Just like book 1 I fell for Five Unicorn Flush in just a couple of pages. I was with these characters through all their adventures and as always just loved the characters Berry creates. Berry is superb at not only his Heroes but the side characters as well and I am always enthralled by the universe that Five Unicorn Flush is set in.

Cannot wait for more

The Bala are a race commonly referred to as 'Space Unicorns.' They have tremendous healing abilities and their unicorn horns are the only known means to power faster-the-light-speed ships. So of course humans have hunted the Bala nearly into extinction. It's pretty hard to hunt something to extinction when it can practically resurrect itself with its healing powers ... but the intergalactic beings known as 'Reason' are doing just that.

Gary Cobalt is one of the last known Bala and he has taken a small group of remaining Bala to hide out on a remote planet to try to stay out of sight of the Reason. But there's dissent among the Bala which could completely derail their chances of staying alive.

Cowboy Jim is a pilot with the Reason, flying the last FTL ship and he's searching for the Bala so as to enslave the entire race.

Only one person can possibly bring peace to the galaxy, but is Captain Jenny up to the task?

As with the first book, I really like the way author T.J. Berry takes a kind of goofy idea (unicorns in space) and makes a fast-paced space opera that really catches the reader's attention.

In the previous book, I felt that there was action just for the sake of making something happen, rather than driving the story forward. That wasn't the case so much here. This time I felt that there was enough plot to drive the action.

It may seem a little strange that one of the driving forces of the book is a political action, but the pending civil war - among a group of enslaved and hunted beings - is really fascinating. As a reader I immediately took a side and couldn't understand the opposing views. Which had me thinking about current politics.

There is still plenty of humor here, but it is the growth of the characters that really makes this book worth reading. The assortment of characters, and the unique issues that each has (a unicorn with PTSD, a pilot in a wheelchair, LGBTQ issues), really helps this book stand out as character-driven space opera.

Looking for a good book? <em>Five Unicorn Flush</em> is the second book in the "Reason" series by T. J. Berry and is better than the first and shows that this is developing into a fun-to-read space opera series.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Mit „Five Unicorn Flush“ setzt TJ Berry ihre Reihe rund um das Halbeinhorn Gary Cobalt und die Kapitänin Jenny Perata. Dabei ist die Fortsetzung genauso weird und amazing wie „Space Unicorn Blues“ – was anderes wäre auch seltsam bei einer Geschichte, in der Einhörner im Weltall unterwegs sind. Wobei nach den Ereignissen von Band 1 die Bala – die magischen Wesen, die von den Menschen gejagt und versklavt wurden – nicht im Weltall unterwegs sind, sondern einen neuen Planeten fernab der Menschheit bewohnt. Oder versucht ihn bewohnbar zu machen, denn so ganz glücklich sind sie ohne TV-Shows und Coffeeshops nicht – auch wenn niemand sie mehr versucht ihre Körperteile zu ernten – und Gary versucht verzweifelt einen Bürgerkrieg abzuwenden. Gleichzeitig ist Jenny auf der verzweifelten Suche nach ihrer Frau und damit nach dem neuen Bala Planeten.

Was ich an der Welt von „Space Unicorn“ so sehr liebe, ist die völlig selbstverständliche Diversität. Und damit meine ich nicht, dass TJ Berry eine faszinierende SciFi Welt mit ebenso faszinierenden magischen Kreaturen bevölkert hat. Sondern dass hier Menschen mit verschiedensten Hintergründen mitspielen, es Beziehungen aller Art gibt und Menschen wie Bala mit Behinderungen genau so dazu gehören wie alle anderen. Und Jenny, lesbisch, mit Māori Wurzeln und Rollstuhlnutzerin, ist eine wundervolle Protagonistin.

Neben Gary und Jenny kehren noch eine ganze Reihe von Charakteren aus dem ersten Band zurück und es gibt erneut eine Reihe von verschiedenen Perspektiven. Trotz der Vielzahl an Figuren schafft TJ Berry es erneut, jedem Charakter eine eigene Stimme zu geben und sie weiterzuentwickeln. Die Geschehnisse des ersten Bandes haben Konsequenzen und die Charaktere sind nicht mehr dieselben, die sie zu Beginn von „Space Unicorn Blues“ waren. Im Zentrum der Handlung stehen natürlich immer noch Jenny und Gary, aber um sie herum gibt es eben alte Bekannte und faszinierende neue Figuren – einen Elfengeistparasit, AIs, Space Kannibalen … Die Zusammensetzung des character cast ist in absolut jeder Hinsicht vielfältig und bunt gemischt.

In „Five Unicorn Flush“ verschiebt sich allerdings der Fokus etwas weg von Gary und hin zu Jenny, was ich großartig fand. Ja, Garys Storyline auf dem Bala Planeten war definitiv auch spannend und sehr gut geschrieben, aber die Szenen mit Jenny waren in diesem Band meine klaren Favoriten. Ich mag Jenny als Charakter einfach sehr und es ist immer wieder großartig zu lesen, wie TJ Berry Elemente aus der Māori Kultur einwebt und wie sie mit Jennys Rollstuhl umgeht: der ist nichts, an das die Kapitänin gefesselt ist und wenn es mal Probleme gibt, liegt das weniger am Rollstuhl als viel mehr an mangelnder Barrierefreiheit.

Die Geschichte selbst ist zum einen unglaublich unterhaltsam, voller Humor und Szenen, bei denen ich laut lachen musste, zum anderen aber auch voller Spannung und ernster Momente. Auf ihrem neuen Planeten stehen die Bala vor einer Existenzkrise, Gary verzweifelt an immer größeren Problemen, Jennys Suche nach den Bala ist alles andere als risikoarm und dann ist da noch der Rest der Menschheit – der nichts lieber möchte, als die Bala wiederzufinden und weiter auszubeuten. The stakes are high!

Eine Sache gab es allerdings, die mich dann doch gestört hat: Das Ende. Ich hoffe wirklich sehr, dass es noch einen weiteren Band in der „Space Unicorn“ Reihe geben wird, denn das Ende von „Five Unicorn Flush“ war für mich wirklich kein besonders guter Abschluss. Trotzdem: Sowohl „Space Unicorn Blues“ als auch „Five Unicorn Flush“ kriegen von mir eine ganz, ganz dicke Empfehlung! Wundervolle Space Opera, voller faszinierender Charaktere, großartig geschrieben und gleichermaßen spannend, humorvoll und emotional.

NOTE: I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest, unbiased review.

I’ve been excited to read Berry’s The Reason series for over a year. So excited that I kept it reserved for a time when I could kick back and relax to really enjoy it. Alas, that never happened and here I am a few months past the release of the second book. And let me tell you, it was well worth the wait. Five Unicorn Flush is brimming with imagination that provides solid characters, a fascinating universe, and a promise of a brighter future. Berry writes in an accessible, exciting style, expertly balancing insightful storytelling and delightful space opera thrills and chills. It manages to be a deep look at the bonds of slavery and the struggles of the enslaved to start over, while also filling the pages with explosive battles, death-defying acts, and constant action that continues to reveal new and exciting things about this universe. To say I’m impressed with this book would be a huge understatement. I enjoyed every minute of it and only wish I hadn’t wasted so long getting into it.

This was my first foray into this universe so my impressions don’t take previous plot points into account. There are a few spoilers below, so stop if you don’t want any of the fun ruined. Now on to a few of my favorite things:

A SOCIETY OF MAGICAL BEINGS

In this regard, I’m floored by Berry’s ability to take the many fairy tale creatures of bygone myths and create fully sentient beings with complicated cultures, societies, and habits. It’s clear their lives prior to freedom were horrible and, though this freedom was much desired, they continue to struggle with fitting in side by side. There remains a significant amount of prejudice between species and hardheaded thinking when planning the future of their new planet. There’s so much going on in these scenes and we see the individual hardships each species has experienced. You get to know the Bala better as a whole because of this thoughtful narrative.

EXPERT JUGGLING OF CHARACTERS

A true space opera should have a large number of characters constantly bouncing around into ever increasing shenanigans. Berry does this expertly, giving us multiple protagonist focal points. We see Gary, our lead unicorn, struggling to maintain order on this new planet. We see Jenny getting into horrifying-yet-hilarious murky waters as she tries to find her wife. Their storylines provide the majority of the action and excitement. Not knowing their backstories, I was equally enamored with each character, though I get the feeling there are some definite dark pasts I’m not fully aware of. As a side note, the AIs are top notch, providing hilarious commentary throughout. I LOVE a good AI.

GOODBYE TECHNOLOGY

Now that the universe has essentially come to a halt (thanks to the lack of fuel for their FTL drives), we see everyone forced to evaluate their lives. Gone is the access to hundreds of planets and cities. For the Bala, all technology has disappeared, forcing them to go into an almost fairy tale-like existence on this wild planet, as a couple of the characters angrily note. The struggle to move beyond the comforts of modern society permeate every page. We see the Bala warring against each other to get back to their previous lives. We see stranded ships resorting to horrifying means of survival. We see whole planets turning on themselves, erupting into riot chaos. It really makes you think about our current world and how screwed we’d be if the lights all shut off. That sense of everyone being stranded adds an underlying anxiety to the book that provides ample fuel for the character’s basest fears.

I was super excited when I found T.J. Berry's Five Unicorn Flush on NetGalley. I loved book 1 - Space Unicorn Blues and couldn't believe that it was a debut as it was such a great concept, well written with great characters. You can read my review here. I liked it so much it made my top 5 of 2018. This second instalment starts not long after the events of book 1 when all of the supernaturals (the Bala) were teleported away to a new planet far, far away from the cruelty of humanity. The story starts on board the Stagecoach Mary with Jenny Perata at the helm of the ship desperately searching for her wife, a dryad who has gone missing with the rest of the Bala. While Jenny creeps through space on an aging spaceship and no unicorn horn to fuel it Gary, my favourite space unicorn, is on his new home planet. Not everyone is that happy with Gary or his father from taking them away from all the 'creature' comforts they have gotten used to...even if those comforts led to the torture and death of many of their kin. Two more characters from book 1 are also searching for the new Bala home planet - Biao who is hiding his magical lineage from the humans and the very human, Will Penny. Forces are drawing the humans to Gary and his kind in the back drop of a civil war between the Bala.

Sometimes the second book of a series can be a bit of a let down or not as exciting as the first. Not in the case of the The Reason series. The scenes with Jenny Perata on and off the Stage Coach Mary were really amusing and Jenny is a great, broken heroine. Gary wants to do the best for his kin but can't seem to live up to anyone's expectations, including his own. He is torn between wanting to save his kind and saving humans and this creates the tension that supports the story.

I thoroughly enjoyed Five Unicorn Flush despite another massive cliff hanger ending. Berry has the ability to write a gritty but humorous story that keeps you guessing what is going to happen next.

This is a really fun space opera with a dark, thoughtful and deeply political vein running all the way through it. A daredevil wheelchair using space captain, an elderly bisexual necromancer pretending to be a quarter of his age, a whole bunch of humans trying to sabotage their own fleet so they don't commit genocide, and a royal family of grumpy, grumpy unicorns.

Honestly, it's very hard to describe this book without sounding completely unhinged. Read it for yourself!

PS: I didn't read the first book first which is probably a terrible idea, but I got the gist pretty easily of what had happened in Book 1. Still kind of wish I'd read that one first, though. Learn from my mistakes.

Ahhhh man this book was fun!

Following the events of the last book, the Bala (magical creatures, everything from centaurs to sirens to dryads) have been moved to their new planet, far far away from humanity, who have spent years harvesting them for magical parts.

Jenny Perata is aboard her bright yellow racing striped ship, the Stagecoach Mary, and is determined to find her wife Kaila, a dryad, no matter how long it’ll take. Without the requisite unicorn horn to power the FTL drive, it’ll take her many lifetimes, but she’s still going to try. On her way, she runs into a colony ship with humans aboard, and her guts tell her there is unicorn horn on there somewhere too. So, she investigates, to great shenanigans.

On the other side of the quadrant, Gart Cobalt, half-unicorn, is finding that there is some trouble in paradise. All of the Bala were brought to this planet to flee the slavery and torture at the hands of the humans, but not all of them were being tortured or enslaved. Some of them had quite nice lives back in human space and they’d really like to go back and have access to human technology and things of that sort again. When a human necromancer shows up and starts stirring some of the Bala up to go seek revenge on humanity, it gets even harder for Gary and the other unicorns to avert a Bala civil war.

I started this one late one night before bed, thinking that I could just stop, sleep, and then wake up refreshed to go to work. That was my first mistake. Before I knew it, it was 3am and I was having a lot of trouble putting this one down for that sleep thing.

Space Unicorn Blues was interesting in that it made a character who I wanted to hate likable. Jenny has a long history with Gary, and it isn’t a good one. But, nonetheless, Gary is what he is, and so while he doesn’t exactly forgive her for what she’s done, he understands that she is legitimately sorry for it. I still love Gary’s character. He is exactly what he is, but in this one we get to see far more of the Bala, especially Gary’s father Findae. It’s interesting to see how different from Findae he is.

Jenny both has no use of her legs and suffers from chronic pain as a result of a war injury, and uses a wheelchair much of the time. It’s interesting to see how she navigates space travel, zero-G, and the rather difficult task of moving both herself and her chair through airlocks, tight hallways, and other places that are just not set up to accommodate anyone without the use of their legs. Jenny faces a lot of ableism, as the Reason (the human society) does not generally abide disability.

"Jenny’s problem was never with her chair, but with a world that refused to accommodate it."


Despite all of the things that Jenny has done in her life, both good and bad, I couldn’t help but cheer for her. She’s so snarky and has a comeback for everyone, and she absolutely doesn’t let anything (or anyone) hold her back. The ship AI in Jenny’s ship, the Stagecoach Mary, is also snarky AF. She knows Jenny pretty well, and does her best to see a couple of ‘Jenny Perata plans’ from start to finish, despite them being Jenny Perata levels of crazy.

There was plenty going on in this one. Not only is Gary meeting new and often strange creatures on the new Bala planet, Jenny is doing everything from being possessed to getting blown out an airlock in her underpants. So, there’s lots of action, and plenty of it is absolutely hilarious. I have a lot of stuff in this book highlighted just for making me laugh. It’s funny in all the right places, but it’s also serious when it needs to be, and takes on some serious and deep situations. There were times that my feels got suitably jostled. I feel for Gary, especially, who heals from almost any wound, but still suffers PTSD from all that was done to him. Gary is the most unicorn of the unicorns in this one, despite being only half.

So all told, I think it’s pretty safe to say that I liked this one just as much as I liked the first book. Perhaps even a little more! It was brilliant!~ I can’t wait to see what happens next!

Thanks to the author as well as Angry Robot via NetGalley for the review copy.

Five Unicorn Flush is an entertaining sequel, though its characters are more compelling than its plot stakes.

Last year's Space Unicorn Blues was a fascinating concept, the magical fantasy-space opera mashup that took its narrative to surprisingly dark places, with galaxy-wide exploitation and one of the most hard-headed and stupid human societies I've seen represented in fiction for a while. That book told an entertaining story with an ending that left the main strands of plot satisfied while setting up plenty of material for a potential sequel - a continuation which is now a glorious reality.

Five Unicorn Flush picks up close to where Space Unicorn Blues left off, six weeks after all of the Bala - the group of magical aliens who all look like creatures from western European folklore - are transported by a powerful third race from the human -controlled space where they had been exploited and used for parts and onto a secret far-off planet where they can start again. As this transportation also includes all Bala artefacts in human space, and these include all of humanity's known FTL fuels (of which the most reliable is unicorn horn) this has a pretty major effect on humanity's empire - called "The Reason" while also making it nearly impossible for the Bala to be pursued. Unfortunately, there are a couple of very persistent individuals left on the human side, one of whom is Jenny Peralta, disabled Maori space captain whose testimony ensured that humans and the Bala would be separated, despite losing her dryad wife in the equation. Meanwhile, on their new (very pink) home, the Bala, under the unicorn leadership of Gary Cobalt and his father Findae, are trying to make the best of what turns out to be a difficult planet to make their home on. Throw in some continuing meddling from the Pymmie, the all-powerful third species who called this time-out in the first place, and the continuing interference of Cowboy Jim, the useful but awful white man from the first book who is now masquerading as a Reason officer, and you've got all the ingredients for a seriously packed sequel that lives up to the weirdness of its premise.

Five Unicorn Flush shines brightest in its characters. Jenny is a great protagonist, a deeply flawed mess of a woman whose past - especially with Gary - contains inexcusable crimes intertwined with moments of selfless brilliance. What's perhaps unusual about Jenny is her level of self awareness and how she processes her guilt, which separates her out from the mountains of thoughtless bringers of carnage or tortured yet righteous anti-heroes who somehow always find justification for continuing to do the things that caused their guilt. Jenny fought against the Bala, and exploited Gary, and now her regret means that she acts in different (though not any less reckless) ways towards other people and in pursuit of her goals. In the first book, Jenny's largely sympathetic portrayal grated on me, but I think the greater distance from the Bala and increased remorse in her point of view mitigates that - it also helps that the details of her history with Gary aren't spelled out in nearly as much detail this time around. The other thing that makes Jenny stand out is that she's disabled - left without the use of her legs after a wartime event - and now in chronic pain following a partial attempt by Gary to heal her. The narrative strikes a great balance between showcasing Jenny's talents and giving her a ton of ingenious action sequences while never letting us forget that, when the gravity is on, Jenny is a wheelchair user, with all the accessibility challenges that brings in the thoughtlessly designed environments of Reason ships. 

Compared to Jenny, Gary is a blander protagonist, though not to the point where his chapters are less enjoyable. The strength of his arc here lies in his understated but important interactions with his father, Findae, who has just returned to the Reason after a hundred year nap. Findae's expectations on how the Bala should live, up to and including the assumption that unicorns should remain benevolent but absolute rulers without consulting the opinions of the other groups they rule over, clash significantly with his son's experiences and attitudes towards leadership - and, of course, as Gary is only half-unicorn, he has a significantly harder time throwing that assumption of divine right around in the first place. Like in Space Unicorn Blues, Gary spends quite a lot of time getting told off, beaten up and even dissolved by acid, and while he comes out of these experiences physically unharmed (thanks to some immortal unicorn healing powers) the way he internalises and deals with being a punching bag psychologically makes his development here interesting to follow.

Unfortunately, Five Unicorn Flush's plotting doesn't quite live up to the promise of its main characters. Nearly half of the book is spent switching between Gary's relatively passive attempts to placate the rest of the Bala and encourage them to make a go of their new home rather than disappearing back into the stars, while Jenny engages in a technically plot-relevant but very sidequesty-feeling heist on a generation ship full of cannibals, which involves her getting frozen to near-death and shot out into space without a suit all in the space of a few short hours. While it's a fun sequence, especially with the interactions between Jenny, her ship's AI, and the AI of the ship they have entered -  it does slow the book down at the point where the plot could really do with some extra introductions to keep everything ticking. Once the heist is done - complete with introduction of an elf ghost who turns out to play quite an interesting role in the overall plot - and things heat up on the Bala's planet, Five Unicorn Flush does kick into gear, but it then has to contend with some rather left-field character reintroductions (yes, it's great to see Ricky from the first book again, but... she's been where this whole time? Really?) and yet more pointless-feeling sidequests before its eventual, slightly rushed climax. As a second book, much of Five Unicorn Flush's climax relies on developing emotional beats from its predecessor - and I can't imagine the heart of this book would work if you haven't been on the previous journey with Gary, Jenny and all - while also setting up some interesting plot hooks for further installments. That's all well and good, but it's a shame that it comes at the expense of this volume standing up well alone.

Despite this, Five Unicorn Flush is great entertainment, set in an imaginative universe that leans in to the absurdity of its premise while using it to interrogate high stakes scenarios with moral weight behind them. Like Tim Pratt's Axiom series (also published by Angry Robot, who clearly know what they're doing when it comes to this particular strand of science fiction), and Alex White's Salvagers, this is highly entertaining space opera with a nice mix of standard and novel plot elements that I'm still very much invested in for at least the next volume.

TJ Berry returns to fine form with Five Unicorn Flush, the sequel to the much beloved Space Unicorn Blues.

Having been sent with the rest of the magical Bala to a far-off planet, ostensibly safe from humans, Gary the half-unicorn is contending with mounting problems. Humanity had spent decades enslaving the Bala, even harvesting them for their body parts... but the new planet doesn't have television. Stranded with the tech they've become used to, the Bala are murmuring about revolt- there are no coffee shops around, after all, and no cell phones to call a friend.

Meanwhile, former Reason captain Jenny is desperately trying to seek the new Bala planet, longing to be reunited with her dryad wife. The path there is bumpy, paved with cannibals and familiar faces who seek the Bala for their own, sometimes nefarious reasons.

As with the previous book, this is a rollicking good time, liberally tinged with humor. It's less serious than the first, perhaps- there's death and destruction, but the tone is distinctly lighter, even as the stakes feel almost as heavy. The point of view has switched; there's less Gary the unicorn, and far more of Jenny. While she's an interesting character who I admire quite a bit, part of me missed seeing so much of Gary's internal thought processes; something about him felt more remote in this book than it had in the previous one.

That said, Berry still does an adept job of creating a wheelchair using character who kicks ass- her chair is a tool, rather than a burden, as too many authors tend to write.

The book is fast paced and difficult to put down. If there was ever a summer sci-fi beach read, this would be it.

This book picks up 6 weeks after Space Unicorn Blues ends and has all the same sass, adventure and fun as the first book!
I am now fully committed to reading anything T.J. Berry decides to write...
And I'm hoping with the way this ended she decides to write more in this series.

Thank you NetGalley and Angry Robot for this ARC.