This series is so messy, but I can't help but continue reading because Viehl keeps you on your toes. These stories are essentially constructed around a mystery, this one being a straight forward whodunnit serial killer. I'm not sure if it is one of those mysteries you can solve on your own like an Agatha Christie novel because the mystery is just the conceit. The draw is the drama which is laid on top of a formula Viehl followed in the first book. Everyone is still inexplicably in love with Cherijo Including the killer who accidentally Chose her (which doesn't make any goddamn sense and then promptly kills herself (yeah we are fully just doing the Jorenian society is homophobic and kill your gays within a few pages). Cherijo is the only suspicious one despite not being the only alien on board. Cherijo still doesn't understand Duncan Reever and Duncan Reever is clearly just trying to communicate with her Also there is this part where Cherijo gets mad at him for replaying their past interactions and trying to act in a more socially acceptable way, which just made me so angry because Reever is so autistic-coded and he is just trying his best. At the end she just decides to marry him because it is obviously inevitable, but that isn't earned.. Cherijo is the hero in all situations no matter how improbable multiple sequences where Cherijo saves someone from a life-threatening situation that she should not have lived through . Genocide. A colleague who doesn't respect her. The Hskskt ( who the author can't seem to decide whether or not they are Nazi-coded, or just militant aliens ). ( )

Good stuff. Cherijo really continued to grow in this book. ( )

No competition for Sector General here. TV level space opera that moves along quickly enough, but is basically a repeating cycle of invading bad guys, medical operations to fix the wounded, a lot of arguing, and every alien in the universe wanting to unbutton the heroine's tunic. Much of the book can be followed without having read the first book, until the last chapter that does a bunch of reveals that mean nothing in the context of this book, and only set up a cliffhanger for the next. In the first chapter, the doctor from out of nowhere figures out that the invisible blockage preventing a patient's wounds from bleeding is part of the starship's sonic insulation (whatever that is). Then, having never known about or seen this material before, she figures out how to use their medical ultrasonic instruments to vacuum up said material. Foo!

Recommended if you only care about action. ( )

I was hoping that Viehl would move beyond the rape in a tasteful way.

But about 40 pages in, Cherijo tries to jump Reever's bones, and thinks of their previous time" [ie, the rape scene in book one] as something sexually stimulating.

What kind of sick author is Viehl? The victim of rape is saying it was good for her too? In most cases of rape, the victim reacts 1 of 3 ways:

1)They blame themselves and turn inward.
2)They say it doesn't matter and then become sexual predators, of a sort, themselves
3)They can't accept what happened, and so think of it as a good experience, ie, deny reality.

Cherijo exhibits classic symptoms of a psychologically broken woman.

And I'm supposed to enjoy reading about this? This is sick, sick, sick. Shame on Viehl." ( )

Fast paced with several interwoven, overlapping subplots. Perfect beach read. ( )