I enjoyed the poly and non-binary rep here, and how seamlessly it was part of the world, but overall I found Warp Gate Concerto confusing and confused. There’s not nearly enough explanation of the world-building, and things open in medias res and never let up from there, so we never really find out why we should be rooting for these characters against the faceless generic evil empire. I also thought it was overly violent, to the extinction of any character development. I would have liked so much more nuance in the relationships between the existing triad and their new soulmate, but they basically just accepted the change and carried on zapping things. Not for me.

★★★,5☆ | A song can bring love or death. What will it be this time?

“A double edged sword, then.”

“No metaphor’s more apt for love.”

➽ SUMMARY

Poly Romance (FFM+NB)
Amputee, Blindness, & Chronic Pain Rep
Space Sirens
Soulmates
Nulani, Ashua, and Silna are Psyrens — a race of aliens with an ability to control others with their singing. A race which also finds their Soulmates by Harmonisation — singing in perfect harmony. Which Nulani, Ashua and Silna did do and which forced them to be on a run from their oppressive homeland.

But their homeland does not stay away and when they’re forced to crash-land on a strange planet they will find pain-eating scientists, dangerous fauna and flora, and… a new soulmate?

➽ IT’S A MOUTHFUL

There are many alien species in the story — captain of the trio’s ship who’s a symbiosis of two sentient beings, pain-eating scientists, a bunch of furrier ones with some major issues — but the main characters are Psyrens. They can affect minds with their singing and they also find their soulmates with the use of it.

Psyrens also gain new mouth to sing with when they are wounded. New mouths make them more powerful but also it’s a fine line to walk between just enough mouths for more power and too much of them and losing themselves to the insanity of it.

➽ LOVE SOMETIMES MEANS MAKING SURE ALL YOUR SOULMATES ESCAPE THE EVIL INTERGALACTIC ORGANISATION THAT WANTS TO USE YOU AS WEAPONS

The trio travels through space in a pirate ship but after the Coalition takes it over they are forced to flee and they crush-land on a remote planet. They also get separated. Ashua ends up following a voice of another Psyren which sends him straight into hands of pain-eaters. Nulani and Silna need to force their way through unknown territory with its strange wild beasts and find their mate.

All they want is to escape the Coalition and live their life together. However, as soon as they hear the song of Kozrin they have another thing on their to-do list.

“Harmonizing didn’t happen between any random Psyrens. Harmonizing was a gift from the First Singers, only attainable between Psyrens with the potential to sing in-sync.”

Usually, I’m sceptical when it comes to ‘insta-love’ but this story felt more like learning about mating cycles or culture of another species than naive I-love-yous a day after the first meeting. The bond the Psyrens form while Harmonising with their soulmates makes them instantly care about the other and their well-being even if they don’t care about themselves. The initial trio had a strong past together but the whole group has interesting chemistry.

The frequent POV switches made me feel like I was watching a movie but they weren’t so frequent to make me lose the sense of what’s happening which is often a very thin line to walk so that’s a big plus.

➽ LOVE IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR

The Psyrens seem to have two things that motivate them. The first is their relationship and keeping their loves safe. Because of the Harmonisation Psyrens have a strong instinct to protect their mates. Their home planet uses it as a war tactic as it’s impossible not to fight with your mates beside you but it also works against them if the mate you meet is wanted dead. In this case, nothing is too big to sacrifice.

Their second motivation is that it’s…

➽ BETTER TO DIE THAN LET THEM CONTROL US

The home planet Psyrens are running away from uses them and their care for their mates to fight endless wars. It took much effort to stand up to this indoctrination but they’d rather die fighting than spend one more day with this unjust system.

“Always. Unless your plan involves you having a blaster.”

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this book!

Title: Warp Gate Concerto
Author: Dorian Graves
Rating: 3 stars
Rep: F/F/M/Non-Binary polyam relationship (non-binary character uses "Zie/Zer" pronouns) and disability rep.
Trigger warnings (found at the beginning of the book): body horror, violence, implied abuse, gore.

As soon as I read the synopsis I was intrigued, when I found out this follows a polyam, soulmate relationship and non-binary rep, I instantly requested it. I'm a sucker for the soulmate trope and I am always on the lookout for more polyam and non-binary rep!


Things I didn't really like:
-The world-building confused me a lot.
-The characters didn't have very distinctive voices.
-I honestly had no clue what was happening for a majority of the book. I'm not sure whether this was due to lack of world-building or that I just didn't get on with the writing style, but I found myself frowning throughout the novel trying to work out what was happening and why.

Things I liked:
-The romance and relationships between the characters were so amazing and caring!
-I liked the incorporation of music and harmonies. The main characters sort of reminded me of sirens!
-Some parts I really liked, especially the character interactions and the book definitely picked up the more I read.

Overall, I'm very happy that I decided to read something that I probably wouldn't normally pick up and while this wasn't my cup of tea, I definitely still recommend it to people who like sci-fi adventures, diverse characters and soulmates!

I'm not sure if I wasn't in the mood for this, or if it really wasn't for me, but this was just... so strange. I requested this book to read something outside of my comfort zone, but I keep forgetting that comfort zone is based on years of reading experience, so maybe I shouldn't venture outside of it too much.

I did like the polyamorous relationship in this novel, as it was portrayed in a really loving way. However, the world building was very confusing, and some aspects were just very weird. I guess this just wasn't my cup of tea.

Super cool and slightly dark scifi novel(la?) about an alien triad finding their fourth while on the run from their corrupt government.

Content warnings include: graphic violence and gore, graphic body horror, body modification both voluntary and involuntary, military experiments, PTSD, loss of limbs and amputation, chronic pain; mentioned of blinding, child abuse, implied rape.

I was delighted to find that this SciFi novel did not have any humans. The two protagonists and the two love interests are Psyren, a humanoid species defined by their mind-altering singing voices and the ability to turn any open wound into an additional mouth to amplify their powers.
One cultural aspect relevant to the plot is how the Psyren government make up their military squads, which are always a Harmonized Group. The concept of Harmonizing is similar to the typical soulmates trope, with the addition of the groups' voices synching up as indicator (and that they are not limited to just one partner.)

Three of the main characters are such a Harmonized Group, an established Triad: Nulani, a boisterous solider, Ashua, a cynic spy/assassin, and Silna, an adventurous ambassador, found each other at random (Ashua was actually contracted to kill the other two) and after getting tired of fighting their corrupt government's wars fled together.
Now living as space pirates they dream of a better future - dreams that are disrupted when their ship is attacked and they crash on a wild jungle planet, where they find what they never expected to.

I was engaged in the plot from the very start. The strongest aspect was definitely the world-building for me. The various aliens are interesting and truly different. Especially Psyren culture was fascinating, even if consistently gruesome together with the rest of the setting. My (admittedly quite easily upset) stomach turned a few times (cacophonization... oh god), but the fast pace and high stakes of the book kept it from becoming too much for me.
The dialogue felt very stilted sometimes and characters frequently talked to themselves, but that didn't impede my enjoyment of the book at all.

I adored this read about this polyamorous f/f/m/enby quartet immensely. The focus on voice and sound, the weaponization of both and the surrounding culture of their alien species was fascinating, and I would absolutely love to read more about their misadventures and the ragtag crew of friends they aquired.

Warp Gate Concerto is a unique novella. The short novella is interesting and has a lot packed into it. Well developed characters and interesting storyline.

I was super excited to see that Dorian Graves had a novella coming out and that I was approved over on Netgalley. The synopsis sounded out there but then so was Bones and Bourbon and I loved that.

Not just the synopsis was out there, the actual story was way out there. But I think that is fitting for a sci-fi novella. Science-fiction should be a little out there.

This story follows 3 aliens of the same race. They are Psyren. Psyren have singing abilities that can influence others. The three of them have harmonized together which in short means they are soulmates. Their song together is the perfect harmony. A lot of it is based on emotions. Even more interesting about the Psyren is that when they have a deep wound that they grow another mouth. More mouths means more power but too many mouths and the need for power will consume you. How cool is that idea though? I would never considered anything like that and I would love to read more about them.

We travel through space as they are on the run and we go from a spaceship to a remote planet where we come across even more aliens. It is interesting to see that they do form bonds outside of their trio in friendship in a way. Though I did wish as I was reading that there had been more exploration of all the different bonds. Between the three and the other characters.

There is a lot of background packed in, including some topics that are there by suggestion. The novella has warnings for content before the novella starts which is something I am very pleased to have seen. Some heavy topics were only suggestible, as in one had to connect the dots to find it. For instance a character has her strongest mouth in/near her vagina. Knowing they have to cut badly there to get a mouth one can understand what happened to her.

There is no official mention of the characters sexuality but the trio are two females and one male. The two females were together first so there is at least some bisexuality or pansexuality here. Another character’s pronouns were zer which were the pronouns for non-binary with these aliens. One of the characters is blind. Another loses his arm throughout the story. From my limited experience I find that the representation here is solid.

There is a lot packed into a story that is only 90 pages long on my ereader and I can’t help but feel that there is a lot more to be discovered. Especially with the ending there and the growing of the trio’s travelling companions.