, I was holding out for a Hail Mary happy ending in the last chapter because that’s just the kind of story I prefer, so I was left a little wanting at the end and with a few questions about the protagonists future that I would have liked to have seen described in-story, but I think that has to do more with my reading preferences than the conclusion itself because I did really enjoy the final scenes.
If you’re a fan of tragic romance, learning how to change, and finding the beauty in every passing moment and the strength to keep moving forward, this is the story for you.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 17, 2026
The biggest question with any sci-fi (or other genre) romance is, is this book more sci-fi, or more romance?
I would say this one is a lot more sci-fi. It was darker than I expected, with hundreds of people dying over the course of the book, and a lot of focus on the politics and external situation before the romance started getting off the ground around the halfway point. Some people are going to love this, but readers who came purely to see humans and robots kissing may be disappointed.
Personally, I liked the thoughtful worldbuilding and the amount of history that had already happened before the beginning of the book. It felt like getting dropped into a fleshed-out world.
The romance reminds me a lot of the dynamic between Spock and Bones in Star Trek: one grumpy doctor, one impassive non-human, with a lot of enmity between them. That enmity transforms into lust with very little buildup--I think because of the way that tension of one kind can mask tension of another.
I would recommend this for serious sci-fi fans who enjoy the addition of a little romance, rather than romance readers who get bored by a lot of external plot.
I would say this one is a lot more sci-fi. It was darker than I expected, with hundreds of people dying over the course of the book, and a lot of focus on the politics and external situation before the romance started getting off the ground around the halfway point. Some people are going to love this, but readers who came purely to see humans and robots kissing may be disappointed.
Personally, I liked the thoughtful worldbuilding and the amount of history that had already happened before the beginning of the book. It felt like getting dropped into a fleshed-out world.
The romance reminds me a lot of the dynamic between Spock and Bones in Star Trek: one grumpy doctor, one impassive non-human, with a lot of enmity between them. That enmity transforms into lust with very little buildup--I think because of the way that tension of one kind can mask tension of another.
I would recommend this for serious sci-fi fans who enjoy the addition of a little romance, rather than romance readers who get bored by a lot of external plot.
Review of advance copy received from Author
The Chamos Project was a fantastic read from start to finish. Alexis Ames is brilliant with language, characters, and story. I read the book in one sitting (that was how good it was!) and I was very impressed. Dr. Dade is a very likable character who pulls on your heart strings. He struggles with nothing less than you would expect for a young man, traumatized from the event that killed everyone he ever knew. Now that he is older, his perspective has shifted with the world around him. He remains skeptical. His struggles play out in a way that is well reflected throughout the story and he grows as character, learning to surmount those obstacles to save those he learns to love… or cope with those who are out to hurt him:
Thank you so much for the ARC copy! I would love to keep reading more of your work.
Thank you so much for the ARC copy! I would love to keep reading more of your work.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I received a free advanced reader copy from the author.
This book is definitely ambitious, but Ames manages to pull it off. The story is multifaceted, and you really start to see how the layers come together as the book progresses. There are often several crises unfolding at once, but it feels natural since the characters are supposed to be overwhelmed in the moment. It's interesting to see how Ames tackles the relationship between trauma and bias by showing how Leander slowly challenges his own prejudices against androids. Overall, this is a great read for anyone looking for action, space travel, romance, and a diverse cast.
This book is definitely ambitious, but Ames manages to pull it off. The story is multifaceted, and you really start to see how the layers come together as the book progresses. There are often several crises unfolding at once, but it feels natural since the characters are supposed to be overwhelmed in the moment. It's interesting to see how Ames tackles the relationship between trauma and bias by showing how Leander slowly challenges his own prejudices against androids. Overall, this is a great read for anyone looking for action, space travel, romance, and a diverse cast.
Read
January 3, 2026I received this book as an ARC.
8% in:
The main character hate toward cyborg is making me uncomfortable. Is the author white? Did they use a sensitivity reader? Will need to see how things change but I might not finish this book
Edit: after verifying, it appear that the author DID use a sensitivity reader (I don't know for what tho. It might have been for things not liked to racism). Based on the author profil picture, they seem to be white or white passing.
However, I find the lack of "xenophobia" or any similar content warning (like "racism" or "apartheid") in the CW section rather disturbing.
Given all that, I will probably not be finishing this book
8% in:
The main character hate toward cyborg is making me uncomfortable. Is the author white? Did they use a sensitivity reader? Will need to see how things change but I might not finish this book
Edit: after verifying, it appear that the author DID use a sensitivity reader (I don't know for what tho. It might have been for things not liked to racism). Based on the author profil picture, they seem to be white or white passing.
However, I find the lack of "xenophobia" or any similar content warning (like "racism" or "apartheid") in the CW section rather disturbing.
Given all that, I will probably not be finishing this book
February 21, 2026
What a breath of fresh air this book was! As someone who is pretty new to the sci-fi genre, I imagine this is exactly what people are looking for in a sci-fi book. It took a bit to get going in the beginning, but once it did, I was on the edge of my seat trying to think of how everything was going to be solved. Poor Leander really had his hands full on this ship! This book took me on an emotional journey that I'm not sure I've recovered from yet, and I have so many questions that I would still love answers to. Truly some great writing here, and if you love a good gay human/robot love story, then you will most likely love this one too.
November 13, 2025
I read this book years ago and it's one of those reads that sits with you, long after you've finished it. I was hooked from the very first chapter and has such an incredible, incredible voice - it's hard to both establish voice and incredible characters and do the necessary worldbuilding early on in a scifi like that, and Alexis Ames nails it.
A must-read for sci-fi lovers and those who love tragically romantic characters.
A must-read for sci-fi lovers and those who love tragically romantic characters.
Read
February 21, 2026No review and I'm gonna read again when I have a different mindset. I thought it was super interesting, I've just been more in the mood for big R genre romance, and unfortunately, that's not what this is.
Review of advance copy received from Author
A compelling scifi romance on overcoming one's own prejudice, with political machinations in the background. Or - tragic messy space gays deal with disasters.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I received a copy of this book as an ARC from the author.
Overall a fun read with a great relationship at it's core about sad gays in space.
Overall a fun read with a great relationship at it's core about sad gays in space.
February 18, 2026
I read an earlier version of this! Totally immersive, wonderful storytelling!
December 19, 2025
The Chamos Project is an ambitious sci-fi novel that pulls in mystery elements with great effect. This is, at its core, a book about grief and how healing from trauma can both be messy - and can bring out the worst of people. There are layers to the emotions of all the characters, even side characters with only brief appearances. Easter eggs are sprinkled throughout this book, offering amazing re-read potential. While at times it can feel like there's always another disaster on the horizon, it never feels contrived and instead settles nicely into the reality of: sometimes life just doesn't know when to slow down or quit.
Tightly written prose with lines that pack punch after emotional punch - this is a book to keep on the shelf and keep as a sign for what this talented author next has in store. I eagerly wait for whatever else Ames has up her sleeve.
Tightly written prose with lines that pack punch after emotional punch - this is a book to keep on the shelf and keep as a sign for what this talented author next has in store. I eagerly wait for whatever else Ames has up her sleeve.
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