The Diabolic

Main Character

Nemesis is a killing machine bred to serve and protect Sidonia Impyrean, a senator's daughter. She is such a fabulous, dynamic new breed of character in a genre I feel is overpopulated with generically similar leads. I love how ruthless and amoral Nemesis is - she has such a unique perspective given that she is LITERALLY PROGRAMMED to love and worship Sidonia and prioritize her life above all others. I've searched for books with assassin protagonists because I have a soft spot for anti-heroes, but unfortunately all too often, they're all bark and no bite, and their supposed badassery is all for show with little follow-through, but Nemesis totally shows how she earned her name with zero regret for the blood on her hands. Finally!

She was raised to believe she's a soulless monster with only one purpose in life, but of course as our lead character, Nemesis has a great deal more growth in store as she transcends past merely pretending to act human. It's beautiful seeing her growing humanity as other characters encourage her to believe her life is worthy in and of itself, not just in service to others, and her struggle to deal with having impractical feelings and emotions when this wasn't meant to be possible for her. Nemesis is really put through an emotional wringer throughout this book and I ended up in tears at a couple of her low points. I just want good things for her, but she really suffers a lot. :( Nemesis needs all the hugs!

I adore her drive and determination, her sheer competence, her vicious efficiency, plus her hilarious mental scenarios where she wistfully envisages the best way to deal with threats (hint: it's usually murder) but pragmatically decides against it in the interest of keeping a low profile. It's so refreshing to have a young female lead who isn't preoccupied with her social status or impressing a boy, nor is she interested in overthrowing a despot or saving the universe - the main focus for her is keeping Sidonia safe.

Some reviewers don't understand the blurb's comparison to The Hunger Games, but that to me is where it comes in - the lead struggling and making sacrifices to protect a more vulnerable female character. I always valued that Katniss was staunchly Team Prim over everything else, but then of course the dreaded Love Triangle intervenes. I cannot praise The Diabolic book enough for avoiding that vastly overused trope! Nemesis has more important things to do than decide between two boys, thank you. There is a bit of romance, but it is NOT insta-luv and it is so well-developed and actually plot-relevant! My favorite trope is 'reluctant allies turned friends turned lovers' and this book fulfilled that in spades. <3

Supporting Characters

Donia isn't as vibrant and well-rounded as Nemesis, but this is from the latter's point-of-view and she wholeheartedly adores Donia so that makes sense to me, although I do think she could've had a little more development aside from wringing her hands and proclaiming her mutual devotion to Nemesis. But on that note, at least there's a teensy bit of LGBT representation! What's interesting to me is that the writer foreshadows her romantic interest in Nemesis for a good portion of the book and I held my breath wondering if this would remain subtext or become maintext. Usually I would be championing the lesbian ship, I am all about gay romance, but given that Nemesis had no choice in being hardwired to love Donia, I couldn't root for them here which is such a change for me. It's a very interesting moral conflict!

Tyrus...I didn't see him coming! His character was so cleverly handled by the writer, I am really impressed with his character's development. There were hints of his true nature from the start, but I never realized just how significant the insane heir apparent would become. As with Nemesis, he isn't your typical YA male lead, he's not the pushy arrogant Bad Boy and his life doesn't revolve around winning the heart of the female lead. That's what impresses me most about this book, how the protagonists have other vital goals and ambitions instead of just romance and that they're capable of seeing the bigger picture.

There's many other wonderfully written supporting characters - Neveni, the one friend Nemesis makes at the Imperial Court, who has her own minor character arc (I love when minor characters are allowed to have agency and their own motivations); the other Diabolics, who offer a fascinating counterpoint to Nemesis; the rest of the Domitrian clan, who are all corrupt and sinister...plus an adorable monster-dog, Deadly! It's the mark of a great book when its world is populated by lots of well-drawn memorable characters, which is another area this one excels in (especially the true villain of the piece *shudders*).

Plot

I found this to be a breath-taking rollercoaster ride from start to finish. I couldn't put this down, I stayed up past midnight to finish this book all in one sitting because I was so enthralled! The twists and turns, the blindsides, the shock and awe of it all...

And best of all, this is a self-contained novel, it's not being stretched out over a trilogy! On one hand, that's a little sad because I loved everything about this and would happily read more, but on the other, I get weary of pointless obstacles and cliffhangers thrown in just to draw out a series unnecessarily, so it's fantastic when an author concisely tells their story!

There was quite a bit of politicking in The Diabolic, but while that usually bores me, I wasn't put off by it here. I chalk that up to the fact that it wasn't an overly dense political atmosphere - for eg. you didn't have characters betraying each other just to throw in an unexpected twist, it was all informed by their personalities and ambitions, and it isn't like Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire with several different houses and hundreds of different clans with thousands of characters of varying allegiances to sort through. Again, it's concise storytelling and I appreciate that, but it's also just plain clever. I found the dramatic crescendo and resolution absolutely stunning and well-worth sacrificing a few hours sleep over!

Worldbuilding

It can sometimes be tricky fleshing out a new world without overloading readers with exposition, but The Diabolic achieves that effortlessly. I never felt like I was being spoon-fed the necessary details and I didn't have to skim through lengthy paragraphs of info-dumps. What helped was that the conflict made sense - if you disregard the sci-fi context and fictional names, basically it's a war between the Haves and the Have-nots, which is simple enough to grasp.Sometimes the conflicts in YA novels are overly convoluted or aren't grounded in reality, but you don't need any logic jumps to understand corrupt people in power wanting to maintain their status and continue oppressing those under their authority.

There isn't an exact parallel for our society, but the history of this universe is definitely easy to relate to, especially in the way that a natural disaster was attributed to an Act of God and how the religious majority took that as a sign to shun science and punish or execute those who tried to restore the scientific method to their community. It's scarily believable that would be the way a powerful sect would react, even if it was to their detriment since machines run their ships and stations and powers their society!

Disclaimer: I received this book free from NetGalley and Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review.

I was in two minds about grabbing this novel, and then what tipped me off in the end was seeing it appear on an LGBT feed as an upcoming novel. Unfortunately, the representation that led it to appear on that feed was wholly incorrect. However... I didn't find myself regretting that I picked it up.

Nemesis is a genetically engineered humanoid creature. We see her as the savage creature she is coaxed into being before she is 'bonded' to Sidonia, one of the great families in this world. The love and protective instinct that Nemesis therefore has for this girl is entirely engineered as part of her training. No part of the narrative is vague about this. Even Sidonia's love in return seems to be more that of a sister or friend than anything more for the majority of the story. There is one scene that could be construed differently, but it wasn't enough for me to love this as an LGBT novel.

When Sidonia's family seems to be being punished for the father's seeming actions against the Emperor, Nemesis disguises herself as Sidonia and goes in her place. There Nemesis meets the Emperor's crazy heir Tyrus.

Both first his madness and then his feelings for Nemesis were far too transparent in the writing for me to rate this the full five stars. Despite that, the narrative was unique and interesting. The characters, although many of them were reprehensible, all had clear enough motivations to keep them from being moustache twirling villains, which was fantastic.

I loved S.J. Kincaid's Insignia trilogy, and so when she revealed that she'd be writing another scifi novel I was incredibly excited. Especially considering that it was a standalone, which we really don't get enough of in YA SFF.

And I'm going to immediately contradict that statement by saying that while The Diabolic was really good as a standalone and nicely concluded, to be honest, I wouldn't have minded more books in the series. The world was quite well developed and it would be interesting to see other aspects of the Empire. Perhaps companion novels rather than sequels would be alright (*hint hint* haha).

Nemesis was an interesting character to have as protagonist because her view of right and wrong was so skewed towards her singular goal of keeping Sidonia safe. She doesn't really care what happens to others as long as Sidonia is fine. I loved her journey of how she comes to terms with whether or not she considers herself to be human, and whether she's "allowed" to have human emotions.

The following paragraph may contain what some people would refer to as a spoiler (personally I'm on the side of saying not really a spoiler because it's quite obvious from the point that you're introduced to this character but giving a heads up if you want to avoid the paragraph just in case). Tyrus was also a fantastic character, and I quite enjoyed reading about his relationship with Nemesis. They were quite well suited to each other in terms of how cunning and intelligent they both were, and it's rather interesting to consider what would have happened if they were enemies. I don't know if it was just me, but I feel like I could see some influence of Hamlet in his character, and the general situation, which I won't go into too much because of the aforementioned possible minor spoilers, but I'm sure you'll read the book for yourselves and then you can tell me what you think.

Considering the novel is a standalone, I wanted to say as little about the plot in this review as possible (as you might have noticed by now, I'm also an advocate of going into books blind). So to conclude, all I will say that if you're a fan of sci-fi novels this is certainly one you should read. If you're not as much a fan of sci-fi, it might be on the "heavy" side of YA (although definitely nowhere near some adult SFF novels) but I would still encourage you to give it a go. It may surprise you.

Ratings
Overall: 9/10
Plot: 4/5
Romance: 4/5
Writing: 4/5
World Building: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Cover: 4/5

My Thoughts


“I had only two goals going forward: to fool people into thinking I was Sidonia, and of course, to try not to die.”


If you are looking for a good dystopian mix of action and political maneuvering, then this is the book for you. For all its cut throat (literally!) barbarism, there is indeed another side to this story concerning all of humanity, friendship and love. With an amazing cast of characters, this tale of friendship and love versus family and politics will keep your attention.


The beginning is a little slow but the pace certainly does increase the further you get into the story. In fairness, there is a vast world to create for the reader, and to do it justice, this took time. The various planets/worlds are detailed and interesting with strains of other tales (Star Wars etc) seemingly apparent, as senators and rebels scheme against their autocratic rulers. There is a lot to take in, but the author does a great job in the creation of these worlds and how they function. As a type of ‘cat and mouse’ game ensues, you will be absorbed by the political plotting and how humanity - and Diabolics - will fair.


As some have claimed, there is a ‘Game of Thrones’ feel about some of the political jousts as planets/families jostling for recognition and power. Lots of plotting, corruption and backstabbing (literally!) take place in this struggle for dominance. There are simply loads of plot twists and turns, passion and betrayal that will keep you guessing right up to the end.


Another point I had issues with was the romance and some friendships - they did not ring true for me. It seemed at times clinical and distant, the raw emotion was stated but not felt (by me). However, this can be overlooked as this is a most worthy sci-fi saga that you will enjoy. The story and worlds are compelling and even if you are not a fantasy/sci fi/dystopian reader, there is a deeper tale of the future of humanity and what it is to be not only human, but alive.


“I’d accepted for so long that I wasn’t a real person, and I never would have questioned it but for the pain I felt now. How could a creature that wasn’t real experience the depth of anguish I’d experienced.”




This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release

What initally drew me to The Diabolic was the premise. It sounded like sci-fi, with a bad-ass, potentially morally grey character.

Ultimately, the execution of this novel matched my expectations. It was fun (in a murdery, manipulative kind of way), and held my attention to the very end.

In saying that though, the ending felt somewhat ambiguous- you don’t know exactly who is telling the truth. Perhaps that was the author’s intent, but it left me wanting a few more ends tied together, and it disappointed me a little.
I really enjoyed Nemesis as a character, but I did feel that her character development did have a few flaws (*cough* instalove *cough*).

In terms of pacing, the opening chapters were quite slow due to the world-building, but the pace definitely picked up further on.

Keeping it short and sweet, but this was definitely a fun sci-fi read, that just might give you some food-for-thought.

I have started to venture away from Young Adult a little bit. I'm just finding it a lot of the same. Generally a love triangle, some kind of dystopia, teenage angst... It's just getting a bit boring to me in my mid 30's now. How many versions of the Hunger Games can one get through? So I was surprised when I found that I really enjoyed this one. When it started I was thinking "here we go again" but was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of angst still, but I enjoyed the premise, the writing was great, and not exactly a love triangle.

Nemesis is a diabolic, a genetic human bred to protect one person who they have "imprinted" on them. Like ducks I suppose. Her charge, Sidonia is in danger and Nemesis has to pose as her to protect her from an evil Emperor, his evil family and unbalanced nephew, air to the throne. But things do not exactly go smoothly.

How GORGEOUS is the cover!! I wanted to read it just based on the beautiful cover, it was a huge bonus that it was a great read!

My favourite character would have to be the insane nephew Tyrus. Loved the twists and turns with his character. Nemesis annoyed me a bit, but overall I liked reading her story.

The whole story was full of twists and turns and I was surprised on more than one occasion, and it takes a lot to surprise me.

Would I recommend The Diabolic?

Yes for any YA fan. Or if someone is on the boarder of enjoying YA this may be the one that tips them over!

Big thanks to the author and publisher via Netgalley for a copy of The Diabolic to review.