There really is something about Sinclair's men that make me wanna drool. Seriously. Kel Paten is no exception. I definitely like the original Bantam cover (which I own) better then the new (yellow) one, but I like the ship better on the new cover. Its harder to tell, but the details stand out more. The yellow does stand out more on a bookshelf, which was prolly their intention in marketing I bet.

I'm actually surprised I remembered as much about the book as I did since the first time I read it I was feverish and delusional. The dual romance of the book was amusing to read--on the one hand you have the one-sided courtship of Tasha by Kel Paten clumsily going on (with much of the ship's main crew noticing something) and on the other you have Serafino's two-sided romancing of Dr. Eden Fynn. My heart went out to poor Kel Paten, he thought he had paradise within his grasp after a decade of chasing it, but the entire universe seemed bent on ripping it from him. I wonder if it would have helped his case to make Tank, Tasha's furzel (a cat more or less), warm up to him earlier?

The book could be considered to be two parts--that of when things are (mostly) dandy in the Alliance and our fair travelers don't have overwhelming odds stacked against them and then later when pretty much everything they believed is false in some way. Serafino got the worst of this, I think, given what his sister turned out like, but Kel Paten got an equally bad share of it at the end. I can't imagine what it would be like for such a dedicated man like Kel Paten, who gave up everything because he believed so strongly in the Triad's government, to come to terms with the events of later on. Its a good thing he was already half-cracked because of his not supposed to exist love for Tasha, otherwise I shudder to think what might have happened.

Kel Paten being a biocybe however presented a problem to me--not that he was one, but why they made him one. Very little, beyond his military exploits, is really explained about Kel Paten. He became the way he was as a teenager (or so Dr. Eden assumed), lived a solitary life with few friends, shouldn't have human emotions (aside from the preprogrammed anger responses), can spike into computer systems/ships...but its never explained why. Or how many there are. Or what exactly they did (I was more curious about how they got the brain to interact with the computer, since I don't remember there being mention of brain work too). I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for those answers.

The Ved made my skin crawl and I really want a furzel of mine own. Except I'd likely be as allergic to them as I am every other animal. The Accidental Goddess, the first Sinclair book I ever read and my absolute favorite, is next! ( )

This is my fourth book by this author and I'm amazingly pleased at how deftly she blends romantic sizzle/attraction with a dandy space yarn. This one is extremely satisfying from both threads and made me realize that I want to read more of her stuff. A delight for science fiction fans. ( )

One word: Furzels!

Yeah. This one is as good as Finders Keepers. I like Sass and Kel-Paten a lot, and Tank is cute. Poor Kel-Paten - they distrusted him so hard...though once he knew what was going on, he was pretty sure Psy-Serv wasn't interfering with him. Not nearly as much as they were with Jace...sheesh! There are still a lot of questions, mostly about Triad culture - why did Kel-Paten's name change? And why are they all Kel - is it a rank thing, or what? Lots of magic solutions, but it's the furzels supplying most of them, not Jace the magic Nasyry (or Eden), which make them less annoying. Furzels indeed, why the name change? They're just cats. Two I-am-not-worthy running into each other and ending up HAE. And that reunion scene was fantastic. I'd like to see more in this universe - not necessarily these heroes, but more about the war and how it comes out. Fun. ( )

Linnea Sinclair always seems to have a way of making a space opera enjoyable. Read it for what it is...overblown fun. ( )