I really have been enjoying the world of the Amaranthine Saga!
The author Forthright says that Marked by Stars is a short story but also states that iI really have been enjoying the world of the Amaranthine Saga!
The author Forthright says that Marked by Stars is a short story but also states that it is just under 20,000 words. That is the word count of a novella. When she has the fourth so-called short story finished, she plans to release all four under one cover. Which makes sense.
For me, I enjoyed the longer word count (short stories are normally under 7,500 words).
Marked by Stars gives some backstory in the world of the Amaranthine Saga. I'm hoping that the remaining three stories will do the same.
What this means is that it is set a few generations ago in the past, before the inhuman Clans revealed themselves to humans. I especially appreciated seeing the world just through Clan eyes to get a better feel for their life before interaction with the humans.
Highly recommended to Amaranthine Saga fans and fantasy fans in general!
Merged review:
I really have been enjoying the world of the Amaranthine Saga!
The author Forthright says that Marked by Stars is a short story but also states that it is just under 20,000 words. That is the word count of a novella. When she has the fourth so-called short story finished, she plans to release all four under one cover. Which makes sense.
For me, I enjoyed the longer word count (short stories are normally under 7,500 words).
Marked by Stars gives some backstory in the world of the Amaranthine Saga. I'm hoping that the remaining three stories will do the same.
What this means is that it is set a few generations ago in the past, before the inhuman Clans revealed themselves to humans. I especially appreciated seeing the world just through Clan eyes to get a better feel for their life before interaction with the humans.
Highly recommended to Amaranthine Saga fans and fantasy fans in general!...more
What a spectacular read! A total page-turner! And author D.L. Young respects physics! Like the Expanse, this book has no faster-than-light travel. (SuWhat a spectacular read! A total page-turner! And author D.L. Young respects physics! Like the Expanse, this book has no faster-than-light travel. (Sure, ships travel to different star systems routinely, but they use gates.)
I totally loved the characters in this novel. Fascinating well-drawn alien races. Our hero Jeryn is human, but his best friends are not.
And this book definitely reminded me of Memory of Empire by Arkady Martine. The Realm is a HUGE empire with the wealthy systems at its core and the systems at the outer fringes see little benefit from Realm rule. Plenty of Byzantine politics, though!
Highly recommended for exciting space opera, twists and turns you won't see coming, and found family!...more
I have really enjoyed the Icarus series by Timothy Zahn. These books are space opera PLUS murder mysteries. Our intrepid heroes Roarke & Selene are seI have really enjoyed the Icarus series by Timothy Zahn. These books are space opera PLUS murder mysteries. Our intrepid heroes Roarke & Selene are sent off on missions a la James Bond. Soon the bodies start dropping. It is up to Roarke to solve the puzzle of not only what is going on, but will they be next on the hit list? And can they beat their rival the alien Patth to the prize both races are desperately searching for?
We learn more about Selene's people in Icarus Changeling, book 5 in the Icarus Saga. Turns out that if a Kadolian loses his (or her) parents at a critical age, his (or her) socialization (yes, instilling a moral code of behavior) may not be completed. That child could go rogue and become a sociopathic killer, who the Kadolians call Changelings.
The action never stops, and the book keeps you guessing until the very end, as a good murder mystery does.
Highly recommended for all space opera fans, murder mystery fans, series fans, Timothy Zahn fans, and fans of books which respect other cultures. In other words, no cookie-cutter aliens but rather various alien species which have their own cultures and ways and are not JUST seen as "the villains" of the piece....more
Seven of Nine joined the Star Trek Voyager crew on the first episode of Voyager's fourth season, aired September 3, 1997.
This book was first publisheSeven of Nine joined the Star Trek Voyager crew on the first episode of Voyager's fourth season, aired September 3, 1997.
This book was first published as a mass market paperback by Pocket Books/Star Trek on September 1, 1998, and is the first full-length novel featuring Seven of Nine and her past.
I really enjoyed seeing Seven of Nine again on Star Trek: Picard. I enjoyed the Star Trek: Picard tie-in novel Firewall by David Mack which was about what happened with Seven of Nine after Voyager returned to Earth at the end of that series. How Seven joined the Fenris Rangers, etc.
This book is set shortly after the Voyager crew discover Seven of Nine's parents' ship the Raven, where six-year-old Annika Hansen (Seven) and her parents had been assimilated by the Borg.
This time Voyager comes across a vast empire in space. If they were not allowed to cross peaceably, it would take them a good year to go around this empire to continue their journey to the Alpha Quadrant & Earth. The crew runs into another group who says that they can get Captain Janeway an interview with the Emperor to ask for safe passage but they are refugees and need to ask Voyager to help them re-settle on a new planet after their own planet had been attacked and destroyed.
And so, the adventure begins. I don't want to say too much but Seven of Nine learns more about herself in this book and I'm glad that I had the chance to read it.
Highly recommended for all Star Trek: Voyager fans, fans of well-drawn alien species, and fans of a well-told tale!...more
Too many times I have bemoaned what appeared to be the FINAL book in a series only to happily discover, some years later, that the next book is about Too many times I have bemoaned what appeared to be the FINAL book in a series only to happily discover, some years later, that the next book is about to be published.
Amazon's blurb said, "the fourth and final installment of the Finder Chronicles". This time I hope that Amazon is wrong.
The Finder Chronicles have been a particular delight. Our protagonist, Fergus Ferguson, is really good at his job, which is finding that which has become lost. He also frequently finds himself in the middle of the action.
Amazon also describes this series as MacGyver meets Firefly.
As it happens, I never watched MacGyver, but its reputation is that give MacGyver a paperclip and some other unlikely tool, and he can get himself out of most any fix. Fergus also is an extremely gifted problem solver, and also uses whatever tools he or his companions have to hand.
Firefly is found family making the best of the few resources available to them, again like Fergus.
Highly recommended to fans of space opera, capers/heists, dealing with known & unknown alien races, and just a thumpingly enjoyable adventure tale!
One of my favorite sf series has always been Sector General by James White. These books were published between 1962 and 1999.
The premise of Sector GeOne of my favorite sf series has always been Sector General by James White. These books were published between 1962 and 1999.
The premise of Sector General was a Galactic hospital, designed to treat aliens of all races and needs. (For example, the methane-breathers had their own floor.)
Each section of the hospital, in fact, is tailored specifically to a particular habitat for its extra-terrestrial patients. Hospital staff also come from all races, human included.
I'm pleased to say that the Sector General series has been so well-regarded that an omnibuses (most contain 3 books) have appeared so that the series remains in print. (At least available from Amazon.com. Unfortunately, not all are in eBook editions.)
I have no idea if author Patrick Chiles was also a reader of the Sector General series, but he has captured the heart of it in Interstellar Medic.
An Earth EMS (yes, she rides with the firefighters on their fire engines) Melanie Mooney accidentally comes across an alien crash scene and thinks it is some kind of experimental or military plane crash. Her EMS instincts & training serve her well when she boards the stricken craft.
Mel gets visited later by Emissaries (extraterrestrials who specialize in First Contact) and invited to join the Galactic Union's Medical Corps as a medic.
Seems that most of the alien races are uncomfortable providing medical care to anyone not of their race. Mel, on the other hand, treats any and all beings as best she can. The aliens were particularly impressed with her empathy and willingness to help beings she had never encountered before.
And I have not even mentioned that Interstellar Medic does intersteller travel without exceeding the speed of light (that is, breaking physics as we understand it). OK, the Galactic Union DOES have an advanced understanding of physics but so many space opera books I read and enjoy have their starships jumping to warp speeds left and right. It is refreshing to see a series which includes dealing with relativistic time dilation for near light speed travel.
The Long Run is book one. I dearly hope that author Patrick Chiles is already at work on book two. He DID refer to the Long Run as the "first installment" and he HAS written other series.
Highly recommended for Sector General fans, hospitals/emergency medicine in space, series fans, and fans of character-driven action & stories! ...more
This is the second book where I had to shelve my preconceptions and just read the novella to see where the plot goes. But that's OK.
I know that authoThis is the second book where I had to shelve my preconceptions and just read the novella to see where the plot goes. But that's OK.
I know that author Alexis Glynn Latner writes hard sf, at the same time writing a romance (yes, boy meets girl), but you have to let the book tell the tale.
That said, I thoroughly enjoyed both the hard science in the setting, the romance, and the sheer adventure of Ms. Latner's books!
Halo Gate is an alien artifact. It kills the unwary who try to storm the gate. Yet people still feel compelled to see what is beyond this mysterious gate!
This is very much set in the same Starways series as Ms. Latner’s recent trilogy Witherspin, Starmaze, & Adversary. In fact, the NEXT Starways book picks up from where both Adversary AND Halo Gate left off.
Highly recommended to hard sf & space opera fans, romance fans, series fans, and fans of well-told tales set in space!
Gregory Roarke gets by on his wits AND sneaky planning. (By which I mean he takes actions offstage and then rolls the dice and What a satisfying read!
Gregory Roarke gets by on his wits AND sneaky planning. (By which I mean he takes actions offstage and then rolls the dice and hopes for the best.) Icarus Twin is the third book in this series. Icarus Hunt was written back in 1999. Then author Timothy Zahn was able to sell a trilogy to Baen: Icarus Plot, Icarus Twin, & Icarus Job. I was checking Fantastic Fiction today and, to my delight, there was now an additional listing for Icarus Changeling! So, I am a very happy camper!
The Icarus Hunt was Jordan McKell and his alien partner Ixil's book. (Not to worry. Jordan & Ixil appear in the rest of the books, too.) But beginning with Icarus Plot the main characters are Gregory Roarke and HIS alien partner Selene.
Ixil's superpower is that he has two symbionts Pix and Pax. Pix and Pax are about the size of ferrets and intelligent. Smart enough to scout for Ixil and report back exactly what they have seen and heard. Ixil gives them their instructions and then they carry them out.
Selene's superpower is that her sense of smell is at least 1000 times better than ours as humans. She can detect faint smells that humans have no hope of smelling AND she remembers what she smells permanently, no matter how long ago. So, she is a superb tracker, a walking bloodhound.
AND Gregory listens to his dad. Gregory's dad had a pithy aphorism for any and all occasions. I loved them. If you get tired of them, then this series is DEFINITELY not for you! (An example of an aphorism is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it.") In Icarus Twin, a few of the other characters join in the fun and give aphorisms that they imagine Gregory's dad would have said, too!
Suffice it to say, Gregory & Selene (as well as Jordan & Ixil) are in competition with a particular alien race for something they both want very much. Both are on the hunt, and both want to find the prize first! I particularly enjoyed Icarus Twin because Gregory teams up with one of the competitor aliens even though both agree that they are not friends and in fact are in deadly competition. But Gregory has a proposal, and it is in the alien's best interest, for now, to cooperate with him, warily of course.
Highly recommended for great worldbuilding, terrifically developed aliens of all races, the feel of James Bond (including plenty of fast action), and for all Timothy Zahn fans as well as series fans. You could possibly start with Icarus Twin, but I definitely recommend reading Icarus Hunt and Icarus Plot first. And hang on to your hat because Icarus Twin is a great ride!...more
Chaos Terminal is another fine outing in the Midsolar Murders series. Mallory Viridian feels off her game, but a killer is loose once again on EternitChaos Terminal is another fine outing in the Midsolar Murders series. Mallory Viridian feels off her game, but a killer is loose once again on Eternity Station. AND this time Mrs. Brown, the sentient station's host, has left for some badly needed host training leaving Mallory in charge.
Highly recommended for all space opera/murder mystery mash-up fans, fans of space station settings, and fans of well-developed alien species. ...more
If you have not read Network Effect (Murderbot Diaries, bk 5) yet or had not read it recently (it was published, after all, in 2020 and a lot has happIf you have not read Network Effect (Murderbot Diaries, bk 5) yet or had not read it recently (it was published, after all, in 2020 and a lot has happened since then), STOP. Read Network Effect. THEN you will be best prepared to read System Collapse (Murderbot Diaries, bk 7).
No kidding. Even the blurb on Amazon.com begins "Following the events in Network Effect...."
OK. Take it as a given that this is a terrific book. (Martha Wells wrote it, remember?)
At the end of Network Effect, ART's wormhole drive was damaged. So, yeah, Murderbot, ART, and both sets of humans are still on the planet with the alien contamination. However, this is still a good setting for this novel because, in System Collapse, we finally learn more about the Barish-Estranza Corporation and what they were doing on this planet. ART and its crew had come here for a reason, as well.
And I enjoyed the fact that there was on this one planet not only the failed Adamantine colony and its infrastructure but there was ALSO a pre-Corporate Rim (pre-CR) EARLIER installation and its infrastructure. (By spacefaring people who, of course, had technology as well.)
AND, just to make it more interesting, there is something wrong with Murderbot, so it is not functioning at 100% during most of this novel.
Highly recommended for snarky humor fans, space opera fans, series fans (especially Murderbot Diaries series fans), bot fans (yes, Murderbot is a construct, not just a bot), anthropology/archeology fans, action adventure fans, and fans of lots & lots of character-driven action!...more
This book gets off to a slow start because authors C.J. Cherryh & Jane Fancher wanted to give NEW readers a chance to enjoy a Foreigner book. This beiThis book gets off to a slow start because authors C.J. Cherryh & Jane Fancher wanted to give NEW readers a chance to enjoy a Foreigner book. This being book 22 and the previous Foreigner book being published in September 2020 [several years ago], I think giving new readers an entry point is worth the slow start.
When the book gets back to normal and Bren is ACTUALLY interacting once again with his bodyguard team (aishid), we are once again immersed in atevi politics. As we should be.
Bren is the only human on the atevi continent by treaty after the War of the Landing. Turned out that atevi and humans were mutually incomprehensible to one another. (Humans were colonists landed on the atevi planet by necessity and only later found out that they could not get along with the neighbors.)
Defiance, in particular, is Ilisidi's book. We get her backstory for the first time and we get to understand her point of view as someone raised outside of the aishidi'tat but ALSO as someone who has served as Regent to the aishidi'tat not just once but twice.
Also, Cajeiri [the other POV character, the atevi ruler's son and heir] is growing up. At nearly 10 years old, he is more mature than an average 10 year old human but certainly not yet an adult.
But old enough to recognize when his experiences have provided him perspectives not available to his father so Cajeiri uses his own initiative for the first time in this book.
Highly recommended to all series fans, all fans of First Contact tales, all Foreigner fans, and of course all C.J. Cherryh fans! ...more
A human mechanic who never really "fit in", a Presger Translator juvenile, and a human given an impossible task as her inheritance come together in thA human mechanic who never really "fit in", a Presger Translator juvenile, and a human given an impossible task as her inheritance come together in the latest Ann Leckie Radch universe standalone novel.
There is a good reason that this novel has 3 POV characters. Turns out that each is as important as the others and each offers a unique perspective. The wholly alien Presger remain offstage (serving effectively as the boogeyman in this novel) but they had crafted the "Presger Translator" race. Created beings whose sole function is to serve as intermediary between humans and the terrifyingly dangerous Presger. With Qven we see the lifecycle from birth to death firsthand.
Reet knows that he is adopted but finds out early that his DNA matches no one else on the space station. Apparently one day he arrived as an infant on some ship. His adoptive parents (who have no children of their own but many adopted children) found him and immediately wanted to take him in.
Reet knows that he is "different" but is he that different from the human norm?
Enae is the third POV character. She is immediately thrown out of her depth when, after her grandmother dies, she is sent to track down a fugitive missing for 200 years.
This book also takes a leaf out of Martha Wells' Murderbot series as Reet loves the serial Pirate Exiles of the Death Moons. It is his comforting escape from reality during his infrequent downtime. Qven becomes as hooked as Reet after Reet shows him the first episode or so. Again, as with Murderbot, Qven learns more about human society by watching the serial.
And this book is full of pronouns. The Radch universe has races (that is, beings) with multiple genders, not just the commonplace (for humans) he and she. This may trip up some readers, but the book is consistent with earlier Radch tales.
Highly recommended for space opera fans, mystery fans (who is Reet, anyway?), series fans, multiple alien race stories fans, and, of course, Radch fans!...more
And another finely crafted (and extremely satisfying) outing in this long-running science fiction mystery series!
Village in the Sky is the ninth book And another finely crafted (and extremely satisfying) outing in this long-running science fiction mystery series!
Village in the Sky is the ninth book in the Alex Benedict series. Set in the future, this is NOT a murder mystery series per se, but these books always have a complicated puzzle/mystery at its heart.
Previously, humans had encountered only ONE other intelligent race out there in the stars. Known as the Muties, the species gained this nickname because they ONLY communicate via telepathy. And, as you can imagine, humans are uncomfortable in the presence of mind-readers.
Until a human explorer vessel returns to report an encounter with a SECOND alien race.
Star Trek has the famous Prime Directive. You don't make contact. You don't tell the aliens that they are not alone in the universe. You don't interfere. In this series, it is much the same except it is called the Spaulding Mandate. No contact, etc.
The returning ship had taken photographs and had watched the aliens from afar. Then, obeying the rules, they returned home to report their discovery.
Obviously a second human ship was dispatched.
Except when the second ship arrived, the village spotted by the first ship was GONE. Lock, stock, and barrel. The second ship, having no clue what happened [had the village been attacked & vaporized by an unknown third race?], returned home to report what they had found or rather NOT FOUND.
Our protagonist Alex Benedict and his archeological crew (think Indiana Jones) decide to make one more trip to the planet to try to solve the mysterious disappearance of the alien village. This book is the tale of that third ship and what they found.
Highly recommended for hard sf fans, space archeology fans, series fans, and, of course, Alex Benedict series fans!...more
This masterfully crafted, tightly plotted gem of a series is the best (or certainly among the best) space opera series that I have ever read!
Duty, honThis masterfully crafted, tightly plotted gem of a series is the best (or certainly among the best) space opera series that I have ever read!
Duty, honor, passion in spades! Star-crossed lovers one doomed to rule and the other doomed to never socially be her equal.
The entire Imperials Saga series revolves around Tracy, the common citizen and Mercedes, heir to the empire. And the first woman admitted to The High Ground (this society's version of West Point, the military academy). Mercedes had to attend the High Ground because that was a requirement for the throne after her father died. This society’s rulers were also required to be military leaders.
I also loved that this series assumes that the leaders of humanity look to Spain as their ancestor with the Spanish aristocracy and its titled nobility as the social hierarchy. And, of course, the Catholic Church.)
Mercedes totally loves Tracy but knows he would never be accepted by the hidebound aristocracy that runs the empire. Boho is a member of that aristocracy but is so narcissistic that he really loves no one except himself. He has plenty of hate, though. Hate for Tracy because Tracy has his wife Mercedes' heart.
Five book series, the last two of which had to be published by a small specialty publisher Prince of Cats Literary Productions because the traditional publisher Titan Books bailed.
Titan Books issued the first book The High Ground in 2016, the second book In Evil Times in 2017, and the third book The Hidden World in 2018. Then stopped. Evidently Titan Books felt like the books weren't selling well enough to keep going, no matter that the tale was barely halfway through. I was further shocked that my public library never bought the final two books. So far as the library catalog shows, the series was just a trilogy.
Prince of Cats Literary Productions published the fourth book Currency of War in 2021, followed by the fifth and final book Thucydides Trap in 2023.
I am so grateful that I now live in a time when after authors get dropped by traditional publishers that there are still ways to publish the final books in a series!! Other than specialty publishers such as Prince of Cats Literary Productions the last resort is for the author to just publish the book himself/herself.
So, I do end up reading self-published books. For the most part, these are authors whose career began with traditional publishing and then that traditional publisher said sorry. No more books from you because the sales did not meet our commercial expectations.
So the author either finds a small publisher or a specialty publisher or rolls up his (or her) sleeves and just does self-publishing. I DO have a few favorite authors who do self-publishing by choice. But not the majority of my favorite authors.
Book five Thucydides Trap is highly recommended for Imperials Saga fans, Melinda M. Snodgrass fans, all space opera fans, and fans of a thumping good story told exceptionally well!!
I have always been partial to sf tales with plenty of well-drawn aliens. Station Eternity not only has aliens, but it was buiWhat a terrific whodunit!
I have always been partial to sf tales with plenty of well-drawn aliens. Station Eternity not only has aliens, but it was built by & is staffed with aliens!
Particularly giant aliens whose idea of human furniture makes the humans feel that they are back in preschool, as one alien race is over twice their size.
It turns out that all of the other sentient races have symbionts. So, the aliens have a difficult time understanding how humans can get through life without a symbiont.
Death, in particular murder, follows human protagonist Mallory Viridian at every turn. No, she is not a serial killer. She just seems to have a life which is "murder adjacent". AND it turns out that Mallory has been fairly successful in solving these murders which seem to follow in her wake.
The move to the alien space station Eternity was supposed to leave Death behind. This strategy worked well enough until a shuttle full of humans is sent from Earth.
Did I mention that the station is sentient and touches the mind of each sentient being before allowing that entity to board the station?
No one on the station knew that the human shuttle was coming. Then the shuttle was destroyed while it was still on approach to Station Eternity.
Highly recommended for both mystery & sf fans, especially sf fans who enjoy otherworld settings!...more
Well, Charlie Jane Anders sure found an original way to get the parents out of the picture, which is the first task of a YA author.
Tina Mains was broWell, Charlie Jane Anders sure found an original way to get the parents out of the picture, which is the first task of a YA author.
Tina Mains was brought to Earth as a baby and given into the care of an Earth woman who was told to raise Tina as her own but let Tina know that she has an interplanetary rescue beacon implanted in her that will go off once she is old enough. Tina is NOT actually human but has been made to appear human to fit in while she is growing up on Earth.
The space aliens will return and collect her once alerted by the rescue beacon. They need her back because she is the clone of a famed space alien hero, and the war is going badly.
The day the rescue beacon goes off, Tina is with her best friend Rachel, and both are collected by the space aliens. Instead of returning Rachel to Earth, the space aliens admit that they had had an app all this time testing young humans to see if any might be genius enough to join their crew (as was noted earlier the war is going poorly and they are desperate for new recruits, too. Shades of The Last Starfighter where the needed pilot was found because he beat the game set up by the aliens).
Four more teens are brought to the ship and the chase is on (because, of course, the bad guys were on the lookout for that same interplanetary rescue beacon and DON'T want the space alien hero to return)!
One of my favorite things about reading science fiction, especially space opera, is space aliens done well. This book not only has aliens done well but I loved their culture, their customary greetings and the correct responses. Turns out that Tina recognizes everything on the ship and knows what to say when given a ritual greeting.
I also loved the space aliens' tech. They don't use transporters to beam to a planet's surface. And they don't use shuttles. I really enjoyed that the space aliens' tech could do stuff we don't normally see on Star Trek or the usual space opera books.
The space aliens (and Tina) assumed that once Tina was recovered that she would ALSO have all of the space alien hero's personal memories but, nope. She is still just Tina, an Earth teen.
Highly recommended for all who enjoy YA books (teens figuring out who they are and what they want in life, etc.), space opera, and cool alien tech! AND this book is book 1 of the Unstoppable Trilogy: Victories Greater than Death (2021), Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak (2022), and Promises Stronger Than Darkness (upcoming in 2023)! ...more
I enjoy a story with a juxtaposition of cultures. I particularly enjoyed Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
In Elder Race, Earth decided to send out batI enjoy a story with a juxtaposition of cultures. I particularly enjoyed Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
In Elder Race, Earth decided to send out batches of colonists to various planets. MUCH LATER, it sent out scientists to observe these colonies (who had long since lost contact with Earth) to see how they were doing. This is the story of the last Earth crew member left on this particular planet (his three other crew mates had gone back to Earth when word had come that Earth was in trouble). Three hundred years have now passed, and our crew member has resigned himself to most likely never hearing anything from Earth again.
The one-time colonists have an origin story that tells how the ancients brought them through the sky to this planet. So, they know that they originally did come from someplace else. Currently we have a medieval culture where when evil wizards arise, the prince of the blood (as it were) goes forth with his sword and vanquishes them. This being a matriarchal society, in this case a princess of the blood has taken up her sword.
The Earth crewman is known as a great wizard who helped the princess's grandmother defeat the last evil wizard. This time the foe is a demon laying waste to the countryside.
The Earth crewman finally agrees to help the princess but insists that he is a scientist (actually an anthropologist, second class), not a wizard. But he also realizes that in the princess's language, scientist is translated as wizard, so he is stuck.
I really enjoyed the relationship between the reluctant Earth "wizard" and the princess (who finally admits that not only did her mother the queen not send her on this quest with her blessing but up until now our princess had mostly been seen as a great disappointment to her mom).
Highly recommended for fantasy fans, fans of hard sf/space opera, and fans of adventures well told! ...more
Stephanie is the ancestor to Honor Harrington, the main protagonist of David Weber's world. By the time ofYay for another Stephanie Harrington novel!
Stephanie is the ancestor to Honor Harrington, the main protagonist of David Weber's world. By the time of Honor Harrington, treecats had just been recognized as sentient and Persons in their own right.
Stephanie, on the other hand, had first discovered treecats four years ago by the time of this novel. She had been eleven then. She is fifteen now, going on sixteen. So, she and her friends have to do their best to be sure that the rest of the planet never find out that treecats are indeed sentient and very much Persons in their own right.
This book explored new territory. At the beginning of the book, one of the treecats was one of a longtime bonded pair. His mate was dying from the gray death (not too dissimilar to our pandemic). Anyway, frequently in such cases, the bereaved mate dies soon afterward as well.
But that did not happen in this case. Instead, our treecat recovered BUT lost the ability to communicate telepathically with his fellow treecats. The overwhelming pity he felt from his family & friends made him strike out on his own as a loner, no matter that treecats are very social animals and live in families.
The good news is that this same widowed treecat ends up bonding with one of Stephanie's friends, a girl named Cordelia. Humans, nonnative to the planet Sphinx, have very strong "mindglows" that closely resemble treecat mindglows. So, our treecat has found a new mate, except Cordelia is of another species (human).
Humans, of course, are NOT telepathic and rely on what the treecats call "mouth noises". Since the treecats only say "Bleek" (not too dissimilar to Groot's "I am Groot"), treecats do not rely on spoken language. At all.
So, it is fascinating watching our "crippled" treecat whose fellow treecats try to work around the fact that this treecat cannot share his thoughts in the usual way at the same time as the newly adopted treecats try to work out ways to communicate with their new human bondmates.
And most of these new bondmates are teenage girls, at that. (Here and there treecats have, in fact, also bonded with adult humans.)
So, I totally enjoyed this book.
This series (about Stephanie) is coauthored by Jane Lindskold. David Weber totally needed Jane's input because Jane (unlike Mr. Weber) HAD at one time been a teenage girl herself and so could more realistically portray the thoughts and actions of teen girls.
Fortunately for me, more Stephanie Harrington books are in the pipeline! ...more
I enjoy reading books set in other cultures. I had not read that many set in Chinese culture.
Iron Widow is a young adult Wow! What a debut novel!
I enjoy reading books set in other cultures. I had not read that many set in Chinese culture.
Iron Widow is a young adult book. This book CLEARLY has an agenda. Our protagonist Zetian is a young woman who wants to know why boys are treated better than girls. There is a war on. The war is fought using these large, mechanized robots. It takes two to pilot each robot. A boy and a girl. Except the boys survive the battles and most girls don't.
And, at home, parents prize their sons. Daughters are no use except that if the daughter is a robot pilot and dies in battle, the parents are paid a hefty death benefit. Zetian's older sister joins the army but somehow dies BEFORE going into battle. So, the parents did not get paid.
Zetian vows vengeance for her sister's death and joins the army, too, determined to kill the boy robot pilot responsible for her sister's death. Surprisingly, Zetian survives her first battle as a robot girl pilot.
This book has action aplenty and Zetian is on a mission! Highly recommended for fans of urban fantasy, how a society treats girls versus boys, and people who enjoy a fast read that grabs you and doesn't let you go until the last page!
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