Dalí

by E.M. Hamill

Book Cover: Dalí
Part of the Dalí Tamareia Missions series:
Editions:Kindle - First: $ 6.49
ISBN: 1947139584
Pages: 256

Excerpt:
I had to pass the terminal’s arrival gate to reach my assigned quarters in the lodgings district—nothing but a tiny room with a bunk and a desk. More than I needed. I hunched my shoulders and pulled the collar of my coat up. It wasn’t enough to evade electronic eyes.
Goddamned media bots. The week after the bombing, they descended upon me every time I stepped outside my door, wanting tears, statements, something juicy to regale the holo viewers at home. Charges of destruction of the networks’ property got dropped after I was diagnosed with PTSD. But no one else could verify what I’d seen the media bot do in Luna Terminal. They were all dead.
Six months later, the things still recognized me whether I leaned toward male or female, but followed me at a safer distance. This one hovered outside the gate to spy for any late celebrities who might sneak in after the championship game began. It buzzed and floated in my wake.
“Ambassador Tamareia?

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Would you care to make a statement on the latest developments in the Senate regarding the Remoliad negotiations?”

“No. I’m on bereavement leave.” I didn’t turn around.
“How about a statement regarding Sol Fed’s stance on third-gender reproductive rights?”
This was a human voice and made me pause. I turned slowly. “Kiran Singh. Waiting for the next big human tragedy?”
His answering smile was brilliant and manufactured for holo audiences, white teeth blinding against dark-brown skin. Tall and slender, Singh’s features shared the same androgyny as mine, the kind of facial structure that earned a double take. His plum-colored kurta glittered with embroidery, the tips of shiny black boots visible beneath its folds. I hadn’t seen Singh since the memorial service on Luna, but I’d been barely cognizant of anything in those first days of mourning. Except when I punched Singh in the face. I remember that.
“Yours?” I jabbed a thumb at the patient, hovering bot.
“It’s my network’s.”
“Make it go away or it’s scrap.”
“Stand down, Geraldo.” The globular bot obeyed and floated back to the gate.
Singh stood in front of me. The smile faded. “You look like sh*t.”
“Thanks. Good to see you too.” I wanted nothing more but to go back to my room and surround myself with a cloud of illegal vaping chems. I turned away.
“Seriously, Dalí. What the hell?”
“What do you want, Kiran?” I kept walking.
“Stop and talk to me. We used to be friends at university.”
“We were never friends. Is this off the record?”
“Give me a statement against the New Puritan Movement. The NPM’s stance on our reproductive rights is nothing less than selective genocide under the guise of recovering our species. Your opinion still matters to Luna. You can help us make a difference.”
“I don’t agree with your form of journalism or your tactics. Gresh’s opinions were the ones that mattered.”
“Gresh was the judicial heart of the equal rights movement, but he wasn’t a third. You were the voice. You still could be.”
“Not for you and the Third Front.” Kiran and his activist friends played along the borders of extremism, where Gresh and I had preferred reason and legislation.
“Dalí. Listen to me.” Singh grabbed my arm. I wrenched it away but stopped walking. He moved closer. “I know the bastards got you ousted from your appointment to the Remoliad. The NPM is poison, and it’s gaining momentum in the Senate. Do you even watch the news?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“So you’ve given up.”
“What do you want from me?”
“You do know that isolationist prick Hyatt won the nomination, don’t you?”
“What nomination?”
“To be Head of the Senate, Dalí! Where have you been?”
“In hell.”
“Okay.” Singh’s voice quieted. “I understand. But you need to wake up. Our rights to be treated as the equal of every other Sol Fed citizen are being threatened. Europa introduced new bills into Senate deliberation. With Hyatt’s election, they’re going to pass and make parthenogenesis mandatory for our reproduction. Guess whose research they’re using to fuel the hysteria?”
“Dr. Atassi’s, I presume.”
“The witch has been busy. They’re going to use the law to eliminate the entire third gender.”
I blinked at Singh with disbelief, even in my still-numbed state. “That isn’t legal under galactic statutes. It’ll never pass.”
“Wake up! Sol Fed isn’t Remoliad yet, and if the NPM gets its way, we never will be.” Kiran stepped closer to me. “Changelings are disappearing from the Colonies, and nobody is investigating. They’re ignoring hate crimes. In our government’s eyes, we don’t serve any greater good to further the human race if we can’t reproduce.”
“Maybe they just wanted to disappear.”
Singh’s expression grew ugly, and his disgust pricked my empathic senses with needle-sharp derision. “You never did get it. You think more like a galactic than a human being. You were never one of us.”
“We’ve had this argument before.”
“The more things change, the more they stay the same. It still doesn’t touch you. You’re a cold bastard, Tamareia.”
I turned my back, but Singh called out, “What if I told you I could connect the NPM to the terminal bombing?”
I stopped and wheeled on him. Two steps brought me within arm’s length. I grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him in, snarling. “If that’s true, why didn’t you tell the authorities?”
“Take it easy!” He slapped my hands away and licked his lips, his eyes darting away from mine as he straightened his kurta. “Word has it that Batterson Robotics is expanding into illegal weapons technology. I heard rumors the NPM formed its own little militia, funded by Batterson himself.”
“Rumors.” I gave a bleak laugh. “Prove who killed my family, and I’ll show you what a cold bastard I can be. Until then, stay the f*ck away from me, Kiran.”
COLLAPSE
Reviews:Devon on Queer Sci Fi wrote:

After a deadly world war nearly wiped out humanity, the survivors spread out across our solar system, forming Sol Fed, a collection of United Colonies.

During this process, humankind also noticed a marked up-tic in the number of intersex individuals, who are now classified as third-gender. This includes some humans who are born without gonads but with specialized hormonal glands that let them control their secondary sexual characteristics. Protagonist Dalí Tamareia is one such “changeling,” who also happens to be a trained ambassador/peacemaker.

To further complicate matters, mankind has also learned that we are far from alone in the universe; in fact, Sol Fed is now faced with the pivotal decision of whether to join the Remoliad Alliance (a sort of galactic United Nations). Favoring galactic-isolation, the members of the fanatical New Puritan Movement (NPM) oppose joining the Remoliad—and incidentally also fiercely discriminate against third gender individuals, especially changelings, even going so far as to propose editing out these “unwanted” traits from the human gene pool. Yikes!

At this key moment, Dalí is poised to begin their career as an ambassador, much like their third-gender mother before them. However, Dalí is still reeling from the recent loss of their spouses and unborn child who were killed in a terrorist attack. When the reckless lifestyle Dalí’s taken up to try to dull the pain almost kills them, they find an unexpected new purpose: working with Penumbra (a Remoliad intelligence agency) to rescue a group of human changelings that have been kidnapped and are in danger of being sold into slavery on the Shontavian Market (a black market held aboard a constantly relocating and thus difficult-to-track starship).

If I had to describe E. M. Hamill’s Dalí Tamareia series in one word, that word would be awesome. I promise I’ll describe details with more sophisticated vocabulary later on, but seriously, the characters are awesome, the plot is awesome, the intergalactic settings are awesome, the surprises are awesome, and the writing is awesome. That’s not to say the books are perfect, but they’re so much fun with gripping storylines and a wide variety of interesting characters to love and (love to) hate.

This review focuses on Dalí, the first book of the series. I was initially drawn to this book for three primary reasons: 1) I recognized the author from the Innovation flash fiction contest, so I knew the book was going to be well written and unique, 2) the protagonist is nonbinary and seeking out and supporting nonbinary representation is personally very important to me, and 3) the premise surrounding the NPM sounded eerily relevant to many modern political issues, and I was interested to see how it would all work out.

About that last point, I think it’s important to warn in this review that this book depicts quite a few instances of discrimination against third-gender and especially changeling individuals. After all, a large portion of the plot revolves around changelings being kidnapped and sold into slavery.

There are also several incidents where Dalí faces slurs and physical attacks based on their third-gender changeling status. Of course, the book handles these incidents well, and it’s always clear that the people who want to oppress third-gender individuals are the bad guys; however, I think it’s important for potential readers to be aware that the incidents are there, so be warned that this book won’t necessarily be a comfortable read.

These plot points struck me as a good reminder that humanity isn’t marching on a straight path from less-tolerant to more-tolerant and that these kinds of discriminatory, regressive movements can always rear their ugly heads. Fortunately, the future looks a little bit brighter by the end of Dalí, so the story’s also a nice reminder that good people can make a difference toward making the world (or in this case the universe) a better place.

As I mentioned, another huge draw for me was Dalí’s gender identity. Nonbinary characters are still relatively scarce, although there’s definitely been an uptick especially in science fiction. However, there seems to be a tradition in mainstream speculative fiction of only introducing nonbinary characters if they’re aliens/robots/monsters/gods/etc, which can be tons of fun but also frustrating for those looking for representation as, well, regular old humans.

As a character, Dalí leans a tiny bit into this tradition due to their ability to physically alter their secondary sexual characteristics at will, which at times feels like a bit of a superpower (for instance, Dalí hormonally pumps up their muscles before most fights). However, Dalí is also unmistakably human (in a universe filled with all manner of alien species) as well as a very well-rounded character. They’re dealing with the loss of their spouses and unborn child, battling addiction, nearly losing themself in an undercover role, navigating complex political and social situations, and managing feelings of regret, frustration, desire, and so much more.

The series is pretty action/event focused, so there isn’t a ton of page space for gender introspection, but I think the author’s done a good job of incorporating a variety of gender identities both in the human and alien characters. I particularly liked how all of the changeling characters we meet approach their relationship with their gender and presentation differently. Clearly a lot of research went into constructing this series, and I think it pays off.

In terms of pacing, this book is extremely hard to put down. The first few chapters have the hefty job of introducing the setting/conflict/characters and thus feel a tad slower (even though there’s still plenty of excitement going on). However, once Dalí begins their undercover assignment, I could not stop thinking about this book even when I was forced to set it aside for such pesky necessities as “sleeping” and “eating” and “bathing.”

There’s plenty of action as well as a fair amount of sex, all of which is very well-written, but not much romance—at least, not much romance that has any hope of developing into a happy, healthy long-term relationship (although I really hope the hints of a potential romance blossoming between Dalí and Commander Sumner pan out eventually).

Overall, it’s just such a fun book. Even though it deals with some heavy subject matter, I had fun the entire time I was reading. Oh, and there are also plenty of Princess Bride references that add to the fun. I wholeheartedly recommend Dalí as well as the next book in the series, Peacemaker, and I am currently anxiously awaiting more from author E. M. Hamill.


About the Author

E.M. (Elisabeth) Hamill writes adult science fiction and fantasy somewhere in the wilds of eastern suburban Kansas. A nurse by day, wordsmith by night, she is happy to give her geeky imagination free rein and has sworn never to grow up and get boring.

Frequently under the influence of caffeinated beverages, she also writes as Elisabeth Hamill for young adult readers in fantasy with the award-winning Songmaker series.

She lives with her family, where they fend off flying monkey attacks and prep for the zombie apocalypse.


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