Self-Review – Eros vs. Thanatos

Review – Eros vs. Thanatos

In part, I admit I wrote Eros vs. Thanatos to get out of having to come up with a whole new plot for NaNoWriMo 2024.

But it was also because I wanted to give Peri Martin a better fleshed-out backstory. And, I wanted to really show Charlie Hollis alive. This helps to give more dimension to her character and the Obolonk universe as a whole.

Background

One great part of this story (for me, anyway) is being able to show Peri and Charlie actually working together. I also used it as an opportunity to reveal just how hot guns came to be.

This story also serves to bridge between The Dust Between Our Stars (first contact) and The Obolonk Murders. In the latter, it’s obvious that we have been in a society with aliens and semi-sapient robots for a while.  But how did we get there? In part, this story fills in the reader.

Plot

It’s a time of change. As a condition of getting her divorce from Anil Deshpande, Detective Sergeant Peri Martin trades her engagement ring for the deed to the downtown Boston apartment. When her department partner, Vic Frontieri, retires to an orb in the Uranian System, she gets a new partner, Charlie Hollis.

Peri navigates a mixed-up work and at times romantic relationship with sometimes-married Charlie while they deal with rival gangs blowing each other away with a new weapon, the hot gun.

Personal flamethrowers are the nastiest feature of Pandora’s box. It doesn’t help that the talented engineer making these weapons even more lethal is mob princess Kiki Madden.

Can Peri and Charlie stop the gang war and rein in the arms race before everyone’s remains end up small enough to fit into a ring box?

And speaking of rings, will a mutual love of an obscure fandom bring together Kiki and Burnside mob scion Marius Burnside—and maybe bring about peace?

All’s fair in love and engineering.

Characters in Eros vs. Thanatos

The characters are Peri Martin, Charlie Hollis, Dennis Dolan, Greg Shapiro, and other members of the New England Meg Police Department. Other characters include mobster Dutch Burnside; his son Marius; and his ex-wife Noreen. Also, rival mobster Melinda Killeen Madden; her husband Philip Madden; their daughter Kenisia (Kiki); and witness Nate Johnson.

There are also some moments with Anil Deshpande, Sudarshana Deshpande, Doug Anderson, and an Obolonk named Method (They Say This One is Very Methodical).

Memorable Quotes

The next morning, Peri was awoken by a ringing in her left ear. This was nothing unusual, for she had had a mini-phone implanted in her ear for years. Groggily, she flipped a small switch behind her earlobe. “Hello?” She yawned.

“This is Bettybot One Four Six. I have a Mrs. Sudarshana Deshpande to speak with you.”

“A robot is calling? What?” Peri tried to shake the cobwebs.

“The connection is being slightly delayed as a courtesy since it is before your stated awake time. If the connection is refused, this robot will inform your caller and will take a message of no more than one thousand characters or fifty words, whichever is longer.”

“Oh, um, yeah. Put her through, I guess.” Peri glanced at her tablet. The time was 6:23 AM. She blinked several times. Oh yeah, Mumbai-Bangkok is ten hours later than here.

There was a click and then an annoyed woman’s voice with a moderately heavy Indian accent. “Perdita! Why didn’t you pick up right away?”

Peri winced at the use of her full name. I don’t even like it when Mom and Dad call me that. “Oh, er, hi, Sudarshana. What a less than pleasant surprise. It’s not even six-thirty here.”

“Oh. Well, it’s almost four-thirty here and your time zone is nonsense anyway.”

“What do you want?” Peri whined.

“What?”

“Your demands. What are your demands this time?”

“Demands? I do not make demands.”

“You only call me whenever you want something. In case you hadn’t noticed, Anil and I are no longer married. Why didn’t you call him at this ungodly hour instead?”

“My son is busy.”

“Yeah, busy boffing my replacement, in our apartment downtown, to boot.”

Rating for Eros vs. Thanatos

The story has a strong MA rating. Peri and Charlie deal with some extremely dangerous people, and the deaths and injuries are particularly gruesome. I am not kidding.

Takeaways

I love writing Peri, so picking up her story again was like coming home. As for Charlie, he was a revelation. He’s just as much of a jackass as I had originally wanted him to be, but he’s also truly skilled. And smart.

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