This review was made possible via an ARC through NetGalley

Redsight is a Sapphic science fantasy in the vein of Dune and Star Wars from the POV of a blind character.

From the very beginning, I was in love. This book was written specifically for me. The novel opening with a priestess being distracted by a beautiful woman is perfection and a woman turning into a giant snake and eating a man was everything I wanted in an intro chapter to the character.

I would love to say a lot of smarter things about this book, but all I can really say is ‘I love it, I love it, I love it.’

I would recommend this to fans of Dune and Star Wars who are open to Queer narratives. I would not recommend this to readers who are looking for less faith in their space operas or space fantasies.

My only concern is that it might be too close to blood libel. Korinna kills a child in a rite of passage connected to her faith to get their blood to fuel her magic. I am not Jewish nor am I the expert on blood libel, but I am concerned.

"Redsight" is definitely one of the most unique books I've read--a queer science fantasy with blind priestesses, a star-devouring snake goddess, and entombed gods with a complex threefold magic system.

This read extremely long to me, but I'd definitely recommend it to readers looking to immerse themselves in a sweeping science fiction epic.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc! Opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rebellion for the advance reader copy.

I really enjoyed this book! The world building was so unique and the vastness was captured perfectly. The magic system felt new and unique which added to my enjoyment of the book.

There was a decent paced build up to the main story and once it got going you appreciated the time taken to get used to the world (universe).

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys fantasy and sci fi as it has a good mix of both.

There's a lot to love here, but what stands out the most to me in this book has to be the world and the concept. It very much fits what I've come to expect and love from Solaris as a publisher (i.e., high-concept science fantasy). The magic system (yes, there can be magic in space) is a delighful hybrid of fantasy and science-fiction that I struggle comparing to anything else but itself. Will it take time to understand the world? Yes. Will it take time to understand how to magic operates in the world and how it influences the characters? Yes. But that time is worth it, in my opinion. It's not a book for the type of reader who wants to understand everything at once (which is fair). You have to be able to trust that you're told what you need to know when you need to know it. Several times, I lamented not understanding something, only to realize some chapters later that I wasn't ever supposed to understand it. Not at that point, anyway, since it served a plot point/twist later on. Lastly, the politics and backstory were well-developed. They propelled the plot and the choices of the characters forward steadily and securely (if you've read this book, then this was an accidental pun, I swear).

This was an interesting novel and had some of my favorite elements of sci-fi. The characters were well developed and I liked the writing style. However the conclusion felt meh and the interactions between the three MC's felt a little flat for me.

Overall this was a pretty good read for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an e arc in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked this novel. The plot and the universe are engaging and original. The story starts off quickly, which is perfect for this kind of plot. However, it is not necessarily fast-paced book, but it did not bother me very much. The characters are rather well-developed but I did not personally connect with them. The only real complain that I have is about the romance, which grows too quickly for me. It made the romance a little bit superficial which is unfortunate.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for a honest review.

Honestly, an interesting premise but you will wonder by the end just how much blood someone can lose and still be standing! Worth it if you like warhammer 40k or wanted a less bone-centric Gideon the Ninth.

I've never read anything quite like this. Lesbian priestesses, complex religious/magic lore, in a sci-fi space world. Disabled (blind) MC. The author is also blind which lends a lot of realism to the disability representation. There was a lot packed into this book, and I think it could have benefitted from either being longer or maybe being a duology. Interesting debut, looking forward to more from this author.

Fantasy Space and Empire story that spans the Universe in time and Space. Three Gods create in harmony. Three human religious factions that think they know better. Three women with choices to make. The Universe is beholden to the outcome. I read this book a few chapters at a time, dipping in and out, but kept coming back to it; I’m glad I did. This book has big ambitions, and for the most part meets them. So, not entirely perfect, but in the whole a worthwhile read. Thank you to Rebellion and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given.

3 stars!

i adored the vibe of this book. the plot was super interesting and that was what hooked me in.

on the other hand, there were times when i wished the author had not ''skipped'' forward during an important scene. i would have really loved to see what the main character did in that moment of time instead of skipping to the next scene where she has already made a decision (for example).

i would give this a 3 stars because of the plot, but the writing was not for me.

I LOVED this book, the world building and history was refreshing and bizarre in the best way. Korinna is an amazing MC, starting at the bottom of her order as the weakest student unknowing that one of her teachers has been purposely hiding her potential to save her life, revealing it at the last moment for Korinna to ace her tests and leave the spaceship in hopes she can fulfil her destiny to remove the current high priestess and become the new one. There eyes bleed when they use their magic is such a violently beautiful way, and when she meets the famous space pirate Aster? Nothing will ever be the same, In life and love

I'm a little unsure about this one. I don't know if it was too smart for me (valid, I respect it) or if it the way things were described and events were ordered were slightly off (frustrating, cause I can the potential).

I found myself wanting more in the descriptions of the world and the way it worked. I enjoy when books don't give a lot of explanation as to what's happening and lets the action speak it for itself, but with the level of detail included in the worldbuilding, I found myself wanting more concrete answers. I also felt that this caused the way the scenes were ordered, to give that needed understanding, to take away from moments that should've been plot twists or big, dramatic moments.

It was a fascinating world, and had fascinating characters. I just wasn't the biggest fan with the way the book was constructed. But that is totally a me thing!

This dark science-fiction book was really great. I really love the worldbuilding, the magic system and the characters. Each POV were really interesting. The characters were complex and with The fast paced was really enjoyable. Action, emotions and sapphic, the perfect blend,

To my disappointment, I could not find myself captured by this book. The comparisons to Gideon the Ninth are accurate in the scale of the lore and world-building, but I didn't find either to be as comprehensive or clever. The story also takes a blunt approach to communicating the word-building: very much telling, and very little showing. While this may work for some, it really took me out of the story, and was not complemented by the fast pace. I did enjoy the representation of disability in fantasy, and the thoughtful way the author works blindness into the culture without being disrespectful or appropriative.

This is a book with a lot of potential to be great that delivers in some areas, but really misses in others. I really enjoyed the world building and character work, I felt like it used a lot of familiar sci fi aspects that draw the reader in while also introducing a lot of unique elements that keep the reader on their toes and rooting for the characters. But much of the story felt poorly paced or glossed over. With complex moral choices for characters in difficult situations, especially in a fantastical setting outside of our world, I like to see the characters ruminate on their choices, and dig into who they are and why their brain works the way it does. But the pace at which the story moves really doesn't leave enough time for any of that, and using a lot of telling instead of showing creates a rift between the reader and the characters. So as much as I *wanted* to love them and root for them, since they had all the bones that would make me feel that way, I just didn't have any attachment to them. I wasn't given the chance to feel for them.

When I read adult sci-fi I have some fairly high expectations for adult characters making adult decisions, and I often found the characters frustrating or flat, skimming over important details and leaving me often wanting more. The writing style and quick but detail-lacking storytelling felt more juvenile than what I was expecting. I think this story would have benefitted from being a duology or even a trilogy, allowing this big story room to breathe and really give it some depth that was missing.

I'd give it a 2.5 for basic enjoyment, but I'll round up to 3 because I didn't hate it, I just really wanted to LOVE it. Thank you to netgalley for the arc!

Ahh yes, my weakness: sapphics in space.

Korinna has been raised to believe that she is weak and useless. While she may be a Redseer, a blind priestess with the power to manipulate space-time, she is an outcast of her Order. Her true destiny is revealed as one brimming with power, and she takes her place aboard one of the Imperium’s ships. She is no more than a weapon to her Order, but at least she is something.

Enter Aster. Aster is a space pirate with a vendetta against the Imperium and an inescapable, dark power. When Aster attacks Korinna’s ship, Korinna must reconsider everything she’s been led to believe and choose what side she’ll take in a war that’ll determine the fate of the galaxy.

All I needed to know about the novel to want to read it was that it featured sapphics in space. A truly superb pitch, really. And then we also get an Order of blind priestesses who work with forces of the galaxy as an added bonus. I mean, how fucking badass does that sound? (The answer is very.)

Beginning any SFF novel can be rough. So many new words and worlds and concepts all introduced one after another, and only after can the plot step up and take centre stage. This was very much the case with Redsight, except we never reach that point where the story takes off. Or rather the story features a fast-paced plot, but not enough time is spent exploring the characters and their internal conflicts for the plot to have emotional weight. The result is lacklustre action, because we as readers haven’t formed a strong enough connection to care about what happens to the characters.

Example: There’s a scene in the beginning where Korinna must make a choice with no good options. Instead of seeing her make the choice and struggle with weighing her decision, the story frustratingly skips to afterwards. It felt like a missed opportunity for internal conflict, especially when you consider what she actually ended up choosing to do. For such a monumental decision, it felt brushed to the side too easily.

I almost think that Redsight has the wrong main character. With three POVs, Korinna takes centre stage. She’s naive and any problem she encounters is resolved too easily. Aster, on the other hand? Deeply intriguing as a character. Unfortunately, the characters all come across as juvenile to the point where I kept double checking that this was an adult sci-fi novel. Even characters who are supposedly millennia old lack the maturity and wisdom to actually come across as such.

I’ll wrap this up with one more thing I did enjoy, since this review has been pretty negative. The book does have it’s moments! Redsight features imagery that references Eve in the garden of Eden with the serpent and the apple, and that motif signalling when certain parts of the story start to take a turn made the literature student in me perk up.

The pacing was way to fast. Usually I like fast paced books but with this one I had a hard time keeping up and understanding certain elements of the world building. Things developed so quickly that I didn't have time to wrap my head around them or decide how I felt. I kind of felt like I had whiplash by the end of the book because things kept changing without giving me time to process it.

I liked all three main characters which is pretty are for me. I almost always have one character that drives me totally crazy. But all three women were total badasses with awesome and gruesome powers. Although I loved the characters some of their decisions seemed kind of abrupt and inconsistent to me. One page they would have their minds made up about something and then two pages later they had completely changed their minds with nothing happening to influence this change between decisions.

The main romance had everything I usually love in a book relationship. And I didn't mind that for the two characters it was insta-love, which I usually don't care for. They had a bit of enemies to lovers going for a bit and I wish it would have been explored a bit more! They forgave each other too quickly, and their relationship seemed like it was back and forth with things changing rapidly without much seeming to cause these changes. They love each other one chapter and then they hate each other the next chapter for some reason that was vaguely explored, and then in the next chapter they love each other again without the conflict really being resolved.

The magic system in this book was so cool and unique. Although, as I mentioned everything moved so quickly that I found the magic system a bit confusing and even at the end of the book I was still unsure about how certain parts of it worked.

For the most part I enjoyed this book. But, I wish it had a bit more clarity and some more room to flesh out some of the ideas.

Interesting idea, thinly executed. I'm having a hard time articulating what specifically feel flat for me here -- nothing about it -- the character work, the pacing, the prose -- is bad per se. But something about the writing was...weird. Almost like the sentences on each page were scrambled and put back together in the wrong order, or like each sentence was somehow written independently of the ones that came before or after it. The logical flow, I guess, of how a person tells a story -- that was missing for me, and it made for a disorienting reading experience. My gestalt impression was of a decent book, half-baked.

The book is vivid with characters that are grey and science fiction that is fictioning.
Some of the story is bold and the characters are ... I found it a little difficult to follow their development or changes or even just the suffering. Some of the imagery was disturbing and I had to take breaks between reading this book.

First and foremost, this book is the reason that I started on NetGalley. The story is fun and original and I was incredibly excited.

However, in reading the ARC, it felt unpolished and repetitive. Parts of the story were told to me over and over again. The same words would be used in the same sentence. One sentence would be used several times to talk about the same, traumatic incident. I was not rooting for any of the characters. I believe the middle 100 pages were the best, but I could barely get through the last third of the book.

Here are more detailed observations:
- the slaughter of Korinna’s classmates is told to us, but not described, especially since it was such a huge deal for the beginning of the book.
- page 91: uses “broke up” twice in the same sentence
- page 135: the motivations seem to come out of nowhere since they were not alluded to previously— when had Sahar been digging for answers before?
- page 136: used “radioactive” three times in a row when could have just said glow fish
- page 170: the romance comes out of nowhere, I would have liked more build up or tension
- page 219: missing a word in the sentence about Aster curling her face into Korinna’s shoulder
-page 240: the knocking was described at “countless” and then it says that they had knocked for a third time
- 266: repetitions of “disuse” when describing her voice
- 271: “Bring her in” is such a jarring transition when I am not sure if it was supposed to be, it feels like an inappropriate way of moving the scene along
- 274: it seems like I am missing some scenes here — how did Renatia just appear? There was no scene of her coming or being captured. Very confusing.