Synopsis:
Cadet Charlotte Amsel will trade her life to win a war- but not all at once. As part of an elite group of experimental soldiers, she can move through time, with each jump taking months from her own fated lifespan as she struggles to prevent the cold war from boiling over into an apocalypse. With her own side just as untrustworthy as the enemy, the only thing she cares about is keeping her best friend and fellow soldier (and in some timelines, lover) safe. But each time loop adds violent complications, and saving anyone before she runs out of life to give may prove impossible.
Review:
*I read this novella as part the judging group The Secret Scribes for the Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship (SFINCS). The following review is strictly my personal thoughts as each novella will be reviewed by two judges to be as objective as possible.*
As Born to Rule the Storm is a phenomenal science fiction, time travel romance set in a unique, but familiar world where the decisions made by one person might never be enough to stop the coming tide of war.
I’m going to start this review and just say I was blown away by this story. I’ve read and seen enough stories about time travel that I’m rarely finding something unique, and I was pleasantly surprised while reading this novella. The ‘hero/heroine traveling through time to stop a war’ trope has been done time and time again (a time pun, I know…), but I felt like this story was wholly different because we spend way more moments witnessing the human sacrifice and personal destruction it has on Lottie, giving it a more intimate feeling. It’s by seeing how this time travel affects Lottie and her subsequent decisions by what is revealed, that kept me reading page after page.
The premise of this story is simple: there is a coming war between two nations and one nation did some genetic experiments that altered some family lines, essentially giving them superpowers. There are three main characters in this story: Lottie (our main character and POV) can trade her lifespan to travel forward and backward in time, Stephen (Lottie’s best friend and sometimes lover) can use his lifeforce to camouflage things like planes or people, and Min can burn things at the detriment of her body. These three are used by their nation, sending them to their eventual deaths for advantage and propaganda. And while we get to see these powers in use many times within the story, the focus is always on the outcomes it has on these three characters, the slower moments like Lottie and Stephen dancing or their first kiss that both had wanted but never acted on. And I think that was the absolute correct choice as I felt very connected to all three, even as Stephen and Min changed over the course of the story due to Lottie’s travels. It was both haunting and disturbing to see all three be used into nothingness over and over. It’s not a spoiler to say we see these characters die many times, leaving Lottie to go back and make a different decision.
Lottie is an excellent main character. Not only is her narrative voice great (she actively knows she and the others are being used but cannot fight against it because the overlords will just use up someone else) but her decision making gets more and more gut wrenching. And while the eventual outcome I saw coming from very early on, the journey to said outcome had me guessing. But not only that, I truly felt sorry for Lottie. Unlike the others who will never know what was to come on an eventual timeline, Lottie knew and experienced them all. She becomes an amalgamation of poor decisions while her life whittles away, leaving her to make the only decision she can. It’s a testament to Ms. Baumer’s craft that I cared so much about Lottie. Such great storytelling!
The prose and pace of this story is great to epic. There is a sense of immersion in the prose where we are breathlessly moved across timelines and feel what Lottie is experiencing or witnessing. Once Lottie makes her first travel around the 20% mark or so, the story never flags, never lulls. Even the ‘slower’ scenes have an elegant dance to them (yes another story pun…) that never wanes. I loved the prose in this story. Now, seeing as I am judging this for a competition and I am an editor at heart, there were a number of times some grammar was off or a name was messed up (Irina v Irene, Favian v Fabian) but none of this detracted from the prose and the story. In fact, had I not been worried about that from a judging perspective, I’m certain I would have barely even noticed.
All in all, As Born to Rule the Storm was a powerful story, one that I could not put down. Highly enjoyed this novella and will gladly recommend it to anyone looking for a shorter, character-driven science fiction story!
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