The Her Instruments Series

Earthrise

I love the universe that M.C.A. Hogarth has created for her books.  In the future, humans create human/animal hybrids called the Pelted who then leave the galaxy.  They spread out onto new worlds and form an Alliance.  They totally leave their human creators behind.

Human still live in this galaxy except for a few adventurous ones who venture out into Alliance space. Reese was born on Mars.  Now she has fled from the life that was planned for her there and is trying to make a living as a trader.  It isn’t going well.  She was bailed out once.  She’s almost broke again.

Now she has to go rescue an Eldritch who fell into the hands of slavers.  The Eldritch are a reclusive race.  They don’t leave their planets much because they are highly empathetic.  Too many beings makes it hard for them.  Everything Reese knows about them comes from the romance novels she gets monthly that feature Eldritch as mysterious heroes.  It turns out that Eldritch are much more annoying than in the books.

Reese is prickly.  She doesn’t open herself up emotionally easily.  This is an area of conflict between her and the feline crew members who respond to everyone emotionally and sexually.  As a Mars native who was born under a dome and who now lives on a ship, she gets agoraphobia whenever she has to be on a planet with an endless horizon.

If you liked the interactions of the crew in The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet you might like this book too.

I liked it so much that I read the rest of the books in the series too.

Not going to lie.  I didn’t expect a space opera series to end up focusing so much on horses.  I’m not complaining.  I like horses.

After trying to open up a new trade route, Reese and the crew fall into the hands of slavers again.  Hirianthial, the Eldritch crew member fights back.  He realizes that his psychic powers are getting more powerful.  In fact, the only person he’s ever heard of with these powers went insane and killed a lot of people on the Eldritch planet.

The Eldritch have kept the planet closed off forever.  Bringing a crew of non-Eldritch in is going to be a problem.

The slow romance between Reese and Hirianthial continues.  I enjoyed the idea of Reese trying to build a relationship based on what she read in romance books.  She gets a bit annoyed when he doesn’t act like the heroes she reads about.  

This is a very different book than the first one.  There are a lot more politics than space travel.  I love the diverse crew, especially Alacazam.  He’s an alien that looks like a fuzzy basketball.  He communicates through thoughts and helps cheer everyone else.

Warning – there is an attempted rape scene

Right as everything is coming together for Reese and her crew, a coup throws the planet into chaos.  Now Reese is hiding refugees and political prisoners.  Hirianthial is off planet with the deposed Queen getting medical treatment for his injuries he got during the attack.  The only way back together is to get the rightful Queen back on the throne.

This book is about making a new civilization from the remains of an old one.  How do they want to live? What does it take to rule?  Liolesa, the deposed queen has been shoring up her people with off-World goods for years without their knowledge. What happens when the isolationists who take over have to face the truth?

There is the repeated rape of a female prisoner in this story.  It happens off the page but it isn’t graphically described.  However, her reactions to this repeated trauma are described.

This is a good ending to the story.  There is a short story that takes place between books two and three that I haven’t read yet.  This author has other series set in the same universe to that I’m looking forward to reading.