Product Description

The hottest yaoi gay romance novel in print to date: Heroes & Ghosts by S. A. Payne! Ichi is a repressed scientist who keeps mostly to himself. Just as he's about to take a vacation, his plans are put on hold. After a night of drinking, he orders a doll from PETS only, when it arrives, he gets a surprise--he's received a free upgrade to a Living Companion! He does his best to clinically and professionally deal with a Pet that was genetically engineered to be a companion, in every sense of the word, to another man. But when Ichi starts to suspect his new Pet isn't what he seems, his dull little life gets turned upside down!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #319409 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Format: Adult
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

Customer Reviews

Highly recommended to both those interested in yaoi and western m/m erotic fiction.
It's interesting to read a western written m/m, yaoi-influenced, story and have it not be fan fiction. It reads a lot like fan fiction, lending to the theory that Ms. Payne has written quite a bit of it in her day, though the story is clearly original and the characters and background just as complex as anything to be found in the canon work of an original creator. And I realize that sounds nothing like a ringing endorsement, but I've read a lot of fan fiction in my day and I have read more than a little original fiction by those who have also written fan fiction and I have rarely come across the quality of storytelling that I have found here.

You know how, when you really like a story, you scroll through the dialogue to see what happens next? Yeah, I did that with this book. Actually, I have a nasty habit of taking any book I read, skipping to the end and finding out what happens before I can settle myself down to start it, going back later again and again to skip ahead to see how things progress. I only actually did that once while reading through this story. The rest of the time I spent focused on the development of the plot and trying very hard not to skim between love scenes to get to the next.

The book begins slowly, introducing the main character, Ichi, the quiet, comparatively sheltered researcher from a repressed (influenced by Japan) culture, living on a research space station as the only gay among the lively boisterous people of Avalon, who have seen more than their fair share of pain in life. Following this brief introduction, the story drives through the local politics of how Avalon came to be independent finally from the opressive colonization by the Concord (under which Ichi's people are ruled peacefully). It easily shifts gears to focus on Ichi's difficulties in his love life and in a drunken act he accidentally orders a sex doll from a company either cleverly or contrively named, PETS. Months later when it arrives he embarrassingly attempts to rid himself of responsibility for the thing, until he discovers that his "doll" has been "upgraded" to a "living companion," a genetically modified human-like creature designed to fulfill the physical desires and fantasies of its owner. Ichi is forced, at first unwillingly, to take the "pet" in, refusing to use it for its intended purpose, but as time passes his bond to Rye grows and he discovers his "pet" is quite a bit more than he expected. What ensues is a story filled with romance, action and intrigue set on the backdop of a complex futuristic sci-fi universe. Many parts are almost cheesily predictable, particularly the development of the romance between Rye and Ichi, but to be quite honest, I don't think I could have handled anything less. The temptation to compare this story to Ai no Kusabi (recently licensed in English by DMP) exists, only with Heroes and Ghosts we know we won't get a tragic and heartbreaking ending. The story is never boring, however, and there are plenty of twists and turns to keep one guessing about what will happen next, or at the very least, whether something will or won't happen at all.

The characters are all three-dimensional, and this is where Ms. Payne shines the most. Atttention to detail in character design is something often the first to go when trying to simplify a story for the BL or m/m genre of fiction, but here background information, character growth and development are not left in the dust in favor of speeding to the foregone conclusion of the romantic pairing. In fact, I was not only surprised, but thrilled to see the story continue on after the first third of the book. A lesser author would have tacked on a quick simplistic "happily-ever-after" ending at the point where Rye (of course) starts to become more human and falls in love with Ichi, but there is so much more to tell in the story. The love scenes are scattered throughout the book and get decently graphic. They border on the predictable side in lead-in and follow-through, but to be honest that is not a deal-breaker for me by any means. The story development around the main romance is so complex and somewhat dark that having this perhaps "fluffy" romantic development is most welcome.

Also of note is the difference I have found between Western writing styles in this genre and their Eastern counterparts. The book is styled after the typical Japanese BL/yaoi genre, but it is written from the perspective of a Western writer. In Japanese genre stories the focus tends to be on the repressive nature of the culture under which the protagonist either realizes his is attracted to another man, or is gay and is trying to hide his identity for fear of social discrimination. Most of the struggle in these stories are therefore struggles of choice and whether to submit to societal pressure or pursue one's true happiness. In Western m/m romance the host culture tends to be more socially accepting and the focus of character growth and development is based on the character's relationships, pasts and personal conflicts, much the same way as they are in non-genre romance storytelling. However, generally in western m/m storytelling we don't get the wide-ranging universes, character backgrounds and complex sci-fi or fantasy backdrop. To read a story that has the best aspects of both worlds is not only refreshing, it is engaging.

That said, I do have a few complaints. And I'm not suggesting that my complaints somehow make the book not worth reading. I wholeheartedly endorse experiencing this story and I hope my criticisms are not taken too much to heart.

First and foremost is my stickler's mind about grammar. The whole story could use a good editing by an unbiased third party. All authors should use them. Fan fiction authors use them, they call them betas, and they find simple typographical and grammatical errors that spell checks and reading over one's own work don't and fix them. Ms. Payne is a talented writer and I hated to read all of the simply correctable confusions of "then/than," "they're/their" and myriad of other awkward and easily correctable usages and mistakes throughout the story.

I also spent a good deal of the book trying to figure out if Ms. Payne was a speaker of British or American English, because of the inconsistency of some of the language. The references to height in feet and inches betrays American origins, as every other corner of the world has long since converted to metric, but there is a good amount of ambiguity. One might ask, however, what it matters, but there is a difference to sentence structure, grammatical and punctuation usage that occurs between the two forms of English writing and for someone like me, who easily notices such things, it left me, not necessarily agitated, but a little distracted. A quick trip to the SAPayne webpage cleared it and some other questions up, but I'm still left a little off-put by it.

Getting away from technical complaints I did have a few lingering issues with some aspects of the story. There were times when things were mentioned and then completely dropped and never brought up again, or not completely justified in the story. Now, there were a lot of instances of this that by the end of the book were actually cleared up, like the question that arises about a quarter of the way in (after Rye begins to show signs of a dark past) about why in the world PETS would allow such a "dangerous" person to live at all, and is only answered close to the end of the book. I'm glad it is ultimately cleared up, but I have to admit I spent several long chapters in the middle wondering if I was just supposed to accept the lack of closure about that as a plot device in a yaoi novel and nothing more and move on.

I think my biggest question is the value of the whole psi/empath classification in the story. A lot of time and care is set aside for explaining this very interesting aspect of human evolution (or whatever it really is), but to be honest I would have accepted Will's value as a shoulder to cry on and a voice of comfort and reason without any special abilities (though his breakdowns towards the end due to his "burden" are dealt with dramatic effect). It really only amounted to just one more thing Ichi does not share with his host culture among the Avalon people and making his grandfather the one to have founded the research into the field is only mentioned briefly at the beginning of the story and neither brought up again, nor used in any meaningful way later.

There were also times when I wished aspects of the story had been shown in the plot. In particular was my dismay that the scene where Ichi "returns the favor," as it is so eloquently put, for the first time is only mentioned and not shown. While the equally exciting scene that follows shortly after is very satisfying, I truly wish that particular scene had been shown in detail, or that aspect of the development of Ichi and Rye's relationship had been incorporated into said scene instead. And then there is the scene on the other space station where Ichi and Rye leave the party early to go to bed together. I wanted to see that love scene. It would have been oh so very deliciously angsty, beautiful and emotional. In fact, and somewhat embarassingly, I admit that I wish there were way more love scenes throughout the book. I wanted to see these two guys going at it like rabbits, not just reading that they were.

I also have to question the lack of explanation for the usage of Earth nationalities, like Korean and Japanese, when referring to the ancestry of specific characters. No mention of Earth origins is present in the book, which sort of leaves a little plot hole about how humans have come to expand throughout the universe and retain knowledge of ethnic lineage after what must be many generations of planetary colonization and political restructuring.

Finally, I have to question the moral ambiguity of the final confrontation at the end of the book. The "solution" is justifiable, but the revenge angle leaves just a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth. It is dramatic and wonderfully written, but it just seems a little too clean-cut and black/white for my personal tastes. The same result with a line like, "doing this won't truly fix anything" or something about the selfishness of the act to protect oneself and loved ones would have resolved that for me.

In the end, I wish I had illustrations to look at, like in many yaoi light novels, to better visualize the characters in my head. I'd love to have "seen" Rye and Ichi and all the rest. The ending is a conclusion, but it feels like there could be more, and I would truly love to read more about these characters and this universe. My four star rating is only given for my technical complaints, and should these be corrected in a future edition I will retract them and give it five stars. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the genre, whether you like the Western m/m romance or the Japanese BL/yaoi genre. There's a lot here for both.

Amazing Plot with Slash
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The most amazing part about it is that the plot is so detailed, complex, and believable. This book is most definitely NOT all about sex. There is suspense and drama. It would be a page turner even if there was no slash. Believe it or not, the plot is what makes this book great.

On the downside, there are some remaining typos, but they can be overlooked. I was a little disappointed that the post-pet recovery phase was cut so very short. I would have preferred a more gradual improvement in Rye and more detail descriptions of his progress.

All in all, though, it was an excellent book that I would highly recommend to anyone that enjoys slash and extremely light D/s stories.

all that and plottage too!
Ok, I'll admit that I wasn't all that thirlled when my friend said to me: I found a story you will love... but it's yaoi.

I distintly remember wrinkling up my nose and going 'ewww'. Then (with much prompting) I read it -- all of it -- in one sitting. The title of the story was Heroes and Ghosts and it changed how I viewed an entire genre. S.A.Payne has the ability to draw a person into her world and hold them hostage as the story unfolds, magically, before their eyes, then shake them up before turning them loose again.

Desperate people doing desperate things and surviving their own stupidity is (IMHO) one of the underlying themes in this story. Not to mention, I also think it's fun to watch how an uptight,emotionally stunted, scientific type transmorphs over the course of the story into someone capable of having an energetic love life full of tender moments and screaming climaxes.

I think the only thing I didn't like about this story was the ending, because, well... it ends.