The Diabolic

In The Diabolic, S. J. Kincaid covers a lot of ground and does it all well. Nemesis is a Diabolic. A genetically modified “bodyguard” who is conditioned to be ruthless and bonded to the person they are to guard. They protect them from all threats and would willingly give their life to save their charge. When the Diabolics start to take preemptive action to eliminate threats to those they protect, the Emperor orders them all destroyed. Nemesis’s charge, Sidonia Impyrean, won’t hear of it and her parents defy the orders and keep Nemesis alive. Sidonia’s father, an Imperial Senator, holds heretical views at odds with the Emperor. When the Emperor orders Sidonia to Imperial Court in a transparent attempt to keep her father in show more line, the Impyreans scheme to send Nemesis in her place.

The Diabolic creates a fascinating universe. A far future with incredible technology, populated with a people who have both forgotten how to create it and have created a religion which forbids the study of science and mathematics. They live in opulence, creating nothing, while the universe literally falls apart around them. Those that value knowledge and wish to study science are branded heretics and enemies of the Empire. The Imperial court is actually a group of connected spaceships in a hard to reach section of space. “Planetbound” people are considered second class citizens.

The themes here aren’t terrible subtle, but they are well thought out and explored by characters you come to care about. Nemesis is a fish out of water, who with a crash course in court etiquette knows enough to get by, but lives in fear of being discovered, which would be a death sentence for Sidonia. If planetbound people are second class citizens, Diabolics and other genetically modified servants don’t even merit that much consideration. They are property, and disposable property at that. Sidonia views Nemesis as a person, even if Nemesis herself does not. By impersonating Sidonia, Nemesis is forced to explore what she truly is and whether she is different or just taught to believe she is.

The politics at court are vicious and devious. Navigating the affairs at court and knowing who to trust can have deadly consequences. Kincaid pairs this compelling plot with complex characters and relationships. She takes you on a ride where you are unsure how it will turn out until the very end, if not beyond. Themes of science versus religion and those with privileges versus those without are interwoven throughout. The relationship we have with technology, as well as what happens on the day we create an intelligence equal to or greater than our own is also explored.

The Diabolic gives you a lot to think about and explores it with characters that are fun to spend time with. The audio version is narrated by Candace Thaxton who does an outstanding job. The pacing is great and the characters are easy to distinguish. She does a particularly good job with Nemesis who starts as a character who feels more machine than human, and spends the novel exploring her humanity. Thaxton’s narration captures that transformation and enhances the story and the listening experience. Highly recommended.

I was fortunate to receive an advance copy of this book. show less

Title: The Diabolic
Author: S. J. Kincaid
Narrator: Candace Thaxton
Published: 2016
Listen Time: 12:31
Page Count: 403
Read Date: August 28 - September 1, 2017
Description: Red Queen meets The Hunger Games in this epic novel about what happens when a senator’s daughter is summoned to the galactic court as a hostage, but she’s really the galaxy’s most dangerous weapon in disguise.

A Diabolic is ruthless. A Diabolic is powerful. A Diabolic has a single task: Kill in order to protect the person you’ve been created for.

Nemesis is a Diabolic, a humanoid teenager created to protect a galactic senator’s daughter, Sidonia. The two have grown up side by side, but are in no way sisters. Nemesis is expected to give her life for Sidonia, and she show more would do so gladly. She would also take as many lives as necessary to keep Sidonia safe.

When the power-mad Emperor learns Sidonia’s father is participating in a rebellion, he summons Sidonia to the Galactic court. She is to serve as a hostage. Now, there is only one way for Nemesis to protect Sidonia. She must become her. Nemesis travels to the court disguised as Sidonia—a killing machine masquerading in a world of corrupt politicians and two-faced senators’ children. It’s a nest of vipers with threats on every side, but Nemesis must keep her true abilities a secret or risk everything.

As the Empire begins to fracture and rebellion looms closer, Nemesis learns there is something more to her than just deadly force. She finds a humanity truer than what she encounters from most humans. Amidst all the danger, action, and intrigue, her humanity just might be the thing that saves her life—and the empire.

My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
My Review: First off, let me start by saying I went back and forth between reading and listening. The narrator had a voice that was very easy to listen to, and I could somehow truly picture Nemesis.

Second let me say that this book is told in first person, which can be very off-putting, especially if not done well. This was done very well. I don't want to give too much away, but the story is about Nemesis, who is a Diabolic, or a biologically engineered being. Her sole purpose is to live (or die) to protect Sidonia. When the only way to keep her safe means posing as her at court, Nemesis does so without hesitation.

Nemesis has been told for her entire existence that she is a thing. Property. She has no soul, she cannot feel or laugh or love. Sidonia doesn't believe that and tells Nemesis so, but Nemesis just chalks it up to Sidonia's affection for her. She has been her only and most loyal friend for most of her life, even if she is considered Sidonia's possession.

Nemesis' whole world gets turned on its head when she is at court pretending to be the heir of a high senator. And that's all I'll say for fear of spoilers. This book is filled with anguish and intrigue and so many feelings. There were a few spots that were triggering for me, but only because of recent incidences in my life. Had I read this book 6-7 months ago, certain scenes would not have been an issue. I'm just mentioning it as my personal issue, I do not believe the book has anything so harsh that others should fear reading it. There were so many ups and downs and plot twists! Some you can almost anticipate, and some just take you completely off guard. I'm very impressed with how the author weaved the plot to lead you in one direction and then take you by surprise. It's not easy to do these days because everything has been done--in some cases overdone!

I am truly looking forward to the sequel! show less

This book is really probably more like 4.5 stars. The politics of the world Kincaid has created are wonderful, very Game of Thrones, and the setting is well-imagined, with only one glaring exception that makes it difficult for me to give it a 5-star rating.

I am troubled by the central political conflict, because this takes place in a futuristic human society that is entirely reliant on technology, but is controlled by a leadership that refuses to let anyone learn about technology. Instead the leaders preach a sort of blind reliance on religion. I get that this is a solid basis for conflict, with echoes of human history, but I just couldn't find it plausible that a technology-driven human society could actually have any success, or show more accomplish the things they do (including a good bit of genetic engineering) without human intervention, let alone that they could do so for many generations.

I think a far more reasonable conflict would have been the suppression of knowledge within certain classes, which I think could have worked well with the story without losing any of the things that are so wonderful about it. I'd also have liked to know more about the Helionic religion, as I think that could also have lent more believability to the conflict.

But the first person narrator, Nemesis, is a stroke of genius because she is a "person" who considers herself nonhuman, while all the time coaxing the reader into sympathizing with her in the course of her very human predicaments that evoke very human emotions. So well done!

While not perfect, this was a really wonderful read that was hard to put down. I definitely look forward to reading the follow-up. show less

"The Diabolic" was intense, sophisticated YA Science Fiction that gripped my imagination, engaged my emotions and kept surprising me.

“The Diabolic” was one of those rare books that I slid right into. It lit up my imagination and pulled on my emotions as if it had been tailor-made to feed my hungers. It grabbed me the same way “The Hunger Games” did. It has the same intense focus on the difficult choices imposed on the main character by a brutally violent power structure. Keeping the story personal avoids the world-building from getting lost in either science or sociology and amplifies the emotional impact of the story.

But, Nemesis, the main character in this book, is no Katniss Everdeen. She is a Diabolic, a genetically show more engineered creature, conditioned from birth to be capable of great violence and great loyalty to a single person. Owned by a powerful family, she exists to keep the daughter of the House safe from all threats.

Nemis is the creation of the elite of a ruthless far-distant future galactic empire. The power of the elite comes from owning and controlling ancient space travel technologies that allow them to dominant planet-bound populations. The elite, who have held their power for centuries, have convinced themselves that they entitled to what they have, not because of the technology they control but because the practice of their Helios religion has won them the favour of the universe. The Helios religion has in turn interdicted as heretical the study of the technology that keeps the elite in power.

The plot follows the development of Nemesis from someone who sees herself as a soulless creature whose only purpose is to protect a young woman who lives on the edge of the Empire, through to someone whose circumstances have changed radically and who now must struggle to survive and to keep her true nature secretin the Emperor's Court and finally, into an independent person with an agenda and ethics of her own.

The plot moves at a good pace with more than a few surprises along the way. Although the age of the main characters leads me to classify this book as Young Adult it pulls no punches when it comes to describing the violence, cruelty and brutality of the people who rule the Empire. Nemesis is a killer and is untroubled by that fact. Those around her value no life other than their own. This is a book where the environment of the is soaked in threat.

I enjoyed the originality of this book and its main character. It is tense and pulls hard on the emotions but remains rooted in an entirely plausible political pragmatism. It also explores some interesting questions about what really makes us human and whether we can be both human and ruthlessly powerful.

My enjoyment was added to by Candace Thaxton's narration. I strongly recommend listening to the audiobook version, although, in the year since I bought my copy, this book no longer seems to be available on audible in the UK. show less

4.5 This was way better and so much more different than the story I was expecting. I went through this very quickly, the unsophisticated language making it possible. I love how this explored what it truly mean to be 'human' and to have a soul, but even when you put that aside it was still a great story. I was always guessing. It was hard to know what was real and what wasn't. And it was so emotional. Some parts had me cheering, and other crying. It has almost anything you could want from a fiction novel. Plus, the romance wasn't over the top, it was done well, and it had a role in the plot and character development without taking it over. A very, very rare combination.

Nemesis, has been crafted in a lab, trained to kill, programmed to feel nothing other than her undying devotion for her master, a willingness to protect at all costs, but when circumstances require Nemesis to impersonate her master under dangerous circumstances, she begins to feel things that she never knew were possible, she begins to question whether she really is the monster she was always said to be.

I don’t want to go much more into the detail of story because there are twists and turns aplenty, some predictable, others not, I will say that this book is violent at times, though it felt like any graphic scenes were necessary to illustrate Nemesis’s growth and also necessary for world-building, to establish just how cruel those in show more power are and why someone might risk everything to overthrow them.

There is romance, sort of two (one is unrequited), I liked the chemistry, but more than that, I liked that the romance as well as the friendships and the interactions between Nemesis and a pet were so beautifully paced, how gradually she has these revelations about what’s right, about what it is to love, be loved and learn to love herself.

As much as I found the sci-fi plot entertaining and exciting, what really captured my attention here is the gamut of believable real-world emotions Nemesis experiences, particularly in the moments of loss and the moments involving the corrals, when she’s forced to face the harsh treatment she and others like her have received. As action packed as this is, it’s emotion packed, too. show less

Immediately upon finishing this book, what I was going to say about it was "A focus on heterosexual romance and a lack of even minor non-straight characters is not my favorite thing ever, but I'm prepared to accept it, especially while reading mainstream YA. But then, about two-thirds or three-quarters of the way through the book, it turned out there was in fact a non-straight character! Who confesses her unrequited love to the heroine and dies in her very next scene. Frankly, I would rather have no representation than that."

But then I remembered that there were, in fact, more non-straight characters in the book! In the form of a couple of depraved bisexuals who drug and molest naive young women who are new to the imperial court. (Well, show more the female half of the couple is bisexual, at least. I don't remember any mention of drugging and molesting naive young men.) So it wasn't as bad as I thought it was, after all. It was worse.

Really, the hell of it is that I don't think the author at all dislikes gay or bi people, and I feel like she probably patted herself on the back a bit for the inclusion of, at least, the non-evil one who dies. Gotta have diversity, right? But the author clearly hasn't paid enough attention to discussions of LGB representation in fiction to avoid rehashing some of the most shopworn (and widely complained-about) tropes and stereotypes there are. show less