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Title: Primary Inversion
Author: Catherine Asaro
Genre: Hard sf with romantic elements
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: Soz is a psychic living weapon traumatized by decades of defending her people from the Traders, an interstellar empire run by sadists who see Soz's ability to transmit pain as a natural resource. But when she meets a Trader who is not what he seems, she may be able to find a way to save both their peoples.
Thoughts: This is Asaro's first published novel, and it shows. There's an enormous amount of background information to be transmitted, and it's frequently done in data dumps that are awkward and not always easy to follow. The fact that much of the plot hinges on people discovering that their parents are not who they thought they were means that my difficulty in following some of the family trees became problematic later.
It's some fascinating worldbuilding, though. The Traders are an impressive evil, psychic blackholes who get sexual pleasure out of torturing empaths. (I'm still not sure I'm clear on why they were created in the first place, though. Doo doo doo, tinkering with genes, created a race of psychopaths. Whoops!) Soz is a deeply engaging character--she's more wounded than we first realize, and her gradual understanding of her own problems unfolds naturally and touchingly. And Jaibriol, her counterpart, has some fascinating problems of his own.
Ultimately, though, I found the ending disappointing. It's part of a series, but the book was allegedly intended to stand alone, and it doesn't. I think a lot of the problem is that most of the conflict over the course of the novel is internal and emotional, but the climax is entirely physical conflict. Soz has already made her decision, but we don't really get to see anyone else's decisions. We never find out how this changes her relationships with each of her brothers, her mother, and Jaibriol himself. So while she gets a sort-of happy ending, it's entirely unsatisfactory, because despite a bunch of fighting, I don't feel like anything happened.
I would certain give some of Asaro's more mature works a try--there's enormous potential here. But this one is a bit of a let down.
Author: Catherine Asaro
Genre: Hard sf with romantic elements
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: Soz is a psychic living weapon traumatized by decades of defending her people from the Traders, an interstellar empire run by sadists who see Soz's ability to transmit pain as a natural resource. But when she meets a Trader who is not what he seems, she may be able to find a way to save both their peoples.
Thoughts: This is Asaro's first published novel, and it shows. There's an enormous amount of background information to be transmitted, and it's frequently done in data dumps that are awkward and not always easy to follow. The fact that much of the plot hinges on people discovering that their parents are not who they thought they were means that my difficulty in following some of the family trees became problematic later.
It's some fascinating worldbuilding, though. The Traders are an impressive evil, psychic blackholes who get sexual pleasure out of torturing empaths. (I'm still not sure I'm clear on why they were created in the first place, though. Doo doo doo, tinkering with genes, created a race of psychopaths. Whoops!) Soz is a deeply engaging character--she's more wounded than we first realize, and her gradual understanding of her own problems unfolds naturally and touchingly. And Jaibriol, her counterpart, has some fascinating problems of his own.
Ultimately, though, I found the ending disappointing. It's part of a series, but the book was allegedly intended to stand alone, and it doesn't. I think a lot of the problem is that most of the conflict over the course of the novel is internal and emotional, but the climax is entirely physical conflict. Soz has already made her decision, but we don't really get to see anyone else's decisions. We never find out how this changes her relationships with each of her brothers, her mother, and Jaibriol himself. So while she gets a sort-of happy ending, it's entirely unsatisfactory, because despite a bunch of fighting, I don't feel like anything happened.
I would certain give some of Asaro's more mature works a try--there's enormous potential here. But this one is a bit of a let down.
