I'm pretty disgusted. It started out so well. Characters were interesting, I was invested in Kayla quite quickly, and the story was good.

(Spoilers ahead)
The problem I have with it is that Malkor is a reprehensible shit and he's being written as a nice love interest. I can't forgive him for how he forces Kayla into situations all the time, including revealing her identity. But most of all for threatening her brother. He says he doesn't want to use her brother as leverage, "don't look at me like that Kayla, you know I don't want to do it". WTF, you already did it. You threatened her brother. I can't forgive him, and if I can't, then it's absolutely ridiculously that Kayla let's him off the hook so easily. He keeps on giving off abuser vibes, and then she falls for him. I'm utterly disgusted by it. She never breaks down the entire book, but for the one time when she tells him how badly she doesn't want to impersonate Isonde. So when she wants to leave, he tries to guild trip her into staying, because he needs her (which he doesn't). The woman he loves doesn't want to live a life that isn't hers, where she will be married to his friend and won't be able to have much contact with him anyway, she doesn't want to live a life that made her break down sobbing, and your reaction is 'You should have included me in the decision so i could talk you out of it'(because his track record of letting her decide things is great) and 'you are choosing your brothers over me?' This man is beyond disgusting, and why are we supposed to like him?

Also, the book is all over the place at the end. There were really too many things happening. ( )

This was better than I expected. There were some pretty predictable parts, but it stayed fun in spite of that. ( )

Okay, seriously, this took a long time for me to start caring about the characters, but it finally happened well after the half-way point of the book. That's a real shame, because I was frankly bored out of my skull by most of it.

Best Space Opera? Please.

We got ourselves a bit of knife fighting in a tournament and then a road trip with blackmailing spies and a con job to put an empress on the throne of a multi planet empire. If that isn't bad enough, we've got the old trope of princess-in-disguise right out of standard fantasy fiction. (Or even Shakespeare, if you want to go there.) We've got the way overdone psi schtick and a throwaway nanoplague, too. What the book really needed were solid characters to pull a tired and not-so-fresh landscape into a vibrant and interesting novel.

And we did. Very, very late. It saved the book in full estimation, but if we'd had the glories of that character vibrancy and depth and the hint of a great plot twist or two brewing at the beginning, I wouldn't have had any problem slogging through the meh roadtrip or the throwaway battles. I would have seen them as build-up and atmosphere enhancing, not just a page-filler that did oh-so-little to propel the actual STORY.

So what am I saying? Oh, perhaps a bit of editing would have been in order. Do a time twist in the story. Bring some later events to the front end then let it back up and build again. Show us the love, the important action, the heartache and the epic, and do it right off the bat. Maybe then I wouldn't have been yawning and asking myself why I was reading this.

It didn't end with a whimper, at least. But it sure started with one. Yes, Yes, the first scene was a fight, and yes she kissed the boy who would be hers in front of a whole stadium, and yes she was kidnapped and blackmailed almost right away... but that's no excuse for not grabbing me by the heart and insuring my interest from the very start. It didn't happen until much, much later, and that's my problem.

And then there was the growing suspicion that the book was entirely about the teenage boy. So much revolved around him, and little about it was even interesting. The MC was a superstar, for heaven's sake, and I was wondering why the hell I was stuck in a boring cul-du-sac with this mute boy who's oddly a mary-sue. Huh? Huh? Why?

Oh, it's only meant to give the MC something we can relate to? Some human charm and heartstring-pulling? No. It was too little and too drawn out and threatened to consume ALL of the momentum of the tale.

I was also a bit annoyed with all the orphaned place-and-name-dropping that meant very little to me as a reader. Not even a two-word descriptor to placehold them for me or give the rest of the world a bit of depth and color. Though, to be honest, I'd be just as annoyed if I was just given some map that I'd never refer to as I read the book. I've seen WAY too many wonderful examples of incorporating names with beauty and verve, and it was all sadly missing from this novel. Zoom zoom idc zoom zoom.

I know this sounds a bit like I should be giving the novel a one or a two star rating, but in the end, it did affect me. It was redeemed, even if it was very flawed. There were a lot of standard tropes and ideas that really required a first class talent to bring to life even though they're rather standard, OR it required such glorious characters and development that everything else receded into the background. We eventually got the latter, but it only half-worked as a great piece of writing and only late did it succeed in its characters.

Not sure if I'd really recommend this to anyone, unless:

You've never read about nano plagues happening off-screen and mostly out of mind unless you need a plot bogeyman.
Or:
You don't need anything more than a skimpy and almost inexplicable reason for holding a tournament designed for females to fight single combat for the right to become the Empress.
Or:
You've never gotten tired of the omnipresent hidden-princess trope.

If you fall into any of these categories, then dive right in, friends. :) Fair warning, though, it'll take a while before the action becomes good and decent and not just a fart in the wind.
( )

The Empress Game is a space opera featuring an all-lady combat tournament, a group of outsiders who possess mental powers, and a massive political conspiracy (several, actually). If that doesn’t make you want to read this book, just dive into the first chapter and within a few minutes, you’ll be hooked.

The Empress Game starts out with a punch, introducing us to our badass main character Kayla in the most awesome way possible. I absolutely love that opening fight scene. There are plenty more after that (a few of the fights are so detailed as to become a tad bit tedious), but that first one is the best. Kayla is a survivor, and she uses her wits as much as her fists. Even so, events in the book tear her up psychologically so that, by the end, she's kind of an emotional wreck. There are some truly heart-wrenching moments with Kayla's family that really made me feel her pain. But as the (cliffhanger-ish) ending proves, Kayla may be down, but she's not out of the fight yet. And the fight is far from over.

The story takes us on a journey from pit fights on a backwater planet to the main political arena of a vast empire where Kayla is never sure who to trust. The political intrigue is another of the book's highlights. In fact, my favorite supporting character is the sharp, politically savvy Isonde. I love how the author builds the relationship between Kayla and Isonde; instead of making these two formidable women rivals, she makes them a team. I really hope Isonde returns in the next installment.

Speaking of relationships, there's also a romantic subplot that starts off great. Unfortunately, Kayla's love interest pissed me off so much at one point that, even though he eventually wins back Kayla's trust, I could never fully get back on board that ship. There's still more to come for this couple though, as the ending leaves their relationship on rocky ground. I'll be curious to see how it evolves in the next installment.

Overall, The Empress Game is an entertaining series opener with outstanding worldbuilding, interesting characters, and a lot of potential for future books. After a kick-ass beginning, the story slows down a bit and loses some of its suspense, but the ending ramps the tension back up as the characters enter the endgame and everything goes to pieces. The conclusion is excellent, but it leaves a lot of threads hanging. I’m already looking forward to the sequel in this planned trilogy. ( )

The Games themselves were a bit much, but the explanation for them was good. Oh those silly nobles. To marry the crown prince the king back then decided to create these games. He was fascinated by another culture that had excellent fighters and he was all, hey, that is a good way to pick a spouse. Like I said, those silly nobles. So that is why the games still stand and princesses and other leaders gather to fight for the right to marry the prince. It was a step backwards to brutality, but the king is king.

But when you have a lot of settlers in space there will also be those dark corners where brutality and slavers rule and there is where this story starts. In a gladiator pit where our heroine Kayla fights for money. She is on the run, we do not know from where, she has a brother. And we learn her history and why she has to hide. A sad and again, brutal history.

Which brings us to the real story. Fight in the Empress Games, get some more money and get the heck out of this corner of space.

But doing that brings her close to a hated enemy (hate that guy!), even closer to the organization that made her suffer (those people needs to be taken down). She finds friends in the most unlikely places. Ok so it's obvious who, that is not a spoiler, the guy who finds her and tells her to fight. I liked him. He was decent.

A good story that kept me on mttoes. You never knew who is behind the corner. I liked the characters, the setting, and the wars to come. Conflicts are rising.

But this is the first in a series. So it ends..kind of good for now. But stuff is happening and I look forward to reading more. ( )