Chilling Effect

A Novel

De: Valerie Valdes

Narrado por: Almarie Guerra

A hilarious, offbeat debut space opera that skewers everything from pop culture to video games and features an irresistible foul-mouthed captain and her motley crew, strange life forms, exciting twists, and a galaxy full of fun and adventure.

Captain Eva Innocente and the crew of La Sirena Negra cruise the galaxy delivering small cargo for even smaller profits. When her sister Mari is kidnapped by The Fridge, a shadowy syndicate that holds people hostage in cryostasis, Eva must undergo a series of unpleasant, dangerous missions to pay the ransom.

But Eva may lose her mind before she can raise the money. The ship’s hold is full of psychic cats, an amorous fish-faced emperor wants her dead after she rejects his advances, and her sweet engineer is giving her a pesky case of feelings. The worse things get, the more she lies, raising suspicions and testing her loyalty to her found family.

To free her sister, Eva will risk everything: her crew, her ship, and the life she’s built on the ashes of her past misdeeds. But when the dominoes start to fall and she finds the real threat is greater than she imagined, she must decide whether to play it cool or burn it all down.

©2019 Valerie Valdes (P)2019 HarperAudio

I think I'm being generous 🤔

Wish I could say I loved it , and really wanted to .... but .... a little too much cursing in English and in Spanish 😕 and not pleased with the sexual exploits " kinda freaky " NOT AT ALL WHAT I'D EXPECTED FROM THE COVER AND THE SAMPLE ! The narration was done well and going to give it more of a chance because of it .. I'm half way through ... but really don't think my rating will change ..

decent story just know draw

it's a fun story, interesting take but it was hard for me to get through. not enough character build up to actually get me engaged but like I said decent story.

Pretty Solid listen

Overall this book is pretty good. You can find a bunch of parallels to other Sci-Fi influences in the story so it's pretty easy to relate to the world and the characters. My biggest issue is you could tell some story beats are coming and how they would play out and the end seemed to drag for me a bit. Not a game changer but its there. As for the other reviewer that was pointing out "Some foreign language", Clearly this character is speaking Spanish. I've never spoken it in my life but I was able to gather what was going on and what the gist was. I chock that up to the Awesome Narration.

Hilarious!

I saw previous reviews questioning the humor - I found it hilarious! What people find funny is often subjective so I suggest listening to the sample and purchasing it if you find it amusing. Solid story and great character building - I like the characters and am invested in their fates. I read mass amounts of Sci-Fi and it was great to hear a different voice in this genre. Narrator is perfect! I continued the series and am eagerly waiting for the next installment.

Couldn’t finish

The characters should’ve been interesting, but they just fell flat and didn’t develop. Talked to a friend who read the whole thing, and she said it didn’t get better. I gave up.

Slow start that picks up

I originally started this book because I was excited to see a latinx presence in sci-fi. I was not disapointed with the representation in the book, and there is not so much spanish used that you can't figure out by tone and context what is being said. The story does meander a bit at the start, but it does eventually take off and is very engaging once it does. I wanted to know what happened to the captain, her family, the crew, the cats, etc. It's worth the read if you're okay with a slower start to the real story.

Favorite

Biased, the author is a friend. That said, I loved the story and the narration. I've listened to this audiobook up there with Prisoner of Azkaban. excited for second book coming out next month. : )

A rollicking space adventure

Captain Eva Innocente and her crew of misfits bounce from mishap to adventure in just the way the crews of Serenity or Moya did, but with an added twist of wry humor.

Selfish protagonist ruined book for me

First what I liked: The world-building was pretty good, and I enjoyed the author’s portrayal of various species - one of which expressed emotion through scent. I really liked the crew of La Sirena Negra and was rooting for them all the way. I didn’t even mind the ragtag band going on missions (I could imagine it as episodic TV a la the A-Team) that inevitably went pear shaped, and the ridiculous daring stunts they pulled to get out of them.

What drove me crazy: Capt. Ava Innocente was the most selfish protagonist ever. It didn’t matter how many innocent civilians got killed or planets potentially wiped out as long as she got her way. She was childish, unreasonable, irresponsible, and forever lying to everyone - traits she continually questions herself on - yet she never changes her behavior. I think the author was aiming for character growth but never achieved it. I’m used to flawed protagonists especially in the early books of a series (Harry Dresden, I’m looking at you), but there was always a sliver of true decency or the potential for altruism that got me to pick up subsequent books. Sadly, Ava is irredeemable as far as I’m concerned, and I won’t bother with the rest of the series despite liking a lot of the book’s elements.

Seems like a Syfy channel novelization

Valerie Valdes' Chilling Effect feels like a Jetsons' version of a TV series. The protagonist, Captain Eva runs a cargo/transport vessel with a long-time eclectic crew. Her sister has been kidnapped by the 'fridge' a notorious criminal syndicate and arranges for Eva to use her ship to do their bidding. The missions become increasingly difficult and along the way, we learn that Eva has some serious father/daughter issues. She finally loses her crew who have been kept in the dark. At the same time, she becomes the object of an all-powerful and narcissistic alien emperor who goes around blowing up everything when he doesn't get his way. After she has been put on 'ice' by the fridge, she is rescued by her sister who turns out not have been kidnapped, but rather is an undercover agent working on busting the fridge. Meanwhile, Eva's father has taken over her ship. What follows is a series of escapades that all works out in the end.

Valdes attempts to create a badass space captain, but mainly results in a lot of snarky commentary. Between the fridge and the emperor, space is not a safe place to be and whenever something goes wrong, Eva is on the receiving end of the blame, which likely explains the ineptitude of law enforcement and governments. The structure of the story is a series of vignettes that seems designed for a TV series with about 8 - 10 episodes. The psychic cats were a nice touch.

The narration is acceptable with moderately good character distinction. Pacing is quick.