Plastic, Prism, Void by Violet Allen is a bold, experimental novel--a riotous crossover of literary fiction meets romantasy. Acrasia is a fabulously messy writer and magickal Moth Queen. Opus is a hyper-masculine but secretly tender pilot for a tiger bodybuilder-shaped mech from another dimension. And their turbulent romance develops in bursts when their universes periodically overlap.
Acrasia's dramatic, over-the-top voice can't hide her vulnerability no matter how much she wants it to. It makes for laugh-out-loud reading as she observes the indignities of life, such as dogs dirtying the water that "I, a citizen of this metropolis who might one day make enough money to pay the taxes that fund this park, am inclined to splash in from time to time. Can you believe it? Unsanitary." She is a delightful and supremely unreliable narrator.
As the two universes collide, time destabilizes; the novel reflects that through a nonlinear structure. The text plays with form, too, varying sections of script, transcripts, and some poetic line breaks, plus narration that occasionally breaks the fourth wall. But even as Acrasia's relationship with Opus plays out in nonsequential scenes and non-traditional formats, Plastic, Prism, Void's familiar beats--of meeting and hating each other, through to the inevitable romantic escalation--keep the story grounded.
This first volume in a planned series explores the darker side of their romance, with more to come on the how-and-why of their individual personalities. Plastic, Prism, Void is a trans romance for fans of This Is How You Lose the Time War and other innovative fiction. Violet Allen is an engaging talent to watch. --Carol Caley, writer