Catherine Asaro is an excellent romantic fantasy author. Her characters have depth, strength, and humor. However, this book (as in others by the same author) contains a lot of sex and sexual violence that would both discourage me from recommending it to anyone. Additionally, while the plot is rat...
At the age of seventeen the young nobleman named Jaibriol Qox became ruler of a vast galactic empire-- and lost everything he had ever valued.Born of a clandestine liaison between a renegade daughter of the Skolian Imperialate and a scion of the genetically engineered Eubian Traders, Jai Qox grew...
With no teacher to guide her, no mentor to discourage her from the impossible, Mel Dawnfield pushed her magic to its limits -- and surpassed them. Only to find that her powers aren't enough to halt burgeoning rebellion within her husband's fledgling realm -- or a plot devised to strike at the ver...
The premise: ganked from BN.com: Living in exile on a deserted planet, Sauscony and Jaibriol, each the heir to an interstellar empire, become entangled in the machinations of the Skolian Empire. Interstellar war erupts and Jaibriol is snatched away to be the unwilling ruler of the Highton Aristos...
At the beginning of the year I decided to actively seek out and read SF&F written by women or with women occupying the titular roles. As you may imagine, when I first learned about Catherine Asaro , a female author who writes hard SF while reading the Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction, I...
This is a simple review of a flawed book in a very, very ambitious series.First, I noticed what others have as well — the first half of the book is much more engaging than the remainder. This appears to be related to the vast scope of the series.The first book is set in a world far away from our...
In 2002, Catherine Asaro won the Nebula Award for The Quantum Rose, the sixth novel in her Saga of the Skolian Empire. This very same novel was also named Best SF Novel by the Romantic Times. Schism: Part One of Triad is the tenth novel in this multiple award-winning series, and represents an exc...
I remember first reading a portion of THE QUANTUM ROSE when it was first serialized in Analog way back when I was a subscriber to the print version of that magazine. I never did finish the story then, and I'm not particularly sure why. It might be because I'd let my subscription lapse before it ...
The premise: ganked from BN.com: Ascendant Sun is the direct sequel to The Last Hawk, in which Kelric, heir to the Skolian Empire, crash-landed his fighter on the Restricted planet of Coba. He was imprisoned by the powerful mistresses of the great estates -- women who, over time, fell in love wit...
Two men, two empires.Jaibriol ruled the Eubian Concord: over two trillion people across more than a thousand worlds and habitats. Kelric ruled the Skolian Imperialate. War had come before—ten years ago, Jaibriol had lost his parents in the final battle of the Radiance War between the Concord and ...
Deadly awakening When robotics expert Megan O’Flannery is offered the chance to direct MindSim’s cutting-edge program to develop a self-aware android, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. But the project is trouble plagued—the third prototype “killed” itself, and the RS-4 is unstable. Megan will ...
You know that segment on SNL: Really?! Well, reading this book was kind of like that. I read the primary inversion and like it, even if I had some issues about it. So, I thought it might be good to read by chronological order. I know this book was published later than Primary Inversion, but time ...
Separated for decades by circumstance and political machinations, the Ruby Dynasty, hereditary rulers of Skolia, struggle to bring together the tattered remnants of their family in the shadow of a disastrous interstellar war. Too many have died, others are presumed lost, yet Dyhianna, the Ruby Ph...
Catherine Asaro has won numerous awards for her Saga of the Skolian Empire novels, including the Nebula Award and two Romantic Times awards for Best SF Novel. Combining cutting edge scientific theory with grand romantic adventure, this series represents space opera at its finest.The Final Key is ...
He adjusted his spectacles and entered the chamber, a room with eight walls, an octagonal prism saturated with light. Time slowed. In the center of the chamber, a column of light rose up, radiant. It came out of an octagonal depression and vanished overhead in a haze of blurred reality. The Lock....
4. Aurora A high ceiling came into focus. After a while a thought surfaced in Jato's mind. He was alive. He sat up, favoring his bruises. He was alone in Crankenshaft's studio. No, not alone. Soz lay on the other end of the ledge, eyes closed, her torso rising and falling with each breath. Relief...
* * * * I Appalachia The hiker vanished. Janelle peered at the distant hill. She could have sworn a person had appeared there—and disappeared just as fast. Perhaps it was a trick of the wind. The rhododendron bushes on the hillside where she sat undulated in the breezes like a dark ocea...
The comm crackled with a woman’s voice. “You have entered restricted airspace. Identify yourself and await instructions.”I spoke into the comm. “This is Major Bhaajan. Notify General Majda that I’m coming in.”“Please hold, Major,” the woman said.“Understood.” Apparently the jeeper’s shroud didn’t...
The Holly Rotor, his star schooner, limped into port near the city of Porthaven, an isolated metropolis on the planet Edgewhirl. Kelric felt both tired and jubilant. His fatigue came from more than the days he had spent on board this starship with minimal supplies. Although he looked healthy, wit...
It settled on the road, blocking their way. A portal in its side irised open and a woman leaned out, her rusty-red eyes hard in the drizzling morning. A man sat farther back in the car, barely visible. “Well, aren’t you a pretty pair,” the woman said. “Get in. We’ll give you a ride.” The hair on ...
Shannon stood on the walk, shaded by the roof, his hands resting on the sculpted edges of the wall, which resembled stone petals, just as the roof resembled a bell-flower turned upside down. He had studied holos of flowers in school, but he had no desire to see real ones in their natural habitat....
Aftermath I threw up when we lurched out of stasis. The sterilizers in my spacesuit whirred as they cleaned up the mess. We hurtled into the Dieshan system, plowing through the layers of security by blasting my clearances into the Net. I brought Zabo down on the hospital roof in the middle of the...
In his 1996 message, Mike Beauchamp described a concert he’d just attended at the Brantford (Ontario) Folk Club. During one song introduction, musician Michael Doyle related an anecdote about reassuring an earlier listener that travelers always come back. Someone a few rows behind Beauchamp comme...
"Mac, no!" Swinging around, he said, "Don't touch it." Mac froze with his hand on the helmet. "What's wrong?" "Pull him out and you'll fry his brain." Mac straightened up. "What are you talking about?" "It's not just a virt!" Jud couldn't believe that Del, who supposedly had needed a loan to surv...