Thank you Netgalley, Publisher and author Meredith Mooring for providing this eARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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I thank you, sincerely, for providing this eARC. I didn't like this book and honestly am having a hard time finding constructive criticism or anything that others might like, even if I didn't personally like it. I left a barebones review on Goodreads, and no review on Instagram. The Instagram link included in this feedback is for a post I made about Redsight, but is not a review about Redsight.

The following is completely riddled with spoilers.

I felt like the pacing was all over the place. For example, a temple is raided and it takes just one page to describe that. That could have been a whole chapter, filled with exposition and worldbuilding and culture and lore, immersing the reader into this universe. Adept training for Korinna, post-magical-bloody-power-up, happens over several pages, but nothing really happens other than eat, sleep, practice navigating, hide in the greenhouse, repeat.

Characters come out of nowhere, too, like Therese and Johnathan, and I think we're expected to understand the emotional significance of these characters, but honestly I'd forgotten all about Johnathan until Sahar was upset he was dead. I think we met him on page only once prior to his death, so, unfortunately, his death was kind of meaningless to me as a reader, which made it hard to understand why Sahar did anything she did in the last half of the book.

I felt like the worldbuilding was missing entirely. So many things are never explained, or are just explained in an anecdotal comment like "They are lovers" regarding the three goddesses. That probably should have been a mic-dropping moment, a full-on plot twist, but... to what end? Did I just miss on-page where they do something lover-ish? Are all three lovers? Do we have queer polyamorous goddesses? And why does it matter if they're lovers or friends or sisters? They all choose to give up their divinity and crumble into dust anyway, so what does it matter? There's no weight behind this revelation at all. Same situation with the birthing (or I guess, growing?) of Redseers. It's just casually mentioned that Redseer babies are piles of nasty bloody goo until they grow up into human-like bodies. It's also just casually mentioned that Redseer kids/teens/adepts are regularly tortured and have bits of them cut off to teach their bodies how to regenerate. That also probably should have been a nice big fat exposition dump and probably should have been a wow moment, but it was just mentioned in passing and then the characters just move on like it's nothing.

Tactus is also poorly explained, and it's certainly never explained why Redseers bleed when they use it, to the point they can bleed out and die. Radiosa's and Furia's adepts don't bleed out and die when using tactus, so why do Vermicula's followers get the short end of the stick? The tactus-based abilities feel kind of weird, too. You have space navigators that can basically feel The Force, you have star-eaters that can apparently eat stars (did you know Sol has a radius of 432,690 miles? I wonder how big a stomach would need to be...) (also more on this in a moment), and then you have... lie-detectors. I know who I'd bet against, I'm just saying. Feels like Radiosa got screwed talent-wise, and Vermicula got screwed survivability-wise, and Furia just kinda wins with the only downside being that she's hungry all the time.

So speaking of star-eating. How exactly does star-eating work? I had to reread that first scene multiple times. Aster is suddenly in her birthday suit, jumping out an airlock, and then is suddenly a giant space-snake-lady and is eating a star. Does this universe consider scale? Stars are big. Really big. "You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is." (and yes that's a Hitchhiker's Guide quote) So how big, exactly, is space-snake-Aster? If stars have gravitational fields, does space-snake-Aster have a gravitational field? She'd have to be nearly as big, or bigger than, a star to eat it, right? There's gotta be some kind of astrophysical consequence to this, right? Like disrupting planetary systems or asteroid trajectories (hey, has Aster ever been pinged by a stray asteriod while she's in space-snake-lady form?). But seemingly, there isn't any consequence. Aster just magically transforms back into a human-sized lady, and goes about her day with a full belly.

This book does a lot of telling, but no showing. We're told multiple times that the Imperium is bad. We're given the reason they're bad because they're claiming planets and using them for resources but like, why is this bad? Were those planets inhabited? It doesn't really seem like it, since they're supposed to be newly formed planets (although the galactic timetable is murky), so like.... fair game? It's your galaxy, why not stake your claim on uninhabited planets in your galaxy? This whole plot point, by the way, is never resolved. The Imperium's been around for centuries, and their existence is part of what fuels Aster's fury and thirst for revenge, but the book ends with senators squabbling around a conference table. (I'm oversimplifying, but that's the gist.) We're also told that the Sanatio is bad, but also... why is it bad? If Redseers are grown from the blood of their goddess plus a lil spacemagic, are they even human, do they have souls? If they get recycled, they can just get reborn at a later time, in theory. It's a holy ritual and yeah, it's grim and gruesome, but if that's what your goddess demands, well, she's a goddess. Not all goddesses have to be good. And, if the Sanatio is forbidden, then where will the blood come from to generate new Redseers? It seems pretty vital for the order's survival, if you ask me.

I had to force myself to finish this book. Around the 30% mark, I was ready to give up, but I felt like I was on the cusp of the story really taking off. So I kept at it. Then at the 50% mark, again, I felt like something really cool was going to happen soon. Then it was 70%... and then it was 93% and I was wondering why I'd spent two weeks on this book (and took breaks to read another book and a half during this one) and then figured I might as well suck it up and make the final push to finish it. I feel like this book really suffered from a lack of direction. It's like it didn't know if it wanted to be a sapphic romance (which woulda been great), a sci fi book (which woulda been great), a fantasy novel (which woulda been great), so it chose all three and instead of doing one thing really well, it did three things poorly. The romance is barely there, the sci fi is shaky at best, and the fantasy elements are not expanded on enough.

Speaking of romance, the romance wasn't working for me either. I didn't feel like Aster or Korinna had any connection, just a curiosity about each other, maybe coupled with the allure of something taboo, but I couldn't get into it. Their romance felt rushed, forced, and unsubstantiated. I couldn't feel a bond between them. I never found an explanation why Korinna, who is blind, could see Aster's face clearly, or why it was significant. They had sex once, then they fought, then feelings got hurt, and then they kissed and made up and Aster's ready to die for Korinna and Korinna is ready to die for Aster. It all felt a little YA dramatic.

The final nail in the coffin is, as I was talking to my husband about this book, as I so often talk to him about all my reads, he began asking questions earnestly. Really, really earnestly. I'm lucky enough that he generally takes an interest in my reads and I can discuss them with him, but on a more surface level. Instead, I told him about the blind navigator, and he starts asking questions about her religious order, and how she pilots ships, and asking about chaos and heresy and the Imperium and finally I had to stop and ask him how he could POSSIBLY know so much about this unpublished book! And he pointed to the shelves lining the wall in our gameroom, with little miniature soldiers in power armor lined up, and he answered "Because the God Emperor of Mankind is displeased you're reading 40k fanfiction." That's right, my husband is 90% confident this book is simply Warhammer fanfiction. Maybe, if that's true, Warhammer fans will read it and enjoy it and be less confused than I was, since they have a basis of knowledge to form opinions off of and I don't.

I absolutely loved this book! I dont usually read sci-fi but this was so engaging and unique.

The magic source is wonderfully unique and has vast possibilities in space. The goddesses added an element of religion that had bought about darkness and corruption.

Korinna was by far the best character in this book. Although originally quite sheltered and misunderstood she really grew in this book and was genuinely fantastic throughout.

Redsight by Meredith Mooring is imaginative and, at times, crazy in plot twists. While the science/magic doesn’t always hold together, the book is interesting and I found it a fun read. I struggled with some of the dialogue, both inner and between characters, as it felt very stilted and info dumping at times. I also got whiplash from Korinna, the main character, and the number of times she changed her mind about things. It’s not something I’d seek out again, but it’s worth a borrow

2.5⭐

I’m always going to be down to check out a queernorm sci-fi with a disabled main character. I think this could be a good crossover for people who enjoy YA SFF but want to try adult SFF. (with the caveat that while the romance is a big part of character motivation, it’s not on the level of like, a romantasy)

Unfortunately, I like more meat on my sci-fi bones, so I kept finding myself wanting to know so much more about the culture and politics of the setting, and wishing we got to sit with the characters more to know what things were like before the ~life altering realizations~ start happening.

I don’t know if Mooring has plans for sequels, but I honestly think if the pace was less breakneck and there was more time spent on the larger worldbuilding, this book could have comfortably been a trilogy instead. (especially with how central the whole theme of ~threes~ is to the story, it would have worked very well, thematically, to break it up in a [spoiler] way)

There’s definitely some debut jank here, but there’s a lot of promise with the setting, and I’d be interested in seeing what happens next.

I am definetly buying this when it comes out! One thing that stood out to me the most was the setting, and how the setting was described. I felt it was unique but it also brought me so much nostalgia. I truly know this book is going to be a bestseller when it releases and I hope everyone gets a chance to experience Meredith Mooring in all their glory.

Thank you NetGalley for giving an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I really enjoyed it. The romance was believable and palpable and with a lot of chemistry. Both Korinna and Aster were well developed characters. I think my main complaints are that, while we do get a quite thorough exploration of why the religious orders are bad, I feel the construction of the Imperium as a threat was a little less solid and horrifying. Also, like, there's a lot of mutilation in this book, and that isn't a problem per se, but there's points where you go like "Oh okay then she's getting skinned again" and it sort of lost impact, I'm afraid. Overall, though, Meredith is a talented and promising author and I'll be keeping an eye on her future works!

The blurb and comparisons given for this book didn't quite suit the actual plot. The world building was the most intriguing aspect of this.

Korinna was a great character at the start. Being able to experience the world the way she does was something completely new for me, but other than that, she had minimal growth and while her attraction for Aster was believable, the relationship from Aster's perspective wasn't as convincing.

Sahar felt sidelined and only given pagetime when the plot called for it. She had immense potential to be a very good character, but simply not given the chance to grow.

The explanation of the magic system needs work. It didn't need to take over 100 pages to learn, somewhat, how tactus works given that Korinna spent her whole life using it.

All in all, is wasn't the worst debut, but could use some more editing.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the latest book that I get to go Full Nerd over! Red sight was a deeply enjoyable (and also at times disturbing) read perfect for fans of Star Wars, Aliette de Bodard, and Everina Maxwell. Korinna is a cleric dedicated to the order of Vermicula, one of the three primordial goddesses whose descendants are blessed with Redsight: the ability to manipulate space and time, allowing them to steer space vessels with perfect precision. All those with Redsight are blind, so when Korinna sees another person’s face with her eyes for the first time, she is immediately drawn to the stranger skulking in the library. This stranger is none other than Aster Haran, feared pirate and herself a priestess of Furia, the exiled third goddess, who hunts for starlight to devour on the fringes of the galaxy. Working within the confines of the Imperium is Sahar, a relatively new cleric of Radiosa, whose priestesses are capable of Lightbending. These three women each in their own way and time must learn to work outside the limits of the systems that made them in order to bring balance back to the universe.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. The worldbuilding was so fresh and creative. Was the system of magic a little hand-wavy? Sure, but I was having so much fun that I didn’t care (except for the blood typing issue which was fortunately cleared up - my med student brain couldn’t suspend disbelief on that). All of our characters are deeply flawed and at times downright evil, but I was rooting for them anyway. This is a great story of how systems that claim to be benevolent are often oppressive, and it was so satisfying to see Korinna in particular rise above and outside the Order and become a force to be reckoned with in her own right. Also, space serpents? Disability and LGBTQ rep? Space-time pirates? Yes to all of it.

Redsight, didn't quite hit the spot for me, partly due to its comparison to Gideon The Ninth.

However, whilst I don't think Redsight hit the same humorous notes as Gideon, its world building and concept were unique and engaging. Personally, I found the pacing to be slightly too fast, as I tend to prefer more character driven plots and would have loved to see our POV's get more chance at development.

ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

3.5/5

Redsight is an action-packed space opera debut following a blind priestess, Korinna, who works as a spaceship navigator for the galactic empire and as she is exposed to the wider world, she must choose between servitude or freedom. Along the way, we are introduced to a space pirate captain and a regretful judge who who both get swept up in Korinna’s journey. The journey is immensely revelatory for all three women as they work towards their ideas of a better universe, and even as they commit monstrous and destructive actions, the author strives to show that people are more than the worst parts of themselves and to embrace these differences between each other. I enjoyed each pov, all the character voices were distinctive and while each woman face different challenges, they are connected by their struggles with their faith and their complicity in an exploitative system.

The founding mythology of the universe, where three goddesses violently created the universe and later violently turned on each other, and their subsequent religious orders is the backbone of the story. I enjoyed how overtly connected the role of the orders and their history was to the story as well as the contrasting ways they could manipulate tactus (the energy of the universe and the magic system of the book): one order creates, the other transforms and the third consumes. I also really liked the element of body horror and how viscerally gross it would sometimes get.

I think tactus was a little too undefined, it could be used to do almost anything including healing oneself from almost death, flying spaceships and divining truth. Often it would be used as a convenient solution to the characters’ problems and conflict would be solved immediately which prevented me from getting too invested in the stakes.

The book was let down by its incredibly fast pace, the author fits an unbelievable amount of events into a single book (it would honestly be enough for a duology) which was to the detriment of character development and my emotional investment. Many ground-breaking things would happen to the protagonists but I felt that the author never devoted enough time to explore the impact of these experiences on the characters and rather told us how they felt and quickly moved onto the next event. This was super apparent in the romantic subplot - the romance felt very rushed, almost insta-love-like which I severely dislike, and there was a lack of chemistry between the characters which once again made it difficult to become fully invested.

Overall, Redsight is a fun, fast-paced ride with an engaging sociopolitical world and complicated characters albeit rushed at times.

Redsight is an incredible action/adventure story with twists and turns that catch you right where you're least expecting them, while also being a deep and thoughtful metaphysical commentary on what does it mean to be alive and treat others well. Korinna is an incredible, compassionate character and her story draws so much into the discussion about what the impacts of society are on our conception of disability.

The premise for this is fascinating, and there's so much to love about the ideas that go into it. And indeed, some of the execution is great too - the portrayal of a character with significant sight impairment, and the way she goes from living in an environment tailored to her needs (because she lives in a community full of people who share them) and out into a world not set up for her is really well done. I also really enjoyed the seamlessness of the blend between fantasy and SF, and the author has made it feel genuinely coherent on that front, without straining to justify the parts that might not sit naturally together. Religion and magic and lasers are all happening, and at no point in reading does that combination feel awkward or unnatural.

But all the good, all the ideas, all the inspiration is really let down by the characterisation, the prose and the general craft. "Show don't tell" is a worn-out adage, but it's worn out for a reason. So often, what we are told about the characters in Redsight is undermined - or at least not actively supported - by how they act, and what they say. A character is supposed to be embittered and experienced and jaded, and she often acts just as naively as the young women going out into the world for the first time. A supposedly very intelligent scientist makes ridiculous decisions - which would be fine if the writing gave us an emotional intuition of /why/ she did as she did... but it does not.

It often feels more like a fleshed out story plan than a fully written novel. All the plot beats are there, they all make sense, they all fit into a narrative that flows and would have a decent pace... but there just isn't the depth to it that would support what is happening. There needs to be more time spent with the characters, more work done for their motivations and actions to make sense. I don't mind that they make hypocritical or contradictory decisions - people do that - but the book doesn't show me their motivations enough for me to emotionally understand why they behave as they do, and in something so full of dramatic changes of heart, betrayals, and alliances, it truly truly needed that.

I finished the book and definitely enjoyed some parts - the aesthetics of the main character's order are interesting, I liked how religion melded into her life, there is some good genuine bisexual rep, which is pretty rare - and there are such good ideas at the core of this. But it is constantly let down on pretty fundamental levels, and that's all the more disappointing for how good it /could/ have been.

This can find an audience amongst those looking for a sapphic Dune-light with great disability representation.

DNF at 40%.

Shallow and boring. The protagonist is naive and stupid and does everything she's told, all the time. A lot of telling and not a lot of showing. I couldn't continue.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital ARC.

When I’m ranting about how stupid a book is to the hubby at 2am, it’s time to DNF the book.

I really wanted to love this, okay??? I kept pushing on past the 20% that is my usual cut-off point, trying to give it a chance to get better.

But it just kept getting worse.

I’ve never encountered this problem before, but I don’t think Mooring…understands space??? I don’t mean in the astrophysicist sense or whatever – I don’t need my sci fi that realistic, and for the most part I wouldn’t be able to tell if an author was getting things wrong about space or not ANYWAY. It’s not like I’m an expert. But Redsight is very much about travelling through space – it’s literally the main character’s entire purpose to move ships through space – and from the way this book is written, the way the characters talk about it and the way the worldbuilding is set up, it’s as if everyone things space is flat. There’s a big chunk of Very Scary space called the Umbra (stupidly obvious name, by the way), which is super dangerous to travel through, and I kept waiting for someone to explain why ships can’t just…go around it. Or under it. Or over it. Or teleport past it, since the Redseers/Navigators seem to teleport their ships around space as a matter of course. But nope, that doesn’t seem to be an option.

???

Same problem: what the hell do you mean, there are ‘borderlands’ in space??? Any borders between different polities are going to have to be three dimensional – probably spherical – not just a line drawn on a 2D map. Space, and thus space-travel, goes in all directions! It’s like Mooring can’t visualise that, and is treating her characters’ travels like they’re moving across a 2D map instead of a 3D one.

So that was all very weird and also maddening.

The MC Korinna is ignorant mostly so Mooring has an excuse to infodump the reader through dialogue – seriously, it makes zero sense that a priesthood of space navigators would be kept so ignorant of how space and wider galactic society work – but she’s also just dumb. This is a character who doesn’t think, doesn’t question, is handed a book written by a literal goddess and dismisses it (without even opening it!) as a dry dusty old tome that can’t help her. A book WRITTEN BY A DIVINITY. That goes way beyond ignorance; that’s a complete inability to take in and process information usefully and draw conclusions or even decent guesses from it.

And I have no time for stupid MCs, even if they are The Most Powerful And Magical Ever. I do not care.

As for the other POV characters…yeah, they’re also naive and one-dimensional and make completely inexplicable decisions.

An attempt was made at intrigue. That is a real and true statement I can make. But is it really intrigue when it’s all either super straightforward or completely irrational???

Two more things: one, Mooring makes the inexplicable decision to have some Really Fucking Important scenes happen off-page, just telling us about them later. In particular, there’s one scene where Korinna has to make a choice where all her options are either horrific or incredibly dangerous for her…and we don’t get to see her make her decision, or the outcome of it. It’s all skipped over, when this is really a defining moment for the character. A life-changing moment. It boggles my mind that Mooring decided to skip it.

And finally, although the idea of the magic, particularly the Redseer/Navigator magic, was very cool, I really didn’t understand how it worked, or what Korinna was doing whenever she used it. I hate ‘hard’ magic systems, I don’t want my magic to be like Maths, I am very happy for it to be strange and mystical. But I still need to know what to picture when magic is happening. I still need to know what the character is doing when she uses her magic. And I had absolutely no clue, at any point. Which doesn’t make your magic feel magical, it just makes it confusing and wishy-washy and hand-wavey. No thank you.

Ultimately, though the premise is very awesome, and the prose is reasonably solid (although I highlighted quite a few paragraphs or bits of imagery that made very little sense…) Redsight reads like it needs a couple more major rewrites before it lives up to its potential. The bone structure of something genuinely epic is in here, but the characters need major work, the worldbuilding could be designed and conveyed much better than it currently is, and the magic could definitely use some fleshing out. As-is, it’s a disappointment.

I unfortunately could not finish this due to the graphic nature of the scenes. However, the premise sounds promising and I know other fantasy and sci-fi lovers will devour this read.

[Thanks to NetGalley & the author for providing me with this ARC]
A gory fast paced fantasy book set in a queer normative world? Count me in!
The book had many aspects that surprised me because a lot of the concepts were very unique and kept me hooked throughout the book. However, the characters are all more than a little naive and this in combination with a redundant story telling made parts of the book a little frustrating. I personally like a writing style that describes more than explains what is happening in the story as it feels much more nuanced and creates an atmospheric setting. More often than not, this book explained what was happening and being said, often even repeating/rephrasing things and conversations.
As this is very much my personal opinion on writing, I would definitely recommend this book to others.

Disclaimer: The ARC was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The ARC category in no way impacts the rating of the book.

I think this was well written, but unfortunately not for me. I believe many of you out there will absolutely love this, but it just read a bit young for my tastes.

This could just be the author's style, but I left the story feeling that I hardly knew our main characters. I would have enjoyed a closer look at them individually, to really be inside their minds. Everything works out a bit too easily, the characters themselves were frustrating because they were so naive. This all lent to the feeling of the book being a bit young for me.

If the book took a moment to slow down and expound upon the character development, I think it would have been more my speed. However, many folks out there love a fast paced, young feeling sci-fi, and it will be right up their alley!

I will not be giving feedback on this book following Meredith's involvement in defending the abhorrent behavior of Cait Corrain as well as accusing a disabled Black author of being ableist.

3.5, rounding up!

Three goddesses. Three priestesses. An unprecedented power… and an unprecedented weapon. When a disturbing attack takes place, three women are drawn together with opposing aims: the engineer, the navigator, and the space pirate.

The magic/science and world building in this is unique and interesting but took me a little while to grasp, both the “why” and the “how” as the exposition was a little choppy for me. The mix of science, religion and body-horror magic has drawn comparisons to Gideon the Ninth, but I think they’re quite distinct tonally and Redsight lacks the humour and in-depth lore/character work of GtN. However, it will be satisfying to anyone looking for a space opera with fresh ideas, sapphic romance and seriously questionable morality. I also enjoyed the perspective of a blind MC. Looking forward to seeing what else MM can deliver next.