Customer Reviews

Stardoc #1

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I bought this book because I read BLADE DANCER and loved it. I only bought STARDOC because I didn't think I would like the book. Instead I loved it. This book reminds me of the old Science Fiction Classics. It depends more on characters than it does on science.

As soon as I read it I rushed out and bought the rest of them. Five in all and each one better than the last.

If you like Elizabeth Moon I think you will love these books. The characters are well rounded and you have some to love and some to hate.

Escaping Earth is a must for Dr. Cherijo Grey Veil. The drama of the clinic and the response of aliens not only to humans, but to each other is well done.

This is an older book and there are lots of reviews. After you read them, make up your own mind. As for myself I really loved the series. Each book got better and better. I hope there will be a new one soon.

To escape her father on Terra (Earth) Dr. Cherijo Grey Veil (a brilliant surgeon) applied for a position on Kevarzangia Two at a FreeClinic. She had never worked on non-humans, but that area was desperate for any medical person able to hold a stethoscope, so she got the job. She must quickly learn to help over 200 different species (some were extremely dangerous just to LOOK at, much less help them when they are in pain)! Humans were looked down upon so that was a problem. Then there was her father. He found her.

Readers, I cannot tell you what was going on there. Only that when Cherijo found out secrets about her father, her choices were run or have guards to keep her in line with a possible mind swipe.

But when her father came to retrieve her, it took a large band of Jorenian Warriors to rescue/kidnap her from Kevarzangia Two AND broke treaties among planets! The secret was huge and could change the future for humanity. Daddy was a genious by Terran standards. Daddy was a monster by human standards though!

I saw in the back of the book that July 2000 will be another adventure of Dr. Veil's! YIPEE! I can hardly wait! I'm off to some book clubs to see if I can find a copy in hard back! I plan to keep a copy of this one! David Weber and Anne McCaffrey has competition big time! DO NOT MISS THIS ONE, READERS!

To escape her father on Terra (Earth) Dr. Cherijo Grey Veil (a brilliant surgeon) applied for a position on Kevarzangia Two at a FreeClinic. She had never worked on non-humans, but that area was desperate for any medical person able to hold a stethoscope, so she got the job. She must quickly learn to help over 200 different species (some were extremely dangerous just to LOOK at, much less help them when they are in pain)! Humans were looked down upon so that was a problem. Then there was her father. He found her.

Readers, I cannot tell you what was going on there. Only that when Cherijo found out secrets about her father, her choices were run or have guards to keep her in line with a possible mind swipe.

But when her father came to retrieve her, it took a large band of Jorenian Warriors to rescue/kidnap her from Kevarzangia Two AND broke treaties among planets! The secret was huge and could change the future for humanity. Daddy was a genious by Terran standards. Daddy was a monster by human standards though!

***I saw in the back of the book that July 2000 will be another adventure of Dr. Veil's! YIPEE! I can hardly wait! I'm off to some book clubs to see if I can find a copy in hard back! I plan to keep a copy of this one! David Weber and Anne McCaffrey has competition big time! DO NOT MISS THIS ONE, READERS!

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This review is from: Stardoc (Paperback)
Stardoc by S. Viehl

This is a series of 10 novels, and I hope we see more. Not all of the books are still in print or have yet been turned into e-books. That is a shame; but it is a series that is well worth the trouble of trying to find them through the other sellers option on Amazon. This is true Sci-Fi with an underlying theme of romance, but not cloying romance.
Dr Cherijo Grey Veil is a remarkable Doctor. She leaves Earth to use her talents in another world with many different species and to escape her smothering father. . But she also carries a secret, and this is one that is revealed fairly slowly over the course of several of the books.

The biggest question is, is she truly human and sentient?

Cherijo will fight many battles in the next few books, one of the biggest is proving her sentience and remaining far away from her `father' and creator. She has many problems with several men in her life and will prove that while brilliant, she is sadly lacking in the male/female aspects of life. Sometimes this is humorous and sometimes it is downright heartbreaking, as you will see if you read the series.

Each book continues to show us what a strong female protagonist she is, with a lovely sort of snarky attitude that absolutely works for her character. Sometimes she can come off as a "Mary-Sue" sort of character but Ms Viehl makes it work to be believable to the reader.

This is a highly enjoyable, very exciting series with a strong female protagonist and I recommend this series to those who enjoy SciFi with a small dose of romance.

If you're looking for good sci-fi, keep looking. If you're looking for a good drama, keep looking. This is a poorly written book. Recently, I've read some really good stuff and some bad, but this is terrible. There's no depth to the characters or the universe they exist in. It looks more like an outline to a novel than a novel.

I've wanted to read this book for awhile, primarily because the plot -- a human doctor working in a colony of thousands of different alien species -- sounded like it could allow some interesting culture- and world-building. I was disappointed, however.

Stardoc isn't well thought-out sci-fi; the main character's emotions seem to consist mostly of either wanting to work tirelessly for the greater good or wanting to smash things. Cherijo Grey Veil is apparently able to singlehandedly save thousands of colonists, watch others die, and be harassed and persecuted without suffering any deep emotions or ill effects. Even rape doesn't make her want to do more than break some equipment.

Anyway, overall I thought this book was shallow and poorly-written, with some disturbing kinkiness and romantic developments. If you're looking for a strong female heroine or intriguing aliens, look elsewhere.

Viehl is an excellent writer. She creates real worlds, and real characters. Having moved into a new culture to be a teacher, a culture composed of at least 8 different cultures, all evolving rapidly, I easily identified with the primary character, Cherijo, as she pursues a professional career on a new planet, teeming with some 200 different species and cultures. Trying to serve the medical needs of 70,000 beings, ranging in size from a snail to a wooly mammoth, is an incredible challenge. This challenge takes what could be a somewhat boring premise- a novel about medical practice in the future- and turns it into a roller-coaster ride of a book, difficult to put down. Then Viehl adds in a number of suprises, up to the very end, as you try to discover just who Cherijo really is.

I write of the characters as they are human, because Viehl does such a good job of creating her characters. Science Fiction is sometimes accused of being technology driven- you slap a few people (or species) into a standard plot, throw in a few gimmicks, and you get instafiction. But all good science fiction has been character driven- with just a few things changed to help us understand one possible future, and our possible present. Viehl does this excellently, helping us undersand what it means to be human. And in a genre that often downplays the role of women and minorities, Viehl is to be commended for highlighting both- I don't read much science fiction where the hero is a female Native American.

I'm a SF reading veteran, and I especially like female heroines. That being said, this is possibly the worst female heroine book I've read in the last 5 years.

Cherijo starts off and consistently displays many characteristics of immaturity only seen in teenagers, even though with 7 years of medical practice she must be in her mid thirties. Running away from home, crying at every hint of adversity, feeling certain of being in love after 2 dates, throwing a tantrum and breaking things frequently, physically attacking other people when she dislikes them, a heightened sense of tunnel vision where she can only see immediate benefits without the long term side effects, the list goes on and on.

As to the story value, the author is trying to create an ER-like environment of doctors treating patients amidst chaos. Unfortunately the plausibility of treament is ludicrous at best. Even though the author boasts 'medical experience' herself, it's obvious she has no idea how medicine or biology actually works. If the reader was science oriented, the suspension of disbelief is very difficult to maintain as the scenes are one non-sense after another. I admit however, that if you don't know anything about biology, and enjoy an ER-like TV show just for its atmosphere, you might be ok here.

An early example: Cherijo has no idea or experience on alien physiology, but insists on treating patients without learning about it first. That's like a florist suddenly wanting to take a turn as a surgeon in the ER. There's a machine with an extensive database that can help her immensely, but she REFUSES to use it because it's currently used by someone she personally dislikes. I mean, she should be in jail for gross negligence, not praised for insisting to work.

Another fault that's been mentioned by several reviewers is that fact that most men except her lover are completely incompetent. They are there at every turn merely to disagree with everything she does just so she can prove them wrong in the following pages.

So in summary, if you like reading about a hugely egotistical whiny teenager against the world story, with nonsense science, you would enjoy the story. If any of that puts you off, stay away from this novel.

I am actually a bit embarrassed to give this a five star rating, but cannot deny the fact that I tore through it in an un-put-downable frenzy, quickly picking up the sequel to continue my quest with Dr. Cherijo Grey Veil.

More Sci-Fi than any other genre, this series nonetheless crosses genre borders and has something for everyone; medical thriller, murder mystery, space travel sci-fi, weird aliens, and a bit of romance and comedy for its lighter moments.

This author has brought to us bookworms a series of novels that are purely mindlessly enjoyable reads, perfect for any occasion; travel, curling up on a cold night, staying up all night, whatever you choose. A far shot from great fiction, it still deserves a five star rating for capturing my wandering mind and even diverting me from my own writing.

Dr. Cherijo Grey Veil is a feisty well trained surgeon who flees her homeworld of Terra after finding that her father has not only betrayed her but endangered her by her very existence. She takes a quick shuttle from Terra to K2 where she has accepted a position as a doctor in their free clinic, immediately immersed in treating all types of alien life forms she has never before encountered. She begins her service there under the animosity and hostility of both the clinic's administrator and one of her fellow practitioners. Things go from bad to worse.

She meets and falls in love with Kao Torin, an alien who Chooses her; and also a fellow Terran named Duncan Reever who was raised off world, who she cannot seem to get along with at all. Other friends and enemies are formed among the habitants of K2 during her residency, including a previously undiscovered cluster of sentient beings that call themselves The Core.

Shortly after her bonding with Kao, he becomes infected with an unidentified contagion and she is forced to save his life with dramatic measures, only to discover that they may not have been worth the price. In the meantime, with her newly discovered telepathic ability with Reever, she must find the cure for the contagion.

Her obsessive compulsion to perform her oath as a doctor to the fullest, combined with her previously undiscovered romantic ability, to the clash with her fellow Terran, to the climatic confrontation with those who would persecute her; plus a not inconsiderable amount of medical intrigue and murder mystery, leads to a rapid fire reading pleasure that will suck you into her frantic and outlandish world and leave you turning pages as quickly as you can.

Nothing but warm hearted good old fashioned reading pleasure here, an escape that readers so often seek out, with a cross-genre combination that actually works in that wondrously mysterious way we readers find so pleasing in a purely fictional escape from our cluttered lives. Enjoy!

Aside from a slightly slow beginning (hence the four - it's really a 4.5) StarDoc is nothing but sheer scifi adventure. In the words of the immortal Furby, "Big fun!"

The first-person POV is something you don't often see in SF, and I love "hearing" Cherijo's asides and thoughts. She's smart, funny, kind of naive, and generally likable - and if you're willing to suspend disbelief, she will take you on a roller coaster ride you won't soon forget.

Most of the quibbles I've seen are coming from scientists and mathematicians (hmmm...) and I say forget them. This book is not focusing on perfecting technology - it's focusing on telling a story. The science contained within is classic SF galaxy-hopping stuff and it worked just fine for me. The nitpickers are just that: nitpickers. They're better off reading the "hard" sci-fi that focuses so intently on creating plausible, "good" science that it leaves the story with no soul. StarDoc, with its attention to character and humor, is like turning on the AC on a 110-degree day.

Now that I've picked up my paycheck I'm definitely off to get the next book in the series. Hooray for Cherijo!