The Diabolic, by S.J. Kincaid | Book Review #245

Nemesis is a Diabolic. Created to protect a galactic Senator’s daughter, Sidonia. The girl who has grown up by her side and who is as much as sister as a master. There’s no one Nemesis wouldn’t kill to keep her safe. But when the power-mad Emperor summons Sidonia to the galactic court as a hostage, there is only one way for Nemesis to protect Sidonia.

She must become her.

Now one of the galaxy’s most dangerous weapons is masquerading in a world of corruption and Nemesis has to hide her true abilities or risk everything. As the Empire begins to fracture and rebellion looms closer, Nemesis learns that there is something stronger than her deadly force: the one thing she’s been told she doesn’t have – humanity. And, amidst all the danger, action and intrigue, her humanity might be the only thing that can save her, Sidonia and the entire Empire…

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Trigger Warnings: Murder, Self-harm, Blood, Drugging, & Mentions of Sexual Assault.

The world building that Kincaid did within The Diabolic is incredibly creative. Almost everything (that we could read from) was thought of. As far as I could tell, the views that some people had in this book could be completely contradictory, or just down right primitive. The character building that the main character, Nemesis, went through was incredibly humanizing, and almost..humbling to read.

The world that makes The Diabolic is; I want to say, sublime. There is so much thought and crafting behind how everything works. You have star systems owned by figure heads, i.e. Senators, and the like. And then there are robots that have a lot of purposes. I mean, you have robots fixing robots. There’s also the way of their travel: space ships and what I thought were cars? They’re actually hovercrafts.

‘Machines could be used to control a ship, to navigate, and even to repair the machines that controlled ships and navigated. Machines were used to fight wars, to develop new medicines, to continue treatments. That was the reason humans didn’t need to know how the machines operated, or the science behind their construction.
The system sustained itself.’

See?! They have ‘bots for everything. That’s one of the many contradictory things about this novel though. They have all these robots and whatnot, but they’ve ruled out Maths and Sciences long, long ago. Fact is, in this world, Maths and Sciences are ruled and banned illegal. Even the mention of such learnings to the wrong people can and probably would get you killed. The history of pretty much..everything, has been forgotten. Even school! School is thought as blasphemy in this world.

The world that is The Diabolic (I don’t know what else to call it. There was no decisive name for this futuristic world.) is so advance in some ways, i.e., the robots, but in other ways, the world and their view points are so limited. I was angered that there was one thing pointed out in the beginning of this book, was that you had to look according to your gender. It was never pointed out that you had to stay your gender, but it was pretty clear to me, at least, that if there were any transgendered people, they weren’t mentioned. Ever.

There’s only one point of view in The Diabolic, and that’s from Nemesis. Nemesis was created and grew up in horrible conditions that no one should ever go through. This pretty much shaped who Nemesis came to be. For the first handful of years of Nemesis’ life, Nemesis lived in fear. And then she became bonded to Sidonia.

‘I felt and I raged and I hurt and they could not take that away from me.
[…]
And in that way, I would have the truest revenge of all: I would make my life mean something.’

Nemesis goes through so much in this novel There are so many ups and downs in her life. She’s thrown into situations that I don’t even think Nemesis could have envisioned herself.

Nearing the end of The Diabolic, it was hard to trust anyone. Even Nemesis. There was so much going through her head that she became unreliable, and therefore, everyone else was a threat. There were so many loops that I was thrown through. I thought the ‘evil’ person would be this one person, but it turned out it was a different person. And then it turned out   that it was a different person entirely.

There were a few things that I liked about this novel. However, the thing that I find myself enjoying after-the-fact is just reflecting back on the story and realizing how much Nemesis grew as a person. After living in the situation that she was forced to live most of her life, and then living as she did for the rest of the book..Nemesis is practically a different person.

I also loved the middle portion of the book where Nemesis had to be sneaky with someone in plain sight. I love books with sneaky parts where the main character has to play a rouse under another rouse.

I’m also really happy with the ending we had, and honestly I think The Diabolic could be a standalone. Imagine my surprise when I saw that there was a second book to The Diabolic called The Empress. I still don’t know if I’m going to buy The Empress. Unless this second book is in the same format as my copy of The Diabolic. For now though, I am completely okay with reading The Diabolic as the standalone I thought it was.

I’ve got to be honest and just say that I so called it. I properly predicted what was up with Tyrus. While I don’t entirely mind that he was so easy to read, it was still upsetting for me to completely see through him.

I ended up giving The Diabolic, 4.5 of 5 stars on Goodreads.

Have you read The Diabolic? If you have, what’d you think of it? If you haven’t read The Diabolic, are you going to? 

Happy Reading!
Adele