Rating: 
Title: Crimson Star
Author: Elizabeth Jewell
Genre: Futuristic paranormal
URL: Changeling Press
Price: US$3.99
Other Information/warnings: Explicit m/m, blood
Summary [from the publisher]:
The only vampire on the crew of the long-haul exploration ship Lightning Girl, Trev has learned to make his own entertainment. Or make entertainment with somebody else, like Ash, the sexy human navigator Trev’s had his eye on.
But when the entire crew of Lightning Girl is killed except for Ash and Trev, the stakes of the men’s growing relationship go from a quick fling to life and death. With the hyperdrive down and the oxygen running out, Trev is determined to save his lover’s life — no matter what the cost.
My review:
I am not, as I have said many times, fond of vampire stories, but when Elisa Rolle reviewed this one, and a couple of hours later, the offer of the story for review came from Changeling, I thought it sounded intriguing enough to give it a go. The cover wasn’t the usual fugly Changeling Poser mess (though it’s still on the fugly side) which was a good sign, and by the third sentence of the story, I was hooked. It was funny. I love good funny.
This is an excellent short piece in a genre where short stories often are the weakest offerings of the genre. It offers sound characters in an exciting, credible s/f setting, good pacing, and genuine tension about the resolution. While we’re left hungry for more, the story finishes at a very good and proper place, which all too many m/m stories don’t. And it lacks sap. Completely. Yay.
Trev is a nearly four-hundred year old vampire, living in a culture which now assilimates his kind to the point of making sure their spaceships have plenty of synthetic blood on hand, and vampire friendly lights. He’s also a nice guy with a solid moral code which involves not Turning mortal humans against their will, a tendency to melancholy because of the sheer weight of his years, and a powerful sex drive. (Can anyone explain how an organism without a heart beat has an erection? No? Didn’t think so. Let’s move on.) When he ends up being the last and only hope of the only human survivor of a random accident on their space ship, his decency and morality prevent him from taking the easy way out, even though it looks increasingly like the only option. I really liked Trev. He’s true hero material.
Ash is a little more generic. A Mars born human with weak lungs and a powerful libido, he doesn’t stand out the way Trev does. He’s just a guy, you know? But he’s also decent and brave, and feels intensely, so the choice Trev offers him is genuinely difficult to accept, because he fears losing touch with his humanity and with humankind. Trev can’t pretend that he won’t either. The story explores all that in an unusually thoughtful way, though Ash isn’t memorable in the way Trev is. Ash looking at his options, facing a choice of suicide or certain death, is one of the best scenes in the story. It’s so bleak.
My problem with the characters is the vampire thing itself. The use of woo-woo like vampires in a science-fiction setting is a little…odd, and when the vampires are the ye olde can be killed by sunshine, holy water and wooden stakes kind, it’s odder still. That kind of vampire is essentially evil incarnate, so Trev’s decency is hard to credit once you think too hard about it. I’d have been more comfortable if Trev was a vampire-like alien, or genetically modified human, but that would have screwed up large aspects of the plot. But this kind of thing only going to bug purists like me, and in the story, it all works. I’m probably overthinking it.
The writing is pretty good. Funny, tight, with good sex scenes and tense action, it’s very enjoyable. A bit of POV blurginess could have been sorted out, and I didn’t care for the use of ‘the vampire’ as an epithet, but these are minor gripes. The only real flaw was the whole business of Ash and the breathlessness/lack of oxygen. As most people know, when you can’t breathe, say with a cold or something, it’s mildly to severely panic inducing. I never really got any sense of that, or the effort Ash would have been making at times, or the effect of fluctuating air quality. I felt that was a real missed opportunity to make the danger, the nastiness of the situation come alive. Also, the space junk thing is already known to threaten space travel (we Earthlings may have by now trapped ourselves on this planet because of the cordon of crap around the planet). I find it a little implausible that futuristic ships would not have built in protections and fail-safes.
But overall, this is a story to treasure. The science fiction side of it satisfied and intrigued, the characters engaged me, the writing was crisp and quotable. A very enjoyable read, and recommended.
