Colonel Rell ta Bakinee and Commander Jeff Langley are SpaceForce Marines. They are also close friends, well as close as they can be considering that Rell is not quite human. Jeff has been quietly and desperately in love with Rell for a long time but knows that this love is not returned. When Rell is mortally injured on a mission, Jeff realizes that he might lose Rell forever. This is an unacceptable option, and Jeff will do whatever it takes to save Rell.

I kept reading this novella and thinking I’d read it before, then I went to the website and saw that it was a new release. The feeling of having read it just kept growing until I decided to investigate a bit further. I knew I had read this story before! This was originally a Star Trek fanfic written by Jenna Hilary Sinclair called The World Turned Upside Down. I enjoyed the story then, but I actually enjoyed it that much more with the names being changed. The story of Rell and Jeff was fraught with unrequited love and sexual tension. I couldn’t help but root for Jeff and hope that he got his happily ever after. There were parts of this story that I really loved; there were also parts that I didn’t love. I felt that there was a lack of emotion in parts of the story, almost as if it reflected how Jeff would be feeling without Rell in his life. This would have been an excellent plot device if I had truly felt the depth of emotion that Jeff supposedly felt. The majority of the story, Rell was in a comatose state and the only insight we gained into Rell’s character was through the flashbacks that Jeff had to happier times. While this worked on some fronts, on others it felt a bit contrived. I understood the desperation that Jeff felt over Rell’s injuries and how far a person who so desperately loved would go to heal a loved one, I only wish that we would have gotten a deeper look into the society that shaped Rell and what made him tick. Rell was an interesting character, and I would have liked to have a bit more insight into his psyche. Especially since he was an outsider in his way of thinking, not only from the Upside Down world but his own culture as well. But in this story at least, he is really more of a prop to showcase Jeff’s desires and feelings. I will look for more of Ms. Sinclair’s in the future, as she shows great potential as an author.

Reviewed by: Hayley