From Publishers Weekly
Tensions escalate between the Skolians and their enemies, the Aristo Traders, in Nebula-winner Asaro's dizzying yet accessible SF soap opera, the 10th installment in her Skolian Empire saga and the first in a sequence exploring the childhoods of some of the earlier books' major players. Young Soz secretly applies to become a Jagernaut, a member of the Skolian elite fighting force, against the wishes of her father, Eldrinson. Soz's high scores and powerful psychic abilities guarantee her entry, but when her brother Althor comes to collect her, Eldrinson disowns them both. Soz's brother Shannon runs away, and when Eldrinson sets after him, Eldrinson is kidnapped and tortured by nasty Aristo Trader Vitarex, an event that presages war. Meanwhile, Soz, brilliant and difficult, excels at school, driven by her hatred of the Aristos and what they did to her father. There are plenty of exciting firefights, but the novel's focus on emotional connections, forgiveness, love and growing up will appeal more to a female than a male sensibility. YA readers will identify with the mostly teenage protagonists.
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From Booklist
The story of the Skolian Empire continues in the follow-up to
Skyfall (2003). Roca and Eldrinson now have a numerous and respectable family, which includes Althor, a trained Imperial Jagernaut (cybernetic warrior), and 17-year-old Sauscony, who wants to become an IJ, despite her father's violent objections. Not all the conflicts on hand are within the family, however; sent into battle, Althor dies winning a crucial victory. Eldrinson and Shannon, the son Eldrinson thinks is wayward, face the Aristo trader Vitarex, whose unpleasantness fits his infelicitous name, and prevent him from kidnapping Eldrinson to use against the empire. At the military academy to which her obvious talents have gained her admittance, Sauscony survives cheating scandals, sexual harassment, and the punishing regimen to emerge a Jagernaut reconciled with her father. Asaro's series is beginning to resemble Georgette Heyer crossed with
Dune: the best of large-scale romance interleaved with the best of space-operatic saga. And Asaro seems ready to carry on for all readers minded to do likewise.
Roland GreenCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
