Okay, this was a book that I had never read by Andre Norton. I was very sadly disappointed. Most of the book I felt like it dragged along. It used familiar characters from the Solar Queen series, but they never did what I expected from them. They felt like strangers. The setting promised potential, but I had to wait for the last few chapters for the story to really do anything! Only the end felt Nortonish to me. It was an okay book, but what I expected it wasn't. ( )

The Solar Queen and her crew have planeted on Canuche and the apprentices are enjoying their liberty when they go to a less than legitimate business in Happy City where they have a run in with some local hoodlums that brings them to the attention of the local Patrol office, but this time the local Patrol commander believes their tall tale enough to plan a raid on the drinking establishment where they uncover a horrifying plot to rob and kill careless spacers. When things settle down to something more normal, the crew sell off the second trade ship that had come into their possession with part of the deal involving the hiring on of Rael Cofort as medic but the craziness doesn't stop with the rats as a local trader shows them around the sea port where a ship was unloading ammonium nitrate fertiliser...

With the introduction of Rael, we are introduced to the female of the human species in these books, the Queen's universe appearing to have largely been male-only to this point. ( )

Mmm - not wonderful. Two problems bothered me throughout, one with the writing and one with the story structure. The latter is simply - Canuche has been loading ammonium nitrate for _how_ long? - it's an established cargo, obviously. And there's never been a problem, until a couple spacers come and declare it? If I were Canuche's government, I'd be looking for the protection racket. Plus the rest of the crises the Queen's crew encounters - but as Jellico says at the end, that does seem to be SOP for his ship. The writing problem was mainly one of jumping POVs. In the first chapter, we get three POVs, one unmarked and for only a paragraph - but referring to the previous viewpoint character by name. Confusing. A minor but related point was names - in the original SQ novels, the crew are each mainly referred to by one name - Dane does get called Thorson occasionally, and Rip is occasionally Shannon, but usually only in formal situations. The Captain and Cargo-Master barely have first names. In Redline, everyone is referred to by first name, last name, rank, or Mr. last name pretty much indiscriminately - no pattern of rank or relationship except Mr. (or Dr.) last name is mostly used in formal situations, as with the Patrol. I was several times uncertain as to who was being referred to (especially when, due to a sudden change in POV, I was also uncertain who was doing the referring). And one other, minor point - not a problem, but an oddity - the writing was very much in P. M. Griffin's style, especially the "lowered his/her head" to express almost any negative emotion. Still, and despite seeing all these oddities, it wasn't a bad book. It fits pretty well with the earlier SQ novels, and makes me want to read more. And we do get a lot more insights into people other than Dane, with the POV switches... ( )