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Mosaic Virus #2
Six Feet of Ridiculous
A virus has spread through the kingdom of Aspermonde, transforming women into alien creatures known as Mosaics. Once they were treated as collectible, but Captain Simon Cant broke the Mosaic trade and rescued them.
Now, Simon and his loyal lieutenant, Hal Bracken, are escorting the last of the emancipated Mosaics to their new home. Simon's looking forward to seeing Augusta and having a lot of fun watching Medic Nathan Worth try and fail to seduce Hal. Nathan's six feet of pure ridiculous and all he wants is a little attention from Simon's straitlaced second-in-command.
When war unexpectedly comes back to Aspermonde, the three veterans are faced with the nightmare of returning to Middledark, the battlefield that almost destroyed them ten years ago. Simon has one chance to stop the new war, but first he's got to deal with his sick lieutenant, his secret-keeping lover, a stroppy medic, a very angry Mosaic, and a young firebrand who wants him to lead a rebellion against the king. When did it get so hard to be a big damn hero?
Sequel to Bastard's Grace, but can be read as a standalone. Contains mature m/f and m/m scenes.
Now, Simon and his loyal lieutenant, Hal Bracken, are escorting the last of the emancipated Mosaics to their new home. Simon's looking forward to seeing Augusta and having a lot of fun watching Medic Nathan Worth try and fail to seduce Hal. Nathan's six feet of pure ridiculous and all he wants is a little attention from Simon's straitlaced second-in-command.
When war unexpectedly comes back to Aspermonde, the three veterans are faced with the nightmare of returning to Middledark, the battlefield that almost destroyed them ten years ago. Simon has one chance to stop the new war, but first he's got to deal with his sick lieutenant, his secret-keeping lover, a stroppy medic, a very angry Mosaic, and a young firebrand who wants him to lead a rebellion against the king. When did it get so hard to be a big damn hero?
Sequel to Bastard's Grace, but can be read as a standalone. Contains mature m/f and m/m scenes.
601 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 4, 2021
8 people want to read
About the author
Wendy Palmer
18 books53 followersWendy Palmer lives in Bridgetown, Western Australia with her partner, son, dogs, goats, alpacas, bees and chickens. She's patted tigers, ridden elephants, dog-sledded across glaciers, faced down lions in the Serengeti, swum with whale sharks, and camped in the Sahara, but she not-so-secretly prefers curling up with a good book.
She writes fantasy fiction with entertaining characters, enjoyably perilous adventures, romantic entanglements, some dark undertones, but always happy, hopeful endings.
Now over at StoryGraph.
She writes fantasy fiction with entertaining characters, enjoyably perilous adventures, romantic entanglements, some dark undertones, but always happy, hopeful endings.
Now over at StoryGraph.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 3, 2023
I love Nathan! What is going on with Hal? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, WENDY PALMER, WITH THIS NONSENSE ABOUT WAR COMING BACK TO ASPERMONDE????
o halp
------ okay, here's the full review:
I took a month to read this, with any number of breaks for other books. Some were also emotionally devastating (hello, Ravella Ives’s Cold Comfort ), and yet I didn’t need to step away as I did from Six Feet of Ridiculous. Why, why, why.
A kind of exhaustion. Not mine but the characters’. Hal Bracken is ill in some unspecified way that brings on a feverish delirium more and more often. Simon Canterbilt’s son has died and his lover Augusta has only a few years to live. And Nathan Worth, very well surnamed, the medic assigned to Simon and Hal’s troop: a mutilated veteran, flamboyantly queer, who in his short life — he’s in his early 20s — has already managed to accumulate as much suffering as the other, significantly older principals.
Nathan's in love with Hal. But Hal, for reasons not fully revealed until near the end, keeps driving him away. Nathan often hears his queer-hating father’s voice in his head, telling him he’s weak and cowardly; in fact he’s brilliant and courageous — as between himself and Hal, by far the braver of the two. There’s a wonderful progression in his relationships with the soldiers whose medic he is, too — Nathan queens it up, calling them “petal,” “princess,” “sweetheart,” and the homophobic ones treat him with contemptuous hostility, right up until, with complete credibility, events push them to appreciate his heroism. The absolutely best part of this process is that there’s a point where Hal just about convinces Nathan that he’s doing it all wrong and the men will never respect him; but though Nathan learns to use his authoritative “nurse voice” when he has to, he can’t be other than himself, and it’s exactly through his refusal to be anything other than himself that he proves Hal wrong.
As in the previous installment, Bastard’s Grace, Palmer does whatever the opposite is of info-dumping. If you’re going to enjoy the Mosaic books, you have to expect that you won’t understand the characters’ motivations for a long time, or the significance of events until well after they have occurred. The role of Prince Tristan in Hal and Simon’s lives doesn’t become entirely clear until the very end of Six Feet of Ridiculous, though he’s dead even before the events of Bastard’s Grace.
I have a lot of patience for slow reveals like this, at least when Wendy Palmer’s handling them. In Simon’s early appearances in Bastard’s Grace, for instance, he seems coarse, violent, brutal, but then he doesn’t commit rape just when you expect him to, and Hal is so obviously decent that his loyalty to Simon makes you pause (or at least made me pause) long enough to glimpse something of the choices Simon’s position has forced him into and how he mostly can’t do any better than the least-bad thing.
Nathan, the Six Feet of Ridiculous himself, carries this second book. In his way, he’s as cryptic as Simon and Hal, even when we’re in his point of view. How he lost his arm, how he acquired his (ex-)lover Alex, how he became a medic, why he’s not in touch with his family, how someone so young came to join the army — his history is a kaleidoscope, perspective shifting over and over as more and more is revealed. By the time Alex appears in person you have a pretty clear picture of how he entered Nathan’s life and what his effects on Nathan have been. No spoilers, but I guarantee some strong feelings. I adored Nathan. My wife, who’s in the middle of SFoR now, adores Nathan. Hal, though he’s too chickenshit to admit it till late in the game, adores Nathan. I don’t think Wendy Palmer is for everybody, but if she’s for you then I defy you not to adore Nathan too.
The ending of SFoR leaves much unresolved, though thankfully Nathan and Hal have AT LAST found their way to each other. I could stand to leave things where they are, but -- please, Wendy Palmer? Please? Let us know how things work out, especially for Augusta.
o halp
------ okay, here's the full review:
I took a month to read this, with any number of breaks for other books. Some were also emotionally devastating (hello, Ravella Ives’s Cold Comfort ), and yet I didn’t need to step away as I did from Six Feet of Ridiculous. Why, why, why.
A kind of exhaustion. Not mine but the characters’. Hal Bracken is ill in some unspecified way that brings on a feverish delirium more and more often. Simon Canterbilt’s son has died and his lover Augusta has only a few years to live. And Nathan Worth, very well surnamed, the medic assigned to Simon and Hal’s troop: a mutilated veteran, flamboyantly queer, who in his short life — he’s in his early 20s — has already managed to accumulate as much suffering as the other, significantly older principals.
Nathan's in love with Hal. But Hal, for reasons not fully revealed until near the end, keeps driving him away. Nathan often hears his queer-hating father’s voice in his head, telling him he’s weak and cowardly; in fact he’s brilliant and courageous — as between himself and Hal, by far the braver of the two. There’s a wonderful progression in his relationships with the soldiers whose medic he is, too — Nathan queens it up, calling them “petal,” “princess,” “sweetheart,” and the homophobic ones treat him with contemptuous hostility, right up until, with complete credibility, events push them to appreciate his heroism. The absolutely best part of this process is that there’s a point where Hal just about convinces Nathan that he’s doing it all wrong and the men will never respect him; but though Nathan learns to use his authoritative “nurse voice” when he has to, he can’t be other than himself, and it’s exactly through his refusal to be anything other than himself that he proves Hal wrong.
As in the previous installment, Bastard’s Grace, Palmer does whatever the opposite is of info-dumping. If you’re going to enjoy the Mosaic books, you have to expect that you won’t understand the characters’ motivations for a long time, or the significance of events until well after they have occurred. The role of Prince Tristan in Hal and Simon’s lives doesn’t become entirely clear until the very end of Six Feet of Ridiculous, though he’s dead even before the events of Bastard’s Grace.
I have a lot of patience for slow reveals like this, at least when Wendy Palmer’s handling them. In Simon’s early appearances in Bastard’s Grace, for instance, he seems coarse, violent, brutal, but then he doesn’t commit rape just when you expect him to, and Hal is so obviously decent that his loyalty to Simon makes you pause (or at least made me pause) long enough to glimpse something of the choices Simon’s position has forced him into and how he mostly can’t do any better than the least-bad thing.
Nathan, the Six Feet of Ridiculous himself, carries this second book. In his way, he’s as cryptic as Simon and Hal, even when we’re in his point of view. How he lost his arm, how he acquired his (ex-)lover Alex, how he became a medic, why he’s not in touch with his family, how someone so young came to join the army — his history is a kaleidoscope, perspective shifting over and over as more and more is revealed. By the time Alex appears in person you have a pretty clear picture of how he entered Nathan’s life and what his effects on Nathan have been. No spoilers, but I guarantee some strong feelings. I adored Nathan. My wife, who’s in the middle of SFoR now, adores Nathan. Hal, though he’s too chickenshit to admit it till late in the game, adores Nathan. I don’t think Wendy Palmer is for everybody, but if she’s for you then I defy you not to adore Nathan too.
The ending of SFoR leaves much unresolved, though thankfully Nathan and Hal have AT LAST found their way to each other. I could stand to leave things where they are, but -- please, Wendy Palmer? Please? Let us know how things work out, especially for Augusta.
May 11, 2024
This is an extremely “it’s chill tho” three-star review - I mostly enjoyed but just don’t think the book quite came together. A bit too much exposition about Aspermonde in the first half, not enough worldbuilding about the horse people’s empire in the second half, and it’s not that I don’t believe the romance - I actually really do! - but I would have loved to see it play out instead of seeing the characters mostly talk *about* it.
Genius romance hook imo - the set-up, that they keep trying and then thinking they’re incompatible when it’s really just all the iffy assumptions they bring to the table bc of their past bad relationships, is so so good, and the nuances and details are there. I think I just would have liked a lot more depiction of *why* they’re so into each other.
In Bastard’s Grace, even though the plot careening along I really felt Simon and Augusta’s chemistry - the small moments that developed their relationship were built directly into the plot in a way that didn’t quite happen with Nathan and Hal here.
Maybe it’s because Nathan and Hal are a lot more plot-passive than Simon and Augusta, or at least Nathan is more active in the romance arc but basically a ride along to the plot, while Hal is sort of only in the plot by virtue of his friendship with Simon - and very passive/uncommunicative in the romance arc.
I’m thinking this through as I write it, but Simon and Augusta’s romance fit really well with the plot and pace and military setting of the first book, whereas Nathan and Hal’s romance maybe just doesn’t make sense in that same context. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the best parts of their arc in the book are the parts where are less frenetic, like when they’re all at the Mosaic village at the beginning. Maybe this would have been better told as a ruby-born, Pride and Prejudice-style comedy of manners?
That said - the world of Aspermonde is still super fascinating, and based on how this book ended there’s definitely more to tell. I look forward to it!
Genius romance hook imo - the set-up, that they keep trying and then thinking they’re incompatible when it’s really just all the iffy assumptions they bring to the table bc of their past bad relationships, is so so good, and the nuances and details are there. I think I just would have liked a lot more depiction of *why* they’re so into each other.
In Bastard’s Grace, even though the plot careening along I really felt Simon and Augusta’s chemistry - the small moments that developed their relationship were built directly into the plot in a way that didn’t quite happen with Nathan and Hal here.
Maybe it’s because Nathan and Hal are a lot more plot-passive than Simon and Augusta, or at least Nathan is more active in the romance arc but basically a ride along to the plot, while Hal is sort of only in the plot by virtue of his friendship with Simon - and very passive/uncommunicative in the romance arc.
I’m thinking this through as I write it, but Simon and Augusta’s romance fit really well with the plot and pace and military setting of the first book, whereas Nathan and Hal’s romance maybe just doesn’t make sense in that same context. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the best parts of their arc in the book are the parts where are less frenetic, like when they’re all at the Mosaic village at the beginning. Maybe this would have been better told as a ruby-born, Pride and Prejudice-style comedy of manners?
That said - the world of Aspermonde is still super fascinating, and based on how this book ended there’s definitely more to tell. I look forward to it!
January 16, 2023
Bastard’s Grace was a great story, brilliantly told. And for years after I read it, I would check Goodreads, hoping against hope that Wendy Palmer might have returned to the tale, to Si, Augusta, Hal and Aspermondé. And then one day, she did.
I tried to make this book last as long as possible. But Palmer is an exceptional story teller, and I found myself lost again and again in the world she has built with such skill. Action, romance, politics, intrigue - the Mosaic Virus books have it all. A truly rewarding read.
I tried to make this book last as long as possible. But Palmer is an exceptional story teller, and I found myself lost again and again in the world she has built with such skill. Action, romance, politics, intrigue - the Mosaic Virus books have it all. A truly rewarding read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews