elizabetta

It’s the lure of the PL Nunn cover… gets me every time in it’s awesome sweetness.

But.

This story alternately entertained and annoyed. I blame it mostly on the pacing. So slow and tedious when the action stopped, so fun when there was lots of back talk, posturing and gunfights.

Zeshin/Zen, or “the boy”, is a lab-engineered fighting machine (part human/part snow leopard), owned by an Aoki Corp thug. Zen is treated like an animal, a pet, and has much value as a submissive sex-toy. This is one expensive toy in this dark, gritty AU world where the poor and downtrodden greatly outnumber the powerful wealthy. Still, one night when Zen loses a battle, his Master sees fit to throw him out, like table scraps into the trash. Lucky for Zen, he is rescued by Hajiri, a cybernetically enhanced human battlewarrior with a heart of gold.

We get a long section where the two get to know each other and not much happens. There’s a lot of: “this boy is so unworthy” and “this boy is nothing” ad infinitum. On and on it goes… And yet… I couldn’t help but really like Zen. He was bred for subservience, it’s all he knows, and he’s a dangerous battlepet, but all he wants is love. His mantra is heart-wringing:

“This boy wants a good Master… this boy loves his Master and wishes to please him… this boy wants Master to love his pet… why don’t any of my Masters love this boy the way this boy loves them?"

It looks like Zen may have found the Master he deserves in Hajiri-- someone who can care for him as well as see his hidden potential. Yet, enjoys the kinky pet-play that’s part of the package. The pacing inevitably picks up for the action scenes where Zen and Hajiri wrestle with the yakuza-like Corp thugs, but lordy, they’re just too far and few between. The rest of this has some ok world-building and fun gun-fiery action. With good editing this could have been developed into a great, kick-ass action story.