walkitout | Entries tagged with sf

OK, first things first. There’s a really complicated rape in this book. And the whole existence of the main character is a quite epic consent violation. This thing needs a lot of information provided on the tin that I didn’t look for in advance. Given the time frame it was written, this is not hugely surviving, and I’m still uncertain whether I will read any of the subsequent novels, but I am for sure going to take a good hard look at a lot of spoiler ridden reviews first.

SPOILERS!

Here is my contribution.

I’ve been working through kindle unlimited backlog selections, with mixed to negative results. After Nourse’s _The Bladerunner_ (DNF), I decided to look around for medical science fiction written by women with women viewpoint characters. Oh look! Here’s one!

Cherijo Grey Veil is nominally the daughter but actually the modified clone of her “father”, Joseph Grey Veil. She learns about how she came into existence, is completely appalled, and plots her escape. Little does she know that the recently deceased Maggie, the closest thing she had to a maternal figure, and her “father”, both know that she has learned all this stuff, and in fact her “escape” is part of a continuation of her tightly controlled existence.

Cherijo goes to a frontier planet and gets a job working as a doctor in an understaffed colony. She meets Kao, who Chooses her, and a variety of other people including the extremely problematic linguist / Terran / all around oddball Duncan Reever. Nominally Reever will become her rapist, but he’s under the control of an infecting sentient species called The Core at the time, so it’s honestly as much a violation of him as it is of her. I did mention that it was a very complicated rape. Good news, Cherijo’s immune system takes out every last Core particle that infects her. The rest of them try to have her convicted of murder, but she points out that they killed even more sentients than she killed Core so everyone withdraws their charges.

Then Dear Old Dad and the League that Terra belongs to decides that Cherijo doesn’t count as sentient herself, because of the manner in which she came into existence (neither natural nor an authorized pathway) and because she has been under the control of her creator (Joseph) her entire life. Kao is at death’s door, but his Clan has come to claim him and protect her. Kao’s last words are delivered via Reever, and Cherijo gets off of K2 and even gets to stay with her cat, her Chakacat friend, and the pilot who she hired to take her to K2. This, however, leads to a breach between the League and his people, and the book ends with an absolute wild price on Cherijo’s head and anyone who helps her. This in no way slows down her adoptive Clan, but definitely complicates everyone’s life.

All through this, Cherijo is busy being a doctor as a way of ignoring her awful, lonely life. By the time she’s on the Clan’s ship, tho, she’s being bullied into taking better care of herself much more effectively. An empath on K2 tried to do this, but for a variety of reasons it kept going weird.

Oh, and Cherijo gets a message from the deceased Maggie, and then further subliminally embedded messages and all kinds of other weirdness. Clearly, the next few books are going to get successively nuttier, if this beginning is any indication.

So many problems here! First off, that rape. Second, the powerful father who is so ludicrously powerful. It really teeters between believable and not. His contribution medically was to make it so no one ever really needed an organ from anyone else (and thus no rejection issues), so you can kinda see why people are willing to remunerate him so extensively. And it’s also clear he’s ludicrously good and manipulating people albeit more by being a bully than by being charming. I came her for medical SF, and what I got was Chosen One in multiple flavors. Off to read reviews of book 2!

ETA:
Interesting review of what I just read — no real arguments with the summation here, altho obviously, we have different feelings about SF in general.

https://www.thebooksmugglers.com/2010/09/guest-dare-stardoc-by-s-l-viehl.html

ETAYA:

OK, as expected, this thing gets increasingly unhinged for another 9 books before having some kind of time travel event and ending. I’m … not that interested. I mean, twenty years ago, there’s a decent chance I would have absolutely devoured this thing but no. Not right now. Off to go find more medical SF that is a little less frenetically complicated!

AHOY THERE KRIKETS! There might be spoilers ahead.

Anyway.

This is the second book in a series in which young women from Earth are grabbed by people from the UC and then complicated things happen. The women help free powerful AIs embedded in powerful armed spaceships from their Tecran masters, and even more complicated things happen. Michelle Diener reminds me a lot of Jenny Schwartz (if I were to learn they were in fact the same person, I would be utterly unsurprised and totally satisfied, altho I actually do not believe they are).

I don’t normally like women in jeopardy books, especially ones where the women keep being put in jeopardy, but honestly, I’m really enjoying this version of it. Especially Chapter 40 in Dark Deeds, in which Fee (short for Fiona) goes out for a walk in the market trying to get kidnapped by the same people who kidnapped Hal (the person she has a Thing with). First, her previous bodyguards snatch her. She explains what she is doing and carries on. Then some rando grabs her and dumps her and leaves. She removes herself from that location, because she’s pretty sure that’s the wrong person, but she can always put herself back there as needed. She finally gets grabbed by the person she was angling for. And I’m sitting here laughing my ass off about the whole thing. Apparently, women in jeopardy who give better than they get are something I truly enjoy.

This is the first book in the Menopausal Superheroes series, and it’s worth pointing out that the ending is at least cliffhanger-adjacent. It’s not _so_ cliffhanger that it’s intolerable to stop at the end (OMG she’s dangling from a tree that is coming out by the roots over a deep canyon!), but it doesn’t feel like closure. That could be a good thing — there are multiple books in the series already out so more to read! Or it could be a less-than-great thing.

There are multiple women characters occupying a spectrum from gleefully evil through complicatedly evil and into different flavors of well-meaning but often annoying and ineffective, well-meaning bull in a china shop, etc. There are not very many male characters — one woman has two young sons, and another character is married to a man who appears on page. Other men exist in this book, but tend to be off-page (another husband, an ex-husband, etc.).

Hey, Spoilers! Get lost if that’s a problem!

There’s a mad scientist (complicatedly evil character), who is Asian. She does biological science-y stuff (glowing animals, type of thing) and starts making soaps, lotions, teas, woo woo stuff to help people with stuff that Western Medicine is bad at. But the stuff she makes has weird effects on some of the people who use it, so Cindy Liu, Mad Scientist, is the origin story for our various women developing superpowers. There’s a ton of really great stuff going on here, over and above Menopausal Women! First, the whole soaps/lotions/teas/coop/anti-Western Medicine thing is presented from a ton of different perspectives, through the eyes of the characters. That whole element of our culture gets a lot of authorial menace or authorial support if present at all in fiction; here, it gets wild-validation from the author (It Definitely Does Stuff), but the emotional and judgement type responses by various characters are just all over the place. I really liked that.

Linda, the Hispanic woman married to an on-page man, David, uses a soap and it turns her into a man. Once it is clear the change is permanent, she uses the name Leonel, buys clothes, gets her hairstyle adjusted, etc. The responses of her adult children and grandchildren are complicated and presented as complicated, and the adjustment in the marriage likewise. All that was great. But what a weird take on transitioning. It isn’t just involuntary, either — Leonel is over a foot taller than Linda was, and extremely buff. This is a fantasy, and there’s latitude for doing this. It’s just so weird. Linda’s perspective on having a penis is very hilarious. And if you are having, But You’re Deadnaming Leonel! Welp, not really. If you are looking for trans representation in fiction, this probably is not it, but it is a really interesting take on transitioning, identity, involuntarily looking a certain way to the world when you really, really, really don’t feel that way, etc.

Will I read more in this series? I honestly don’t know. The author was on a panel at RavenCon — I don’t know if I ever would have heard of her otherwise, and I stopped and chatted with her in Author Alley. She’s nice, and smart and had a really interesting perspective on writing that I was glad to hear, both in the panel and in our conversation. I inflicted my question about reuse in writing, intentional or otherwise, on her and she was a good sport about it, saying that when she is writing she is also thinking about and chewing on things in her own head and so those will naturally tend to come out in the books she is writing while she is thinking about those things. Very insightful, and obvious only in retrospect.

If you are thinking of going to a con, and you see that she will be on panels there, go and listen to her! She’s great. And if you think these books sound fun, give them a try. The first one was enjoyable, and while I read it slowly (because I was really trying to attend to a lot of details in how the book was put together), I think it would be a fast read for most readers. The chapters are short so the book is easily interrupted and then picked up again (thank you, Ms. Bryant!!! That’s what our lives are like!). The characters are drawn crisply but with compassion and nuance, so you’re never going, but who is Patricia again? You know. The voice shifts from one character to another by chapter, and that works very smoothly for the most part.

The nature of the story is not exactly like, but is reminiscent of, James Alan Gardner, especially _They Promised Me the Gun Wasn’t Loaded_ / _All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault_ (Sparks and Darks), with a sprinkling of _Commitment Hour_.

I think this is the wrap up of the Genesis Fleet series by Jack Campbell aka John Hemry. I would not recommend starting with this book. It has a

SPOILERS

Super awesome epilogue in which Tanya and Jack from the original series that this series is a prequel to, are chit chatting about this book / series, which is referred to as an unpublished memoir by Mele Darcy, IIRC. I get a pretty good kick out of authors tying their universes together through genealogy, which is basically what happened here.

Lochan Nakamura gets to Eire and convinces Eire to cough up a couple warships, along with a bonus from Benten. We also learn a bit more about the relationship between Freya Morgan and Eire (ha ha ha ha). Anyway. They go back to Kosatka, but Carmen Ochoa and company have wrapped up the last of the invaders in Ani, so the four warships head over to Glenlyon, in time to rescue Saber, and Mele Darcy and company on the station (she must be getting awful tired to extended Last Stands on orbital stations. Altho she is getting really good at it).

The attacking mercenaries at Glenlyon, while extremely by the book, are better behaved than the people who showed up at Kosatka. A lovely little deal is cut to let them leave with all their weapons to go unleash unholy hell on their nominal employers at Hesta. Meanwhile, before they get to Hesta in a freighter and therefore at risk from any remaining warships of Apulu, Turan, etc. there, the Eire ships, the Benten ship and the Shark all sweep through to clean out the last of the pirates, enabling trade to re-open.

Really pretty hilarious that when the joint fleet shows up at Kosatka, they really do arrive with chocolate and coffee.

I sort of wished that Jayne Redman had turned out to be either completely faking her resume and/or fronting for bad guys from Apulu or whatever, but no such luck.

I will happily read more in this universe. I really enjoy reading this author.

This is not new — it has been out for several years. It has a fairly favorable review at SB (rated B):

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/collision-course-by-zoe-archer-a-guest-review-by-carrie-s/

Probably you should just read that review, but here are a few thoughts from me, anyway.

Wow, this is super claustrophobic in terms of casting! Heroine is arrested and threatened with prosecution but she can avoid all that unpleasantness by piloting Hero into dodgy section of space and helping him find

OKAY LET’S GET ONE THING STRAIGHT HERE. THE DANGER IS NOT FROM THE PROTOPLANETS. YOUR HAZARD HERE IS NOT THE STORM ON TATOOINE, ER, MOS EISLEY, ER, WTF. NO, YOUR RISK HERE IS SPOILERS.

As long as everyone is now gone, I will continue in my non-shouty voice.

and rescue his coworker, ex-lover, hot shot pilot / fighter Celene Jur, a name which for unknown reasons I persistently confuse with Juul, which is something else entirely. And her ship. Or, destroy the ship and maybe all of them if rescue becomes impossible.

Of course, it isn’t presented in quite this much detail — some of those bits are saved for dramatic effect _after_ Our Dear Couple Has, Er, Coupled.

There is Backstory! Oh, My, Goddess, is there backstory. But first, honestly, the bit where they deal with contraception and disease transmission is, truly, awesome. Every bit as awesome as the review led me to believe. Really, I read this thing BECAUSE of that exchange — quoted in full in the review — and it was completely worthy. I did not snort tea, and I am not sleep deprived, but that was fantastic. More of that in SF / romance mashups, please! Heck, just more of that!!

Thing I really could have done without, but probably _would not_ have skipped the novel to avoid: Mara is a Princess. An exiled, tortured Princess. Now, if I had that as my background, it would seriously derail my turned-on-ed-ness if a lover, having heard that sad sad backstory, then called me Princess. I don’t want to be called JW in moments of intimacy, and honestly, the Princess thing has that level of toxic cult crazy surrounding it (possibly worse, since scarring physical torture was deployed to try to get her to marry the person she was supposed to marry at 16 or whatever).

All that aside, I sort of liked the idea that Mara is a serial Time To Move On type. She left her home planet, and just because The Awful happened for a bit, didn’t mean she went back with her tail between her legs to marry the idiot and participate in the oppression back hom. She became a somewhat confusingly well-behaved and well-respected smuggler and scavenger. And then, when she was offered the opportunity to engage in a Worthy War against more Awful, with her new Hot Boyfriend, she took it. Which seems pretty legit, since he was willing to go to a lot of effort to rescue an ex-lover, and they were able to work together cordially, and the ex- treated Mara well. This is a guy worth dating, if only because he’s a Decent Sort if it ends.

So: highly trope-y (dodgy heroine and more or less as dodgy hero go on road trip to rescue his ex-girlfriend so they can all go on to Fight the Good Fight against the Big Bad). Wildly implausible in so, so, so many ways. A moral system that is risible (so, we don’t kill the guy who recognizes the Hero, because, that wouldn’t be right, but we _do_ kill untold numbers of people in the shooting alley? Hmmmmm. Okay).

I don’t regret reading it. #33.

OK, bought this because I saw an ad on SBTB, and boy, I won't be doing that again. Poor choices! At a third of the way in, I started turning pages as quickly as I could. At halfway through, I was really wondering why I was continuing, but figured, meh, it'll deliver an HEA. At 3/4s of the way through, I said to myself, Self, this is the first entry in a trilogy, and I haven't read a review I trust of this thing to ensure an HEA or even a satisfying holding point at the end of book one. Let's go look.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Goodreads review by someone I don't know a thing about is the only indicator I can find of someone even finishing the book, and that person said "vicious cliffhangar". Yeah. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nopity Nope.

Things wrong with this book.

Main male protagonist / love interest / wtf experiencing stress and tension goes off to vision [ETA: don't know what happened there -- should have been "visit"] a pleasure droid. He comes three times. When he is finally done, he notices he has completely destroyed the droid.

Earth is cold. The scientists who fixed global warming overshot. Core temperature is said to be dropping to a point incompatible with life. This is in universe with multiple species AND the ability to terraform. First, don't know what core temp has to do with anything -- average ocean temp would seem to be the relevant metric. Second, can't you fix this with terraforming? Seriously?

We have some strong female characters. Evil Mom. Evil Mom's genetically modified minions. The heroine, who is daughter to Evil Mom. Someone who gives Evil Agent of Evil mom a blow job and is later shot by him. Another genetically modified woman who can't touch anyone without poisoning them to death. Another woman who seems to be Special, but turns out to be another Evil Agent of Evil Mom.

Some discussion among politicians about the underclasses and their reproduction and or death rates. None of that makes any sense at all.

The word "patent" is used as synonymous with "that's how corporations make tons of money". To be fair, I'm sensitive to this, because this trope has been showing up in romance novels / series in SF skin. But *shudder*. Patents != money. Come on, people.

Why is there no food anywhere?

How can you have space travel, but not be able to keep habitable parts of earth warm?

Why didn't everyone move to the equator? Etc.

I could go on. But why would I? Also, why does Evil Mom think daughter would be willing to be her bodyguard? Why are people focused on getting transit to a single replacement planet for Earth, rather than on getting a decent array of functioning colonies going? Why why why? Also, fix Earth?

So I'm stopping at 3/4s. Because I'm sure as hell not signing up for the next book in this series, and this one is ending on a cliffhanger anyway. Next time, I will NOT buy based on an ad at SBTB, but instead wait for a review.

ETA: I might have been influence by comparisons of this to Rachel Bach. Don't you fall for that crap. Bach is fun. This is Not Fun.

I got this via kindle unlimited. I saw a somewhat favorable review on SBTB, but I am not sure I would have bought the thing — via kindle unlimited, it is a no brainer. If you don’t like it, it just goes back.

I did not realize until _after_ I had finished it that it was a KKR book. It’s less clear to me whether I would have read it, had I realized that at the beginning, but I’m going to review this the way I was going to review it before realizing who the author was, and then explain how that might have impacted my initial decision to read or not.

The book opens with the woman lead dragging her victim / target / assignment’s dead body towards an airlock and being flummoxed by the airlock. She wants to dump the body without setting off the Cruise Ship In Space’s alarm, and is having trouble. The man lead shows up, chatty and funny, and proceeds to commit fire alarm mayhem: he opens the lock, dumps the body, then drags the woman around while chattily acting drunk and setting off multiple other airlock alarms on multiple levels. Security finds them, fines him, and they head off to the lounge to be conspicuously boozy and sexy with each other before then going to his magnificent suite to have actual sexy times. It becomes clear (first person perspective alternating) that he remembers her from when they were young but she doesn’t remember him.

Breakfast is a little rocky, and she leaves in a huff, and things go downhill from there. She eventually figures out Who He Really Is, and extended chase around the sector ensues. She meets up with her “heart brother” to ask him to look into this guy’s background. He stumbles across his ex. He eventually confronts her at her apartment door when she orders robot takeout. Lots of backstory is revealed. “Heart brother” comes through with the goods on the guy. There is more antics about possible assignments she could take, one of which she really doesn’t want to take and he really wants her to take and not fulfill on.

Then it is off on another Cruise Ship in Space to that assignment, where his ex- pops up, acts like a complete bitch on wheels, the quite obvious setup is deployed, a variety of people get shot but don’t die, one person’s necks is quite spectacularly broken, and then epilogue.

What’s bad: very thin cast of characters. Space is apparently a very empty place. In addition to the people who are going to have sex with each other, and the people who want to have sex with her and she declines and the woman who used to have sex with him and Wow She Really Is Not a Nice Person, there are basically an extremely short list of briefly met coworkers and the foster brother dude. That’s it. And it sounds like more than it really is, basically. Honestly, the woman character’s interaction with the woman in security is a fairly substantial scene in this book, which gives you a sense of just how limited the characters and their interaction really is.

What’s good: moves super fast. Not too angsty. Fun stuff. Competence porn. Downside of the competence porn is that he is such an idiot. His opinion of her changes wildly from one moment to the next, mostly because he fails to understand what he is seeing, which leads this reader a little baffled. Is she actually chaotic and a troublemaker and he is just basically making excuses for her? Is she actually Really Fucking Brilliant and he just fails to appreciate her for a while? I think this is supposed to be layered / complex characterization. It does not work very well for me.

While I did kind of get a kick out of the description of her apartment, it seemed wildly implausible that an assassin would really live in a place like that. But, you know, I don’t know any actual assassins so what do I know. One thing I will note about assassin characters in general: you just don’t see them actually doing the deed very often if ever (you see her kill, but I don’t think you see him kill; and her one on screen kill is not a paid for job). (I know there are exceptions to this rule, but this book is not one of them).

I also found his successful grab with the robot takeout to be implausible. But, whatever. That’s not really what this book was about.

I also felt like the psychological trauma backstory for her was inadequately resolved. Altho it _does_ go a long way to explaining her basic psychopathy (his is adequately explained right from the beginning).

Yes, I get that they are not really psychopaths, because they are way too good at reading other people’s emotions and at planning ahead to truly be psychopaths.

OK. How does the author identity fit into this? First, the fun romp, chase sequences, sexy times, etc. are all very KKR. That’s the good part of what you get from her books. Second, the inadequately handled technical details and the woefully under handled trauma backstory are also part of what I remember from reading her years and years and years ago. And yes, the feeling that there just wasn’t much _to_ the whole story is also very KKR. All that said, she’s really honed her craft over the years, and I will keep her and this series in mind for when I am looking for this particular kind of quick romp of a read novel in the future.

ETA: Book number 6.

T. had a half day today. And it was one of the ones he was supposed to bring his own lunch for. Which we forgot (there was a fair amount going on yesterday what with the makeup swim lesson, the trip to the Apple Store, date night and homework). He texted me and I brought him a Dicapri pizza.

I finished the Rachel Bach / Deviana Morris trilogy. This was great! I really enjoyed it a ton. I recommended it to my friend K. after the first book, and she had already bought and read it, and is now rereading the first book (since she didn't remember a lot from it) preparatory to reading the rest of the series.

Space opera skin on what is basically a D&D Paladin story. Except it is even more of a mashup than that. There are dinosaurs in space (big lizards. Whatever.). Who are slavers. Who our Paradoxian heroine has spent some time fighting in the backstory, but in this story, goes to a dead tribe ship (dinosaurs in space are one of those bad guys that don't live on a planet anymore but float around in enormous ships. With trees in them. TREES!), only,

HEY SPOILERS! Reaper will get you!!!

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. ZOMBIE DINOSAURS IN SPACE!

Really it just keeps improving from there. The dinosaurs in space have this implant / symbiont thingie that was adapted to humans, so there are basically were-dinosaurs (they have scales, but remain humanoid).

Some critters came over from another dimension, and the mechanism for keeping them from destroying planets involves -- wait for it -- torturing one particular innocent girl forever, and then chewing through a lot of additional innocent girls as well. Justified by SEE KEEP THEM FROM DESTROYING PLANETS. Justifies a lot of bad behavior, basically.

Good news! This trilogy meets the minimum bar: strong heroine is at no point raped. Yay! The nonstop physical assaults aren't domestic / relationship related and she's got an armored suit she named Lady Gray that she loves loves loves. Also, the other merc with the bigger but not better armored suit dies a horrible death in book one, after calling her all sorts of nasty names.

Obviously, the Paladin thread is Devi Morris transitioning from being a merc who is starting to ask a few questions rather than just pursuing naked ambition to becoming a Devastator (work for the Sacred King with an even more badass armored suit), to rebelling at the idea that doing this to girl / girls is on any level okay. She acquires a complex, interlocking set of goals after being infected with the zombie virus from the zombie dinosaur tribal ship: keep herself alive long enough to kill the main girl (that's what the main victim wants -- that's all she wants) with the virus, let the critters from the other dimension return home, and DON'T accidentally kill all the other girl victims when the main girl dies. Oh, and try to keep her love interest alive, altho that particular goal evolves over time.

I bought this book based on a favorable mention on SBTB, so I was anticipating and received an HEA at the end of book 3.

Devi Morris is a surprisingly well written character, as are many of the other characters in the series. Anthony, for example, is very clearly depicted as being head over heels for Devi, and completely unrealistic about their chances together. Caldswell didn't take the warnings about his symbiont seriously, pulled something that felt very Heracles to me (alternatively, if you are going with the Kate Daniels analogies, he went loup). So after being all Oh That's No Big Deal I Can Handle It he became ludicrously No One Is Allowed To Be Attached To Anyone, about the symbionts / Eyes. And he's like that about the wall / Maat / the daughters. He knows it is a crap solution. He has a lot of reason to believe that Devi has a much better solution, but he's too hard line to try it. His justification is that he can't gamble what he can't afford to lose.

And this is crucial to understanding Paradoxians, Devi in particular, and the entire morality of the Bach trilogy. Honor in this universe isn't precisely about doing the Right Thing. Honor in this universe is willing to take really big risks, being willing to accept death, not only of oneself, but of others, if what is being gambled to win is Worthy. You don't even have to win (conveniently, Devi ultimately does), but it is quite clear that Devi's moral system is more about being willing to Risk, than the actual outcome.

Which is good, because without that moral system, holy shit that is one insane protagonist. As it is, she's a compelling leader in a seemingly impossible cause.

I might change my mind about this series in the future, but here and now, I just flat out loved it so much.

ETA: I'm going to keep track for a bit this year anyway. These are books #3, #4 and #5 since the beginning of the year.

Fortune's Pawn
Honor's Knight
Heaven's Queen

The 4th in the In Death series.

This time around, a bunch of suspicious suicides, seemingly unconnected, other than the fact they are suicides who had zero history of suicide, depression, self-destruction, etc.

SPOILERS!

The roomie who said his dead friend didn't ever go on dates because he had some long distance thing going on with a woman who had brains, body, etc. and why accept anything less? caused me to perk right up when Rheeana (<-- probably spelled that wrong) appeared. But Robb did a nice job throwing distracting sand up. Nothing like having more than one person engaging in mind control to confuse the reader.

I think this might be the most tightly plotted of the first 4. There are some things that happen with the main couple that could be profoundly trigger-y however (consent issues triggered by the mind control).

I wasn't really intending to keep reading, but these books really hit the spot, when I want something mildly humorous, mildly interesting as a puzzle and "a future from the past" that I find really entertaining. Clearly, they work on some level for a substantial fan base, or there wouldn't be 44 of them. There's a real risk I'm going to wind up reading all of them.

I really enjoyed Campbell's lawyers in space series under the name Hemry. I have a copy of _Stark's War_, altho I still haven't read it. But I've read all the Lost Fleet and ancillary novels and was excited to get my mitts on this prequel story, set in the pre-Alliance years -- and starring another Geary.

The book follows a variety of people who leave their current planet to go further "down and out" in search of freedom, to avoid rules, to try to make a difference. They run into each other in the course of their travels, and then separate once again. But they remember each other, and when later in the story they need help, they seek each other out. This is an episodic structure, but one which worked really well at least for me. Indications are that future books in this prequel series will follow some or all of these characters (at least the ones that don't die) on further adventures, and the nascent connections among them will eventually form the kernel of the Alliance. Or maybe the Alliance will form around them at an official level in part because they unofficially kept the whole thing going with spit and baling wire in the face of piracy and tyranny.

This Geary is not the near-deity that the other Geary is (at least not yet!). But like the other Geary, he benefits greatly from the respect, assistance, timely advice and direction (and weapons) offered by numerous strong women he meets. Fundamentally, this is probably what I love most about Campbell's writing.

As always, looking forward to more. I think this would work fine to read as an entry point to the universe.

Wow. That pretty much sums up my feelings about this book. I may go reread it tonight. Just, wow.

Spoilers! Continue and an ad-hal might get you!

Ok, so I think this is book 3 in the Innkeeper series. A chaotic ... something or other shows up as a courier and tells her her sister is in trouble. So off she goes to rescue sister and niece. She recruits the vampire to help her out, and the vampire's reaction to her sister is ... really fucking entertaining.

All these books with Team Wolf vs. Team Vampire, and this is the _first_ resolution that involves answering the question, "Do you have a sister?"

The main storyline -- why is it the Draziri have it in for the smelly guys -- is telegraphed pretty early on and pretty overwhelmingly. But who cares, when you get things like Mr. Rodriguez's son is a what?!? And the magic answer turns out to be a name that matches the initials on the cat's tag?!?

Most of the time, gimcrack stuff like this makes me eye roll. But I was cheering. If Ilona Andrews is your kinda crack, this was _really good crack_. I am so looking forward to the next entry.

Also, I _love_ the cop now! All this trouble with what to do about the cop and the answer is simple. Give him a copy of the relevant law and appropriate arms and boom. He's now enforcing the treaty FOR them, instead of interfering with them. Awesome.

Actual title: _The Lost Fleeet: Beyond the Frontier: Leviathan_

SPOILERS! The Black Fleet is Coming to Git Ya!

Executive summary: don't start the series here! Jack Geary and what's left of his fleet after parts are carved off to protect the government jump to Super Sekrit Binary Star System to deal with the Black Fleet (AI base and fleet). They are successful (sort of).

Long form: After tangling with some weird, stealth ships that seem to have been built by his own team, Geary concludes that there must really be an alternate home base somewhere (Unity Alternate), and that's where the Black Fleet is based. Step 1: distribute software patches that will enable the Good Guys to "see" the Black Fleet (officially distributed software is blinded to the ships. And, it turns out, a lot of other stuff, too.). Step 2: disrupt civilian government efforts to cover up the existence of the Black Fleet/return to status quo. Step 3: fund repairs to the Fleet. Step 4: figure out where the Black Fleet/Unity Alternate is. Step 5: Go there and try not to die while Step 6: destroying Black Fleet and its ability to rebuild.

The expected supporting plot is ably presented: where could it possibly be hiding! Oh, at a binary star. _That's_ what the Dancers were talking about (important preceding step -- improve communications with the Dancers. Of course, in haiku!) But then how can you get there? Via a Super Sekrit Hypernet Gate. So then they have to convince someone In the Know to turn over access credentials.

Rione gets her husband back, but there's not much left there, so she gets one of the Best Deaths Ever pulling the plug on the Hypernet Gate to destroy everything at Unity Alternate that isn't hiding behind ... the other star of the binary system.

I keep wondering if Campbell is gonna be able to pull another convincing Bad Guy out of his hat for Geary to fight. And yet, he keeps coming up with more. This was a good one, altho Out Of Control AI That Is Nonetheless Kinda Boneheaded is a little overdone. But that's okay. Campbell isn't trying to do new stuff; he's reworking old material in a new context and it's always a pleasure (for me, anyway) to read. (Well, okay, the duct tape jokes a few books back when we first met the Dancers were a little lame.)

Amazon's detail page for the book says this is Book 12. I have no reason to disbelieve, altho I have no idea if that includes the Vicky Peterwald book(s) (probably not). If you want to read entertainingly silly military sf with a female lead and you are okay with the author being male, this series may be for you, but don't start with this book.

RUN RUN RUN YOU VERMIN WE WILL DESTROY YOU AND BRING YOUR HEADS BACK TO OUR HOLY OF HOLIES

Oh, wait, it's been desecrated by a Longknife. *sigh*

Shepherd has actually done some really weirdly interesting things in this entry. Of course we don't know if it is possible to have a space faring empire much less conduct wars, and all speculation on this topic is a bunch of foolishness, but it's fun foolishness. In this outing, Shepherd has taken on some tropes (crazy powerful alien race won't communicate and is annihilating everything in its path, wackadoodle mutineer/mutiny, feeding an armed force "off the land" in while space faring) and I think he may have actually come up with some genuinely new explanations.

I am _so not kidding about the spoilers_. Just leave now.

All right. Let's start with the wackadoodle mutineer. Someone comes out to Alwa, and then wants to go home, but of course no one is going home lest they be followed by the crazy powerful alien race which won't communicate and is annihilating everything in its path. Said someone hijacks a ship and hightails it. This is wackadoodle for a variety of reasons (obvs, the Longknife will give chase, more importantly, a very high risk run home unescorted plus the crew doesn't include people with the right skill set to keep the ship running all the way home), and the person who conducts the mutiny comes from a wealthy background and is a high ranking officer. So, why? Brain tumor! Great explanation! I like this _way_ better than some other author attempts to explain The Cray Cray which they had someone commit for plot purposes.

Shepherd doesn't stop there with the, Why Are You So Crazy? answers. Once Longknife and the boffins get to the alien home world and do their Sherlockian detecting, they start looking at the hunter gatherers hanging out on the home world and conclude from brain analysis of them (and listening to their sagas) that the earliest trophies in the Holy of Holies (the royal family right down to the twin babies, encased in plastic for all eternity) were the folk who enslaved the crazy powerful (before they were crazy powerful), and part of that enslavement process atrophied (okay, this part is weak) that part of the brain that let's people feel like they are part of something bigger than them. This both provides an explanation (oh, they don't listen because they can't see any connection to anyone who isn't them, wait that doesn't make sense, but Shepherd explains it as sort of monolithic groupthink? Okay) and a potential fix (maybe we can fix their brains!).

And about that Holy of Holies. It's a TV/movie/fiction serial murderer trophy collection, only for entire species. Unfortunately, when you take the repulsive ick factor of a serial murderer's trophy collection and cross it with ALIENS WILL KILL YOU AND EVERYONE EVOLUTIONARILY RELATED TO YOU which is pretty horrifying, it turns out (at least for me) to be sort of boringly overwrought. But I applaud it on a technical level, because I Love Genre Smooshing.

Also in this book: matriarchal cat people! Really, the cos play opportunities here. Divine!

The best part of the book, IMO, is the How Do We Feed Everyone problem. It makes a great contrast between the planet-independent space faring crazy people and the planet-dependent space faring rescuer types.

At times, I get confused about which crazy powerful alien race that will destroy you and everything evolutionarily related to you right down to the microbes I am reading about. I find that if I remember King Arther Duct Tape = Jack Campbell and the heroine is related to everyone and hangs out with a bunch of birds = Mike Shepherd really helps keep it straight in my mind. If you stick to reading either Campbell/Hemry OR Shepherd, that'd work, too.

Korval's Game contains two novels, _Plan B_ and _I Dare_.

These books just get way more complicated as the series goes along. Seriously, do not start with either of these.

AND I REALLY FUCKING MEANT IT ABOUT SPOILERS.

First, everyone arrives on Lytaxin. As a result of shenanigans instigated by the Commander of Agents, Lytaxin is recovering from a barely unsuccessful coup attempt. Clan Erob, long time allies of Korval who have a Tree of their very own, is winding down the merc operation when Miri and Val Con arrive in the ship they stole from the (deceased) Agent of Change sent to retrieve them from Vandar. There are some Gyrfalks on planet, altho the main group of mercs has left. Miri is Seen by Delm Erob and there is a big party that Miri and Val Con don't enjoy but at least they get to sleep in a bed with aphrodisiac flowers after (LIKE THOSE TWO NEED APHORODISIACS).

Alas, some ambitious Yxtrang sort of saw the coup and figured now would be a good time to take a planet away from Liad. They show up with a battleship and a bunch of other ships and Troops and so forth, including some disgraced Explorers (= Yxtrang Scouts), including, YEAH THEY WENT THERE the one captured so long ago by Val Con and then turned loose. That guy recognizes Val Con's ship and speaks out of turn (guess what, a big deal among these nut jobs) to say hey, that ship is super dangerous deal with it pronto, in the middle of Captain's Mast (they don't call it that, but that is what it is). He gets into several shades of additional disgrace and is dumped on planet to scout and, duh, be captured AGAIN by Liaden. Meanwhile, Val Con's ship fires back when attacked and does some damage to the battleship and a lot more to some other ships.

Meanwhile, Shan has worked out the meaning of the location that Val Con would like to meet, and arrives in system. Alas, on the way, they discover that one of the weaponified additions to Dutiful Passage has been sabotaged extensively. They figure out a way to get it separated from the ship in jump, but upon arrival, some damage occurs to Dutiful Passage which must be repaired. While Shan is working on that, they are attacked by still more Yxtrang ships ("fleas") and Shan separates and goes down to the planet to meet his brother.

So, to recap: on Lytaxin so far are Shan, Val Con, Miri, Beautiful (the aforementioned Explorer whom they turn and he becomes an armsman -- they don't call him that, but that is what he is), Jason (with the Gyrfalks). But that's not nearly enough for a party!

First, the Yxtrang must be dealt with, which involves clever things like Shan, Beautiful and Val Con stealing some airplanes from the Yxtrang and them doing a bunch of damage with them and retaking the airfield along the way. While this is all going on, one jump out from Lytaxin, people have figured out there is an attack in progress, triggering every merc in existence to go rescue the mercs stuck on planet. Nova, attempting to track down Val Con and Miri, finds Liz Lizardi, hires her, and they go to hire mercs and run into all this activity and hook up with Suzuki.

But that's not nearly enough for a party!

Ren Zel, up on Dutiful Passage, tho clanless, becomes First Mate when Priscilla becomes Captain because they are short handed as a result of Plan B. Ren Zel is having weird dreams involving Merlin (he doesn't realize it is Merlin -- HEY LOOK THE WITCH HAS A FAMILIAR!). Merlin gets Ren Zel and Anthora to hook up (BEST FAMILIAR EVER!), and Anthora registers Ren Zel as lifemate and thus he is no longer clanless. Guess how Nova feels about this when she realizes that Shan and Anthora have now both announced lifemates. Any hope of dealing with the complex politics on Liad itself have basically been completely torpedoed -- which at this point in the series you should start to be thinking was maybe authorial intention.

Do we have enough for a party?

The Yxtrang decide to leave, turtles arrive, also Jen Sar Kiladi aka Daav arrives with Clonak (NOT DEAD) and Shadia (ALSO NOT DEAD).

But we have big suspense because in the course of the climatic ending of one novel, Val Con was turned into neurotoxined hamburger, and the med techs are making a real hash of him with the autodoc because they have suppressed the cerebral manifestations of the lifemate bridge. (REALLY IT IS LIKE PEOPLE IN THIS UNIVERSE ARE IDIOTS.) Turtles to the rescue.

WE NOW HAVE ENOUGH FOR A PARTY!!! Big reunion scene. Awkward! Also, interrupted by the party of Agents of Change sent to retrieve Val Con and/or Miri. Agents dead. Ship has an oops and reunion continues.

MEANWHILE, the Department of the Interior commissions a fake ring (perfect emeralds. Ooops.) which they offer to Pat Rin saying his whole family is dead. They fail to mention the kids and obvs the ring is fake, but Pat Rin still decides they might be telling the truth so he offs them, hooks up with a Juntavas Sector Judge who is super hot and they all take off for Surebleak to build a base of operations suitable for using to effect Balance against the Department of the Interior. Pat Rin/Conrad sets up as a fatcat, becomes fatcat of fatcats, finally becomes a pilot, goes off to retrieve a bunch of mothballed Korval ships, and comes back to an attack by the Department of the Interior in Surebleak space. Bam bam bam, Pat Rin/Conrad is a Hero and they all head off to Liad.

BECAUSE PARTY TIME!

Everyone goes to Liad. I mean everyone. Turtles. Korval. Pat Rin. Mercs. You name them, they all leave Lytaxin or wherever they have been and go to Liad, where Anthora is having her own troubles with the Department and the Council of Clans and all the tools brought along get used, including those mining ships that were mothballed.

In the end, not too unexpectedly, Liad decides that Korval is a lot of trouble, terminates the contract and tells them to leave. Which they are ALL TOO HAPPY TO DO.

Lots of fun scenes. All the backstory is important (and I suspect I'm missing some backstory, because I haven't read the Kiladi books). Tons of narrative momentum. Again, don't start here, but arriving at the end of _I Dare_ is pretty amazing.

Wow this book will make zero sense if you haven't read a bunch of the other books first.

It functions mostly, but definitely not exclusively, as a sequel to Agent of Change. Miri Robertson and Val Con land on Vandar, an interdicted planet, and walk to a village where they use basic gestures to exchange work for food and a place to stay. They (mostly Val Con, but eventually Miri as well) pick up Benish, the local language (and you know, I could totes believe I'm spelling something wrong here). After a while, their benefactor, Estra Trelu, takes them into town for new/warm clothes, and there Val Con hooks up with a musician, Hakan and they learn there is a piano-like instrument in a locked room at the Trelu house that can be tuned. Hakan and Val Con practice in order to compete at the upcoming Winterfair.

Meanwhile, the turtles have made it to the top of the Juntavas hierarchy. Predictably, they wind up killing the guy at the top, and the next person at the top turns out to be willing to make a Real Different Deal with the Clutch, thus taking the pressure off Miri, Val Con and the turtles, at least from that one threat.

However, one enemy is replaced by another. Nova attempts to understand the Department of the Interior, which has apparently been behind multiple generations of attacks on Clan Korval and has just sent an agent after Val Con and Miri. Nova's efforts trigger a direct attack on Korval's clanhouses. Korval sees this coming, in part because of communication between Miri/Val Con and Priscilla/Shan and gets everyone off planet except the elder Dea'Gauss and Anthora. Anthora deals really effectively with the attackers from the Interior.

We get to see the Interior at work, as the agent is sent off to deal with Val Con and Miri, and also as the Interior attempts to grab the Scout who was checking interdicted planets and found the ship abandoned by Val Con and Miri. Clonak has a cameo in that segment, with a cliffhanger ending.

At the end of the book (I DID MENTION SPOILERS. I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER DOING SO.), Val Con and Miri are in the Dept of the Interior's Agent's ship, since He Won't Be Needing It Any More. So that's pretty cool. But there are more books in this arc, so I feel confident that Lee and Miller will have an opportunity to annoy me by killing off more people they have offered up for me to feel affection for.

ETA : things I left out. Val Con, Hakan and Miri, were robbed, I TELL YOU ROBBED, at the Winterfair music competition. Also, the trio prior to that gets all kinds of awards and gifts and shit because they foil a dastardly invasion at great personal risk. Further, Val Con has another Loop/brainwashing induced crisis, Miri once again helps him out with it, and as a result, their Lifemate psychic connection is greatly strengthened. Shan turns out to be a wizard too! Etc.

This is a _much_ more recently written book. But it fits in relatively well with the older books -- much better than typically happens when a series is written over a very long period of time and publication order and internal order aren't great matches.

This starts off slightly before the tail end of _Scout's Progress_ and follows the development of Aelliana and Daav's stunted lifemating. With Ran Eld "dead" and no on else to really be Nadelm and so forth, Birin would like to make Aelliana at least do all that work if not actually have the title. WHICH IS RIDICULOUS. Birin is another Petrella: she doesn't actually make any sense. If she were even remotely better behaved, she'd get way more of what she wants (Kareen is the same, altho not nearly as over the top). But, you know, villains. Gotta be villainous.

Mizel is very backgrounded for the first chunk of the book, but then shows up to put pressure on Aelliana and Daav: sues to kinstealing. Where being lifemates pretty much checkmated (er) Petrella (Anne Davis didn't have a clan to get in on the political action), here being lifemates doesn't actually resolve the Clan-specific issues. And, of course, Kareen has to try to disrupt things by PROVING how EVERYONE is going to have CONTEMPT for Aelliana. Yeah, Kareen. Sure. Queen Bee stereotype much? Mary Sue action ensues, right down to Daav thinking repeatedly, Aelliana conquers all. (No, really.)

Once the lifemating issues are resolved and shopping has happened and Samiv is maid of honor (not precisely) at the impromptu ceremony (AT KAREEN'S PARTY TO MAKE AELLIANA LOOK BAD. Because.), you would sort of expect the end of the book to happen fairly shortly, but no, it does not. We still have to (had pregnant woman visiting gangster) (cute kids playing in ways that foreshadow their adult selves in chronologically later but publication order earlier books) kill Aelliana off to make one final point about lifemating, which is Aelliana will live on in Daav's head, even after he "dies" and goes off to live Kiladi's life.

I was not real impressed with that ending. YMMV. I'm on pause for the moment while I try to figure out how to deal with this. I still kinda want to know what happens to Val Con and Miri, tho, so I will probably be back. I'm just gonna go read about distributed energy generation and pricing reform for the grid for a while.

Oh, and Daav is just about the worst King (I know, not really) ever, in terms of his obliviousness to major political movements both on and off Liad. He spends way too much of his time hanging out at the spaceport reliving his glory days as a pilot, or getting more degrees as his alter ego Kiladi. (Apparently Kiladi shows up in chronologically later but publication order earlier books. Hmmm.)

Moonhawk/Priscilla is kicked off her planet/ostracized/treated as if dead by family for unclear reasons. She spends some years kicking around space, working her way up on ships. She's so happy to get a gig as Cargo Master she doesn't think about it too hard, and winds up on a Liaden ship run by people shipping contraband. And they are very Not Nice people. The only decent person breaks contract to leave, and things go way downhill for Priscilla thereafter. She's tricked into a warehouse, bashed on the head and abandoned. But from there, she gets a job as Pet Librarian on the Dutiful Progress, currently captained and many more things by Master Trader Shan yos'Galan ("sparkles!" kid of Anne Davis and Er Thom, who are apparently dead by the time of this novel). She learns a lot, but is continually dogged by the Not Nice people from her previous ship, mostly Dagmar, who keeps attacking her, taking hostages, etc. until Priscilla invokes some magic to put an end to that nonsense.

So we have another abuse survivor story. Priscilla is a dramliza and apparently somewhat crazy powerful, altho a little uncertain about the status of her powers because of complications associated with the obscure Moonhawk thingie. As is apparently typical of a Lee and Miller novel, she gets better clothes, friends, eats a lot of good food, develops romantic relationship(s), etc. as part of the process of getting her Happily Ever After. Honestly, in the Liaden universe, you'd _better_ enjoy yourself as you go along, because your HEA probably won't last very long. I digress.

It isn't just Dagmar, tho. For somewhat obscure reasons, probably having to do with Shan doing some things that threaten Priscilla's previous employer's Trader license, they are attacked and Priscilla is crucial to saving the ship (should have been a boring exit from Jump but it wasn't boring at all). That part kind of felt ST:TNG Wesley Crusher-like, but that's okay.

In the end, Liaden family structure is invoked to put a stop to the Evil People Causing All the Trouble. A meeting is called to Balance, and it turns out the Horrible Bigoted Trader elf hasn't just been _dealing_ the dope. This results in an especially nice moment for Priscilla to demonstrate her Special Powers. I hope we get to see more of this. I liked this bit.

I think this is the book where I started to realize how short the lives of most of the main characters in these books turn out to be. I'm not real happy about that. That's just entirely too much realism for Elves in Space with Psi or Magical Powers

Not kidding about the spoilers. You should scoot.

By the time of Scout's Progress, Anne Davis and Er Thom have hooked up and Er Thom has become Thodelm since Petrella has finally moved along. So that's a mercy, anyway.

Being a pilot involves a bunch of math and math references works: tables. The tables were revised by Aelliana Caylon some years before the events of this book (I want to say eight, but that would mean she did the revision in her late teens if my math is right, so I could absolutely believe that I misunderstood something. OTOH, maybe she did that as a project after her horrible marriage ended. *shrug*). Aelliana Caylon teachs a Math for Survival course mostly taken by Scouts-in-Training. She teaches the class at a small town technical college, which is a little weird but is explained in _Mouse and Dragon_. Basically, she's too depressed to actually pursue her career as a career with any avidity.

The depression is because her mother Birin, Delm Mizel, is mostly absent and shows wildly bad judgment. The Nadelm is her brother Ran Eld who if you read the subject line you now know is physically and in every other way abusive. Turns out he set up the marriage with a friend of his who was more of the same plus a bit more. So this is a real classic of the romance genre: super smart, utterly beautiful, graceful, strong person aggressively hiding their light under a bushel because of relentless abuse is rescued by a Rich, Powerful, Super Cool Guy who is pretending not to be Rich, Powerful, etc.

It's a pretty good entry in that genre. The Rich etc. person is Daav yos'Phellium, Delm Korval, and about half the book is set at the port among pilots everyone hanging out being mostly equal and a lot of the highly structured Liaden stuff in abeyance. That's all fun. Aelliana gets sucked into helping some of her students get revenge on one of those classics of the Regency novel: rich guy who suckers youngsters out of their money at the gambling table is in turn suckered himself. She wins his ship, and Lee and Miller actually go to the bother of explaining what else happens to the guy to explain why he doesn't just come around and beat her up and make her sign it back over to him. Nice!. Then she works through the requirements to become a pilot (she's done a lot of it already, with a plausible reason given connected to her job and that seminar she teaches). Her family slowly figures out what is going on, and then the conflict with Ran Eld spills over to the port and things get really ugly. There's a bunch of pressure on Daav to sign a marriage contract, but the Tree turns out to not like the lady in question. And then one more severe beating, a trip to the Healer's, a hug, and a satisfying if abrupt ending.

I'm not a huge fan of the abuse-victim theme. OTOH, this version did a really detailed development of getting from a really bad, trapped place to a much better one, and while there are some miraculous elements (Daav), mostly Aelliana does it on her own.

Last month, I posted a review of _Agent of Change_: http://walkitout.livejournal.com/1177154.html

While on vacation, I felt a need for some trashy reading, so along with some Gaslight Chronicles and Turner series, I read some Liaden. When I got home, I read some more Liaden. Gosh there is a lot of Liaden.

In this outing, we meet Anne Davis who had a fling with Er Thom and, without telling him, stopped using contraception and had his child, Shan yos'Galan. This sort of does not make sense. In the Liaden universe, it seems to be the case that there is fertility control that is fully internal and available to both men and women and requires conscious effort to turn off. It doesn't make much sense that Er Thom would have been shooting other than blanks, whatever Anne decided to do -- unless Er Thom _also_ decided to turn his off. Tree involvement at that distance seems unlikely. I chalk this up to the fact that _Local Custom_ was written and published early on, before the universe was more completely developed.

Er Thom is supposed to produce a child with a contract-wife, and he doesn't want to. He wants Anne. He goes to University, where she is (another planet), and discovers the kid. Obvs, Er Thom sucks at Liaden-style cyberstalking. His brother Daav has no trouble discovering the existence of the kid and the kid's name and assumes that is why Er Thom went to see Anne. But nope, Er Thom had a Focus and the kid is a surprise to him. I found this confusing. I feel like the presentation was intended to be a Secret Baby story but with Daav as this sort-of-omniscient Here's What's Going On person.

The next thing that happens is irritating: a comprehensive misunderstanding occurs between the Liadens and Anne about the implications of Shan being Seen by Delm Thorval. I find this unlikely. Anne teaches Liaden; Er Thom is a Master Trader. And yet they don't apparently know basic stuff about each other's culture's marriage and family raising customers. Seriously? Are you guys adults? On the other hand, young women wander the world and marry young men from Saudi and similar and are surprised at what happens next. And a FOAF married a woman who was sufficiently Missouri Synod to have attended Concordia University (the Portland, OR one) -- and then was surprised at how religious she was (and the kind of religious). So maybe this happens a lot, but I still don't have to respect it.

When Anne works out what has just happened, it calls into question all the rest of her interactions with the Liadens (reasonable), and that opens her and Shan up to an attack and the resolution of that helps everything get explained. The mechanics of the plot are really creaky through this bit (seriously, at what point is someone going to realize that CompLing getting all blowed up might have been related to Anne's work?). Once everyone is back down on planet, they still have to deal with gratuitously stupid and evil (bigotry edition, complicated by a strong desire to make everyone else as miserable as she is) Petrella, Er Thom's mum.

Er Thom's mum (and, for that matter, Birin Mizel in other novels, not to mention Kareen) does not actually make any sense to me. Sharon Lee and Steve Miller are consciously writing a Regency Novel (with elves!) in space, but they really went way over the top with Petrella. I don't think there is anyone in Georgette Heyer as gratuitously horrible as Petrella, in a way that runs counter to Petrella's own interests.

You might think from reading this review that I really didn't like this book. That would be wrong. This book has amazing narrative momentum. I really, really did want to know what was going to happen next, and given that is Prime Directive in novels, Lee and Miller for the win. There are enormous weaknesses in characterization: smart people doing stupid things that are inadequately motivated. There are weaknesses in worldbuilding (one more room in Liad or elsewhere piled everywhere with booktapes and I think I really will scream, and of course the above mentioned contraceptive confusion). Loose ends abound (I'm several more books in at this point, and I still don't see any indication that anyone has followed up on the CompLing explosion and honestly that really makes me nuts). And there are well respected Healers all over the place that people are really resistant to making use of. But, you know, for Narrative Momentum, I will put up with a lot worse than any of this.

This is, I believe, the first book published (written?) in the Liaden universe. I have been not reading any of this constellation (?) of books since basically when they first came out, by which I mean, I was aware of them and largely not interested. This is especially weird, given that I was active enough on rec.arts.sf.written and rec.arts.books in the 1990s to get a "So _you're_ [my name at the time]" from Vernor Vinge when I was in line for a book signing at a con. (Did I cringe? Yes, I cringed. Worse, I think I've lost the copy of Tatja Grimm's World that I had him sign. Sad face. But he was really nice about it and we did get to chat later.)

But when the Smart Bitches produced a positive review of one or more elements of the Liaden universe, I went, oh, sure, what the heck. Altho figuring out where I wanted to start was tricky, I figured I might as well start where the authors started and go from there.

First, I was warned, and you should know: these books really do have a tendency to end on cliffhangers.

Second, this is decades old science fiction. Presumably my readers are old enough and experienced enough to be aware of the issues associated with historical visions of tomorrow. The really grating ones here, for me, were "booktapes" piled all over the place and the conspicuous absence of portable communications. Lee and Miller have a Telzey-universe (James Schmitz) type autovalet, which is pretty fun!

Third: do I really have to say this? SPOILERS RUN RUN RUN if you haven't already read this come on it was published quite a while ago now.

Onto what might pass for a review. I expected a substantial romance subplot and one was delivered. I felt mild affection for both members of the proto-dyad and found their mutual attraction and skittishness to be believable. They have significant violence in their chosen careers and their backstory, and that was all good, too, even tho there was potentially trigger-y stuff in Miri's backstory (she flashes back to an attempted rape) so watch out for that.

This book contains an Oops We Got Married By Accident. I used to totally love these. There is usually (and there is one here) a really developed other culture/species/wtf and then one of the humans somehow is adopted into it and then the human does this thing which has one meaning to humans and another meaning (Getting Married) to the other culture and shenanigans. Basically, Val Con gives Miri a knife to wear in her hair when they go out to eat and dance at The Grotto (OH COULD THIS BE MORE OF A CLICHE) because a gun is too conspicuous and giving a knife = getting married. (PRETTY SURE I MENTIONED SPOILERS)

I don't totally love these any more. Now, I actually feel sort of offended on behalf of the non-existent, entirely the product of the authors' cultural group for being vultured into a pair of people who can't own their own desire enough to say, hey, wanna? Yeah, wanna! Okee, that was super nice. Wanna do it on the reg? Sure! Paperwork? Absolutes! Maybe some of the wee ones? Yeah, but we gotta work on how many . . . (IT IS NOT THAT HARD. SHOULD NOT TAKE MORE THAN 3 CONVOS. TOTAL MINUTES DEVOTED ON THE ORDER OF A HALF HOUR.)

Here's my theory on why I don't love these any more. Because I've actually done this. I loved the Oops Married By Accident when I hadn't done this. YMMV.

Next: this book is actually a romantic suspense novel that happens to involve space drive and some aliens. Specifically, it is that kind of Romantic Suspense novel that I think of as "On the Run" (many of these books actually work the word Run into the title -- sometimes _as_ the title, which is profoundly unimaginative). For reasons that are basically not that important, one or both of the proto-dyad are running, usually interspersed with downtime hiding out somewhere, patching themselves up, figuring out who is chasing them, trying to create a new identity for a new, quieter life, etc. which downtime is always interrupted by more chasing. These novels typically end somewhat abruptly, when something makes it possible for them to quit running (either everyone chasing them is dead and/or called off, or they finally convince everyone they are really dead, no, really, nothing to see here, and then they have to hide, at least until the next book in the series).

This novel is an unexceptional entry in this category of Romantic Suspense.

Here's what Lee and Miller did well: the Liaden universe is actually pretty cool, especially when the characters -- good guys and bad guys -- are Doing Research. Whenever they get a few minutes to read up on the other people in the book, Awesomeness Occurs. Like when the Juntavas guy notices that the Yxtrang avoid the turtles. Cue suspenseful music. Scary race of pirates avoids encounters with the Turtles!!! Turtles Must Be Terrifying!!!! Auuugh. Call off the enforcers. Who are out of contact. Ah, shucky darn.

Highlight of the book: the Juntavas army which is chasing Miri is led by Miri into the Police army which has cornered Val Con. Antics ensue.

Second highlight of the book: when Watcher gets told to go think about what he did by Edger.

Will I read more? Almost inevitably. However, there is a new Kris Longknife entry and a new series starter by Ilona Andrews sitting on my kindle so probably not today.

ETA: _Agent of Change_ was free on Amazon for kindle when I got it.

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Stardoc, S.L. Viehl
Reading Dark Deeds Michelle Diener
Samantha Bryant, _Going Through the Change_
_Triumphant_, Jack Campbell
The highly trope-y _Collision Course_, by Zoe Archer SPOILERS
Not a Book Review: _Blue Shift_, Jane O'Reilly
Assassins in Love (Assassins Guild), Kris DeLake / Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Wednesday's Activities Include: T.'s half day forgot lunch, finished Rachel Bach trilogy
_Rapture in Death_, JD Robb
_Vanguard_, Jack Campbell
_One Fell Sweep_, Ilona Andrews
_Leviathan_, Jack Campbell SPOILERS
_Kris Longknife: Tenacious_, Mike Shepherd SPOILER
Korval's Game, Lee and Miller, Liaden Universe, SPOILERS the Commander of Agents will GET YOU
_Carpe Diem_, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, SPOILERS the Dept of the Interior is coming for you!!!
_Mouse and Dragon_, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Liaden, SPOILERS TERRAN PARTY AAAUGH!
_Conflict of Honors_, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Liaden universe, SPOILERS EEEK Vibroknife!
_Scout's Progress_, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Liaden universe, SPOILERS RAN ELD IS GONNA BEAT YOU
_Local Custom_, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller SPOILERS RUN RUN RUN the yxtraing will get you
_Agent of Change_, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller SPOILERS

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Transplanting a Seattleite

Middle Aged in Middlesex

Entries tagged with sf

Stardoc, S.L. Viehl

Reading Dark Deeds Michelle Diener

Samantha Bryant, _Going Through the Change_

_Triumphant_, Jack Campbell

The highly trope-y _Collision Course_, by Zoe Archer SPOILERS

Not a Book Review: _Blue Shift_, Jane O'Reilly

Assassins in Love (Assassins Guild), Kris DeLake / Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Wednesday's Activities Include: T.'s half day forgot lunch, finished Rachel Bach trilogy

_Rapture in Death_, JD Robb

_Vanguard_, Jack Campbell

_One Fell Sweep_, Ilona Andrews

_Leviathan_, Jack Campbell SPOILERS

_Kris Longknife: Tenacious_, Mike Shepherd SPOILER

Korval's Game, Lee and Miller, Liaden Universe, SPOILERS the Commander of Agents will GET YOU

_Carpe Diem_, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, SPOILERS the Dept of the Interior is coming for you!!!

_Mouse and Dragon_, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Liaden, SPOILERS TERRAN PARTY AAAUGH!

_Conflict of Honors_, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Liaden universe, SPOILERS EEEK Vibroknife!

_Scout's Progress_, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Liaden universe, SPOILERS RAN ELD IS GONNA BEAT YOU

_Local Custom_, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller SPOILERS RUN RUN RUN the yxtraing will get you

_Agent of Change_, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller SPOILERS