Anyway, I may have mentioned at the end of the review/drunken sobbing that there was a sequel and that I would read and review it if someone paid me to. Well, no one did, but my friend, who apparently loves watching me rage and/or get drunk, bought me a copy of that book. Since I did not give Stephanie Vaughan my money, I get to review it (or, more likely, bitterly snark about it).
The book is Off World 2: Sanctuary, and is less a sequel and more a second book in the series. And it's surprisingly not horrible. I know, I know, I'm shocked too. Don't get me wrong, it's not even close to being a great book, much less a good one, but it is light years better than the first one, mainly because the main characters are actually likable and Zombie Vaughan doesn't really attempt a plot, which, let's be honest, she is awful at.
So basically, this review is probably going to follow the format of the first, in which I take it chapter by chapter, not because it is a train wreck of epic proportions, but because I like to go in depth when I mock things. Also, since I have the book on my nook, I will be including the notes I wrote instead of any text messages. Oh, and if anyone is wondering why I refer to Stephanie Vaughan as Zombie Vaughan, it's because in the first book she foreshadowed a frankly ridiculous plot development that I said if she went through with she would be dead to me. She did and so she is still dead to me. Now, let's get started.
To recap the first book: there was an incomprehensible plot, heroes were horrible human beings, and there was a lot of gay sex. The end.
That's not enough? Fine. So the background you need for this book is that Caleb, formerly Our Dear Fucking Hero, went chasing after and meeting up with Sarhaan and his group of eugenically engineered soldiers, half of who are implausibly gay. Sarhaan and his merry band of soldiers zombie Vaughan doesn't bother giving names and/or personalities to, stole the ship Vigilante and fled Republic/an Earth (which may or may not be a planet wide government), where being homosexual (which in the context of the book is only men, as lesbians are never mentioned ever) is punishable by death. Sarhaan and the others were being framed for the murder of several prostitutes for reasons never made clear, and Caleb's dead fag hag, Daphne, was murdered as she investigated, prompting him to ditch earth for the failgenes soldiers.
Sarhaan and Caleb fuck a lot and fall in love, and frankly two people as horrible as them deserve each other. Along the way we meet D'abu, the only useful person in the entire book, and Alex, who solved the "plot" because he overheard a conversation when he worked as a prostitute at Earthly Pleasures, where he met Sarhaan and the implausibly named Xai Kuwicha, Sarhaan's second in command. This is their story (chun chun).