Thank the gods that this book has an Eldritch... Because the human is frustrating as hell. It gets a bit more palatable towards the second half of the book, but in the first, she is stupid and despicable. Throwing tablets at people's heads, holding them responsible for things that are not their fault, refusing medical treatment, invading people's privacy. I think the author was going for prickly due to mental issues, but she's not pulling it off. I would have been able to sympathise with the mental issues if she wasn't so tremendously childish and abrasive. Quite frankly, the crew's acceptance of her behaviour (and that includes the gentle beratings about how she treats Hirianthial) is not believable. But since there was an Eldritch who is cute, mostly capable, and a little damaged himself (but handling it way better), I could overlook the captain's stupidities. I like how he endears himself to the crew. The bit with the dangle was adorable. And I'm glad the captain stood up for him on Harat-Sharii.

Overall, I did enjoy it and will be happy to read the series. But I can't give this a very high rating. The characters are too clunky. ( )

Super duper stuff.

If you enjoyed Firefly then this should be quite up your alley.   However, unlike Firefly we don't just have humans, we are set in a far distant future where humans have made genetically modified people mixed with cats and other creatures.   So now we have cat people who can't stop wanting to have sex with any humanoid that comes within sight, griffins, centaurs, advanced mind reading Elven types and other things besides -- all on spaceships and stuff.

And there's pirates and slavers and some nice police/military types that actually help normal people (it's a strange future when the police/military types are actually helping the good guys).

A very good start to this tetralogy and i'm now off into the second book, Rose Point, for more fun adventures with our bizarre and wonderfully strange mix of crew mates. ( )

E arthrise

It had some interesting ideas but the main protagonist was such a bi-ch that, even though the origins of her neuroses were well explained, she was barely believable as a functioning human being. ( )

Reese was sometimes extremely irritatingly mean and self-centered, but this seems something that could be fixed in following novels. Hopefully. ( )

Not a genre I care for, but a fun read. ( )