#RRSciFiMonth: Koko Takes a Holiday by Kieran Shea
Sci-Fi Month is a month-long blog event hosted by Oh The Books and Rinn Reads this year, created to celebrate everything amazing about science fiction! From TV shows to movies, books to comics, and everything else in between, it is intended to help science fiction lovers share their love and passion for this genre and its many, many fandoms.
Koko Takes a Holiday by Kieran Shea
Genre: Science Fiction
Series: Stand Alone
Publisher: Titan (June 10, 2014)
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Mogsy’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Don’t let my middling rating fool you, because I really did enjoy this book. It was like eating a big bowl of popcorn for lunch; sure, you didn’t really get much out of it, but boy, it filled you up nicely and gobbling it down felt so wickedly good and yummy. Like a B-action movie, I don’t think Koko Takes a Holiday will stay with me for any significant length of time, but it was some great pulpy fun while it lasted.
The book takes place five hundred years from now, starring ex-merc Koko Martstellar who has retired from the hired soldier gig to run a brothel at the tropical archipelago resort known as The Sixty Islands. A place for tourists to indulge in their sexual simulated violent fantasies, the SI is rather like a playground for adults and Koko’s taking full advantage of the decadent life, surrounded by her boytoys and booze. She figures, what the hell, she’s having a good time and she’s earned her rest.
But then an old comrade-in-arms had to show up and ruin it all. Portia Delacompte, former-mercenary-turned-corporate-bigwig, blazes into town with a mind to see Koko dead. With her bar and brothel utterly destroyed by Portia’s deadly hired goons, so ends the good times for Koko, who is forced to take a holiday from her holiday to escape being hunted by her ex-buddy. But Koko, the very picture of a kickass heroine, hasn’t forgotten the tricks of her old trade – and she isn’t going to go down without a fight.
A lot of people have said this book reminds them of a graphic novel, for good reason, and not just because of the eye-catching art style on that fantastic cover. More likely it’s due to the story itself being very fast-paced, action-filled, and quite heavy on the dialogue. However, Shea’s descriptions of the various extraordinary and outlandish places also make it easy for the reader to picture his world in their mind’s eye. The very nature of the novel’s futuristic setting lends itself to this; it’s a high-tech dystopia with rampant corruption and depravity, and it’s also disturbingly vivid.
As you would expect, there’s nothing deep here. Koko Takes a Holiday goes for fast, shameless fun and it achieves that marvelously. You won’t be able to stop yourself from turning those pages. Delightfully unrestrained and bombastic, the book is heavy on violence and explosions but light on plot and characters, but hey, sometimes that’s exactly what you need.
I had a good time with this book, but admittedly the experience is already fading fast. Summer is long behind us now, but I would recommend this if you’re in need of a good beach read type of book, or just something like this to pick you up on a crappy day. It’s hard to go wrong with something this high-energy and entertaining.
The BiblioSanctum 
This one sounds interesting and different and I’m curious to see how it makes people think of graphic novels. I may not be a big reader of sci-fi but this one is intriguing. maybe.
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Despite this being sci-fi, I think it’s meant to appeal to a wider audience. Pretty much anyone who likes action and pomp 🙂
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beach book *looks outside* Oh I wish it was beach weather 😉
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You and me both!
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I think I would like this one. I like popcorn sometimes, currently reading Warhammer 40k stuff which is 100% popcorn. And sci-fi. HEY! I can count it, right?
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Oh yeah, this is one most people will like. It’s got quite a mainstream feel for spec fic.
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This title caught my eye earlier when I visited Not Yet Read this morning to enter their Grateful Giveaway, so your timing couldn’t have been better! I’m in need of some fictional popcorn, and the summer aspect is a nice bonus, especially when snow is in the forecast.
Carmel @ Rabid Reads.
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Heh heh, tropical island debauchery galore in this 😛
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ooo then I’m glad you still enjoyed it. It sits on my shelf and stares at me and I totally love a good popcorn read sometimes! We don’t always need to get deep.
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If you do decide to pick it up, it goes real fast, so there’s that!
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I think we all love a good old ‘no brainer’ popcorn style book. What’s wrong with that anyway! The cover is so eye catching – I love the hair colour.
Lynn 😀
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Fast shameless fun, yeah, that sounds good. Plus, I wish I had her hair. 🙂
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@lynnsbooks and @Lisa – yeah, totally, I won’t deny that the blue hair had a role in enticing me to pick this one up 😉
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Nice analogy! 🙂 At first I was wondering where the scifi was in this description. I’m glad to hear about the future tech and environments. Sometimes a brainless book is just what I want.
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Right, you wouldn’t think sci-fi right away just looking at the cover 🙂
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The Sixty Islands sound quite a bit like Sextillion from the Saga series, and those scenes are always good for a laugh/biting social commentary. Sometimes you need a good ol’ fashioned guilty pleasure (my reading is like 25% guilty pleasures) and this sounds like a perfect choice! Maybe it’ll be a good read over my winter break from school.
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