Catagenesis (Cat Ship, #3) by Jody Wallace – Review

Tags

5 stars, Book Review, cats, humor, Jody Wallace, pets, romance, scifi romance, series, talking cats

Review of Catagenesis

First – I love this series!  Cats that can teleport and sometimes read minds.  To be honest, I am not so sure that part is science fiction.  In the Catship series, cats have also evolved to be able to talk.  To humans.  Using human words.  So, cool!

Humans also play a large role.  In Catagenesis, we have Han-Ja Gee.  Drug / information dealer, in debt to a mobster.  “Smarmy” to quote Farah Shine Collins.  (Han-Ja was also in Catapult (book 2) in a very memorable scene involving mind altering drugs (mota), and a talking feline masquerading as a robotic cat.)

Farah is newly awakened after sleeping on a generation ship for 3,000 years.  A former law enforcement liaison, she is not nearly naïve as Han-Ja believes or as she is first presented.  Her mom is Dear Barbara (the cat’s name for her). 

After a murder on the gen ship, Farah and Han-Ja team up to figure out what the heck happened.  Dear Barbara is the prime suspect since she is the one who found the body.  Otherwise, clues are nearly non-existent.  What is not non-existent is a lack of suspects.  The non-cat loving crew members blame the cats.  There is of course, much disagreement on that, especially from the cats. 

More murders, riots and pandemonium ensue.  The author continues to throw in little mayhems to complicate the story and provide plenty of humor.  For cat lovers, you will get plenty of tail swishing, face washing, brushing against legs and sudden bolting from the room.  Plus, a gigantic superior attitude.  Yep, cats.

Romance is there too.  Farah and Han-Ja do not hit it off at first.  But as these things go, each begins to see the appeal of the other.  Kissing and heroics ensue.

This book is for anyone who enjoys sci-fi romance, cats, mystery and hilarity.  It stands alone, but the first two books are just as good and several characters cross over.  So read the entire series I say!

I received a copy of this book from the author. My review is my honest opinion.

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About Catagenesis by Jody Wallace

Han-Ja Gee has made a fine living on Trash Planet trading information and secrets with those who are willing to pay, either in money or in more secrets. He thought he knew everything…until a talking cat interrupted a business meeting. But cats can’t talk. Cats are so rare that only very wealthy people own them. If he can discover the truth about the cats, he can pay off the life-debt he owes and leave Trash Planet forever.

Farah Shine Collins is a passenger on an ancient generation ship who wakes up two thousand years late in a galaxy that barely survived a catastrophic war…and the cats on her ship have become sentient. Her struggle to adjust becomes infinitely worse when she’s asked to partner with an information broker named Han-Ja, who is clearly trouble, to solve a murder on board the ship.

A murder for which the primary suspect is Farah’s mother. A murder that not even mind-reading cats seem to know anything about. A murder that is only the first in a string of deadly attacks that threatens to tear the whole ship apart.

Han-Ja just wanted to escape a brutal racketeer. Farah just wanted a place that she and her mother could call home. Neither expected to fall in love while locked on a murder ship with three thousand terrified colonists and almost as many angry cats. But if they cannot stop the killer, the collateral damage will be a lot more than their hopes and dreams. It will be their lives.

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Honor and Shadows (Starlight’s Shadow, #.5) by Jessie Mihalik – Review

Tags

5 stars, Book Review, Jessie Mihalik, romance, scifi, scifi romance, series

Review of Honor and Shadows

Honor and Shadows is for fans of Jessie Mihalik’s series.  This one is a short introduction to the crew of Starlight’s Shadow and the days leading up to the events of Hunt the Stars.  You witness the crew’s professional ability to get the job done and understand their need for paying jobs.  But most of all, the crew deals with the conflicting goals of making money and doing the right thing.  If you haven’t read the series, you might not get into this story, but if you have read Hunt the Stars and/or Eclipse the Moon, this short story a little treat.

About Honor and Shadows by Jessie Mihalik

Captain Octavia Zarola needs an infusion of credits—fast—if she’s going to keep her close-knit bounty hunting crew paid and fed. Tracking down an escaped embezzler on a backwater planet should be a piece of cake, but bounties are rarely as easy as they seem.

As the crew closes in on their quarry, the hunt becomes entangled with a local criminal overlord, and Tavi will have to decide what’s more important: money or honor, and how much she’s willing to risk for either one.

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Peace Maker (Verdant String, #6) by Michelle Diener – Review

Tags

5 stars, Book Review, Michelle Diener, romance, scifi, scifi romance, series

Review of Peace Maker

Fjern is off the beaten path when it come to the Verdant String. When it was settled, the ancestors sent the Gyra with them for protection. Gyr are the Fjern who have been changed by the gyra nano-technology. It makes them stronger and faster. Fliss has lived in a remote part of the world and never been exposed to the Gyr culture. She is not like the typical Gyr in many ways. When she leaves home to join a Gyr team, her ‘sponsor’ Dakar, keeps the fact that she is Gyr secret from his team. Dakar’s death launches Fliss into a situation where she will need to learn fast.

Han, the leader of a Gyr team sent to investigate Dakar’s death, is immediately drawn to Fliss. And she is drawn to him. And their gyra are drawn to each other.

While the Gyr are dealing with the death of Dakar and the new Gyr who is different from them, their world has already been quietly invaded by aliens who are on Fjern to steal resources. Fliss is lured to their base in a trap, Han is looking for Fliss and Gyr command (composed of non-Gyr) is trying to maintain an arcane status quo. Things are about to get interesting ….. and dangerous.

I loved these characters. Fliss is quiet, and not likely to take any crap. Han is the great leader with a well-honed team of fellow Gyr. These characters are well-developed with just enough background and are further shaped by the events of the story. The complication of a stogy old Gyr command who seem to be interested only in power, adds a political aspect to the action-packed adventure.

When I read the last book of the Verdant String series, Wave Rider, I said it was my favorite in the series. Well, now I have a new favorite – Peace Maker!

Many thanks to the author who provided a copy of her book. My review is my honest opinion.

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About Peace Maker by Michelle Diener

Fliss knows all about her ancestors, the Travelers, who were forced to land on Fjern thousands of years ago, but when it comes to the Gyr—the enhanced warriors who protect the people of Fjern from the monsters that inhabit the planet—she’s in the dark, even though she is one herself. There’s plenty of ceremony and arcane tradition set up around who receives the gyra—the nanotech that makes the warriors the super-protectors that they are—but Fliss doesn’t care about any of that, she just wants to brush off the dust of the tiny mining settlement she’s been protecting all her life and leave the combative relationship she has with her father far behind her.

When the Gyr who offered her a way out of her old life dies in spectacular fashion, though, she comes to the attention of a host of powerful people, both the Gyr and the administrators from the institution that controls them, alike. Fliss is about to find out more about the Gyr—and herself—than she ever dreamed of.

Gyr leader, Hannu Kardenian, thought he was being called to investigate the strange death of a fellow warrior, but what he finds instead is a woman who breaks every rule he’s ever lived by. Everything about her sets his own gyra on fire, and when she comes to the attention of Gyr Command—the institution that mandates the Gyr’s very existence—he is determined to make sure she never ends up in their clutches, even if he has to upend the very structure of Fjern itself.

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