Kirkus Reviews Magazine - Featured Indie Review
Planet Kalderra is known for several things. An oversized, violet moon. Massive craters filled with magnificent forests. And kameeba—bizarre creatures whose scavenged parts can power worlds.
Mona “Ripper” Ripple is a Maggot, responsible for harvesting the volatile yet prized remains of dead kameeba. As leader of the elite Karcass Five unit, Mona is the best Maggot that Kalderra has ever known. Tough and ill-tempered, demanding and crude, she’s also on the far side of forty—with all the scars to match.
Mona Ripple is also in love.
Smitten by a handsome recruit named Darien Vance, Mona makes final preparations for their planetary exit… together.
Unfortunately, Mona’s plans unravel when Darien catches the crimson eye of the reviled Countess Desma Ghool, who adds the young man to her collection of unwilling paramours.
As warm love gives way to cold rage, Mona sets out on a dangerous mission to liberate Darien, requiring an unwanted partnership with notorious space cowboy Mickie Brass.
Together, the pair embark on a perilous journey that reveals the planet's twisted history, the vital role of the kameeba, the dark intentions of the native Kalderrans, and what it truly means to be lovestruck.
Kirkus Reviews Magazine - Featured Indie Review
Planet Kalderra is known for several things. An oversized, violet moon. Massive craters filled with magnificent forests. And kameeba—bizarre creatures whose scavenged parts can power worlds.
Mona “Ripper” Ripple is a Maggot, responsible for harvesting the volatile yet prized remains of dead kameeba. As leader of the elite Karcass Five unit, Mona is the best Maggot that Kalderra has ever known. Tough and ill-tempered, demanding and crude, she’s also on the far side of forty—with all the scars to match.
Mona Ripple is also in love.
Smitten by a handsome recruit named Darien Vance, Mona makes final preparations for their planetary exit… together.
Unfortunately, Mona’s plans unravel when Darien catches the crimson eye of the reviled Countess Desma Ghool, who adds the young man to her collection of unwilling paramours.
As warm love gives way to cold rage, Mona sets out on a dangerous mission to liberate Darien, requiring an unwanted partnership with notorious space cowboy Mickie Brass.
Together, the pair embark on a perilous journey that reveals the planet's twisted history, the vital role of the kameeba, the dark intentions of the native Kalderrans, and what it truly means to be lovestruck.
“Unbuckle and spin. Stay focused, and keep your guns at the ready,” Mona told those in her krawler. “I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but I will anyway. Double check that your beams are off. Physical rounds only. And I don’t have to repeat why. We should be fine for a while, but this big bastard is gonna attract a shitload of rotters. Of every bloody sort.”
The Maggots nodded and followed Mona’s command as the krawler leveled out, Kuyomi vanishing under an unnaturally bright canopy.
Karcass Five was a unit of relative veterans, with most Maggots having entered Mori Mangekyo at least two dozen times. But one would have never guessed by looking at their faces.
As the krawlers penetrated the inimitable forest, eyes inexorably rose from the broken, pebbled flatness of the ground. They found the impossibly large trunks of subarashi trees—giants that appeared more god than plant. The glowing, crystalline wood was veined with lines of blue and pink and other colors not yet named. Nervous eyes continued to rise, higher and higher, as massive trunks broke off into equally impressive branches, which continued to split and divide in an endless array of angles and distances.
These relatively smaller branches exploded with even more color, studded with bioluminescent leaves and flowers, each the size of a personal hovercraft. The blossoms, in particular, swam with intermingling waves of varying shades and hues, looking like satellite images of a million-year storm on a distant planet. They audibly hummed with the sounds of electric current, throbbing with such power that they seemed to breathe, reminding each Maggot that these were no mere trees they were traveling beneath.
Maggot fingers rubbed against triggers as eyes that should have been studying the ground continued to scan the rainbow canopy of Mori Mangekyo. Only Mickie Brass seemed unshaken, the large, grizzled man calmly studying the unlit cigar twirling in his star-tattooed hands.
Mona rolled her unmatched eyes. Is that cigar from Chikyu? How much would that have cost? A month’s salary? What a ridiculous expense. Damn irresponsible Space Cowboys! How did I get saddled with one?
“Junker!” Mickie’s cigar twirling ceased as he looked over. “Eyes on the bloody ground, if you don’t mind.”
Mickie shrugged. “If it’s truly a class IV, Mona, there’ll be no rotters on our route.”
“And why would that be, Junker?”
Mickie picked something out from between two of his many gold teeth. Mona shuddered.
“Well, because they’re already at the scav site. Or on their way, at least. We’re all on the same highway, Mona. All going to the same destination. All hoping to cash in. All hoping to consume. At least for this short while, we’re aligned in a goal. I actually think it’s kinda heartening. Species alien and human alike moving forward as one…”
Mona’s eyes rolled back so hard, she feared her GLIM would disconnect, rendering her useless for the upcoming scav.
“Well, let me tell you something, Junker. If—”
Lightning shot out from somewhere high above, streaking over the caravanning Maggots to briefly connect two subarashi on either side of the small forest path, causing their trunks to flare and alight like a small nuclear detonation.
The Maggots, including Mona, immediately raised their arms to shield their eyes, the heat of raw power washing over them.
When the Kisser finally dropped her hands, she took grim satisfaction in seeing Mickie Brass no longer carelessly spinning his victory cigar. Instead, the junker was facing out from the krawler, gun in hand, singed retinas readily scanning ground, treetop, and everything in-between.
“I thought there was nothing to worry about, Junker,” Mona gleefully teased.
“Fujin’s ass! From the rotters, lass! Nothing to worry about from the rotters!” Mickie shouted over his shoulder from across the krawler, refusing to tear his now-intent gaze from his surroundings. “I didn’t say anything about these bloody suba-steps! Bloody Susanoo himself couldn’t predict why and how and when this infernal lightning will appear!”
Mona laughed again, not noticing Darien cowering in his seat.
“Then all the more reason to stop acting cool and start acting like the bleedin’ Lead Keeper!”
Mickie grunted but didn’t respond otherwise, which Mona took as a win in her never-ending verbal war with the Space Cowboy. Grimly satisfied, Mona spun back, placing her knees on the seat and chest against the krawler’s exterior railing, allowing her GLIM permission to scan the mori as they delved deeper into the karudera.
As the glowing subarashi flashed past, every Maggot’s eyes peered up nervously. They knew the terror that could rain down upon them at any moment.
* * *
Everyone had heard the tales of the first regiment of kikkorii—imperial loggers—who had traveled across the galaxy on command from Morishita Timber Limited to harvest Kalderra’s lone valuable resource. Before their dozers and laz-saws and power axes could down the first subarashi, lightning descended from the trees, burning skin from flesh, boiling brains in skulls, and, eventually, incinerating bones.
None survived. None were spared.
Five full subsequent regiments were lost before the Sindo-Emperor finally ceased his logging attempts, right around the time that the Kodama, Kalderra’s native humanoid population, made themselves known.
When the Syndicate’s top researchers figured out that the subarashi were not simply reacting to environmental threats—that they were actually controlled by the Kodama—another layer of complexity was added.
With the initial settlers of Kalderra having gone quiet for hundreds of years, presumably killed off by the native Kodama, the Sindo-Emperor’s top advisors advocated for the immediate nuking of the planet from orbiting warships. As far as the Syndicate was concerned, any kind of opposition could only be dealt with one way—total annihilation.
But the sitting Sindo-Emperor refused.
The Kodama lived beneath the planet’s rocky surface, cave dwellers in every sense of the word. To destroy them would require massive firepower that penetrated deep into Kalderra, sending shockwaves across the surface and placing the subarashi squarely in the crosshairs of destruction.
Something the Sindo-Emperor was unwilling to do.
And so, the elder Morishita decided to abandon the planet—for a time—until better plans could be laid or the Kodama naturally died off.
The Morishita clan had been in control of the galaxy for hundreds of years and would be in control for thousands more. They were nothing if not patient. The Sindo-Emperor could wait. His sons’ or grandsons’ or great-grandsons’ ultimate success would be his own. His was a vision not limited by the span of one life… but by scores of generations.
But then, just as the strategic abandonment of Kalderra was about to take place, another option fell into the Sindo-Emperor’s lap. A bizarre occurrence that none could have predicted.
Orbital surveillance spotted a strange creature squirming out from one of the many caves that lined the two subarashi-filled karuderas. Large and incandescent and throbbing with barely contained power, the monstrosity snaked its way through the mori before suddenly dropping dead, evidenced by the sudden shift in readings.
The glow within the dead creature increased twofold, threefold, fivefold before suddenly dimming, Kalderra’s mori absorbing unmeasurable power.
A seed was planted. An idea slowly formed. A plan was put into action. Potential casualties fell within acceptable ranges.
Many died at the beginning. But not from the Kodama-controlled subarashi’s lightning attacks. Many died because they didn’t know what they were dealing with. They didn’t know what they were doing.
The Sindo-Emperor demanded that this be fixed.
And so the Karcass regiment was created. And so the Maggots were born. And so the greatest collection of Maggots yet assembled now sped toward the biggest scav ever recorded.
It's a distinctive title, Lovestruck Maggot, and entirely appropriate because this is a distinctive book with a style of its own. I wasn't really sure what to expect when I started reading it and I will admit that this is not the sort of book that I would normally choose but I'm glad I took a chance because I've ripped through it and it's been a great read from start to finish.
So, about this book. It's science fiction because it's set in space on the planet Kalderra. I had echoes of Dune with the kameeba which is what the maggots are harvesting and before you think that 'maggot' is literal, it's not: it's the name given to the humans who are sent out to harvest kameebas when they emerge from underground and expire. What is a kameeba? Good question. It is a transparent slug-thing which has extreme value, especially its heart which when removed without exploding is specially coveted. It has unique energy, from what I can gather, like a nuclear reactor. And they're not the only things out there and maggots aren't the only things harvesting them.
Stay with me. It might sound a bit out there but it's all beautifully explained by Jarrett Brandon Early's tight narrative style which provides sufficient detail for you to visualise it all but doesn't swamp you in alien planet science.
But this is really the backdrop, imaginatively constructed though it may be because the story is, you've guessed it, about a lovestruck maggot, in this case, the leader of Karcass Five, Mona Ripple. She has it bad for her beautiful but not so brave companion, Darien Vance who she loves with a passion so ferocious that she can't bear to be without him and is desperate to take him away from this life of scavenging to an idyll of luxury and love-making.
Of course, it would be boring if this happened without conflict and Mona is not the only one attracted to Darien, as someone more powerful is threatening to have Darien for herself. Can Mona live without him? No, but with Mickie Brass, a fellow maggot to help, she may just get him back. But is Mickie everything he appears to be?
This book rockets along to a conclusion that satisfies on many levels. Action galore with very real threat and Mona and Mickie's exchanges make this book great fun.