Brief Encounters

Title: Closer Than Touch (A Zodiac Forces Short)
Author: Tami Veldura
Length: 15k words
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Genre: m/m sci-fi
Rating: B+

Blurb: A Zodiac Forces short story.

Deia has difficulty keeping partners; no matter how hard they try, they keep winding up dead. Bad enough in a special operations unit, but Deia is a Gemini, meant to work with a partner at a level of intimacy that leaves all his other relationships dull and distant by comparison.

Tired of his partners dying, Deia is ready to transfer to Scorpio, where working alone isn’t a problem. When his boss stipulates he’ll only sign off on the transfer if Deia meets a new candidate, Deia reluctantly agrees to try one last time.

Review: The government’s offensive agency is called the Zodiac Force, made up of different types of operatives with different skill sets and responsibilities. Scorpios are the solo fighting force, such as snipers; Taurus are demo experts; Aries are the communication between different operatives in the field; and Gemini are two-person teams of elite fighters. They do all different kinds of work (though it all seems pretty unapologetically offensive in nature) and the teams are linked by their Gemini suits — a nanotech type of symbiosis that almost literally makes one half of the team the other. They can feel each other, think to each other, fight like a hive mind, and become incredibly close.

Deia is a Gemini and is unsurpassed in skill. His last two partners have died in action while he survived, leading others on the Zodiac Forces to name him the Black Widow. He’s right to be arrogant when he is repeatedly partnered with other Gemini much below his standard, which then becomes a liability. When he puts his foot down to his commander (a transfer to Scorpio or some real sim training for his new partner) he finds that the new guy he’s to be working with is more closely aligned in ability and mind than any partner before him. Phade is all smiles, charm and arrogance to Deia’s irascible haughtiness, but they’re actually pretty similar. After their battle of wills, they embark on their first mission together, which only begins to test their shared ability and their newfound affection, friendship and loyalty.

For me, this story set the bar pretty high from the beginning. The writing was pretty excellent right away. Tami Veldura has a real knack for writing action sequences. The depth of the worldbuilding is pretty vast with possibilities. I like when I start a short story that seems to have the ideas of a whole series of novels, yet this author’s minimal and commanding style of writing is suited displaying so much information and plot well in such a short format. For a 15k story there is a huge amount of plot worked into Closer Than Touch. The story is very action packed and densely written, so I often had to take the reading slowly to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Sometimes this became a bit tedious, with lots of technical jargon, but in the end I enjoyed the story enough overlook most of it.

I can only say that the large undertaking in worldbuilding is setting us up for a series (as the title would suggest), and as such this first story suffers a little bit. Normally that happens when the first story takes the brunt of the worldbuilding, but here I thought that it was handled well. The problem is that I often felt a little lost in the detail, and would rather have gotten a nice big picture. I’m not entirely sure who they work for, nor what the other Zodiac positions entail.

Much of the story is a pretty similar take on The Matrix, which I enjoyed. There are even some bland references to Agent Smith, which I found a bit funny. The idea that is central to the story is that Gemini can feel their partners, which isn’t only an interesting premise relating to the story, but poses some pretty remarkable sexual opportunities as well I didn’t agree with the addition of the last scene, which felt like a ribbon and bow tied a little too nicely on a story that until then had been pretty emotionally sparse. I would have preferred the natural progression of the characters, especially if this is the first in a series. The earlier sex scene, however, was a really great part of the story and worked well into the overarching plot.

This is a really wonderful story, and Tami Veldura is an author that I know to look out for now. While I had some problems with this story, mostly that I felt it didn’t quite live up to it’s potential, there were still so many great things about it. As I said, the bar was set pretty high after I read the first paragraph, and for the most part, the story met my expectations. I’m looking forward to whatever is next from Ms. Veldura! B+

Read Full Post »