Rating: 
Summary: Primary Inversion
Review: Asaro already hooked me on Soz when I read her short "Aurora in Four Voices" in an Analog magazine a couple of years ago. I then keyed my wife into the serialized novel (also in Analog) that will be "The Quantum Rose" and she then skimmed through all the easily available Skolian books in the library. I'm finally just now getting into the novels, here, and I'm impressed.The hints that she drops here and there about the scope of her universe are insanely tantalizing, and in Sauscony Valdoria, Asaro's got one of the more fascinating science-fiction creations. The ambitious story and the narrative gambles payoff well, even if most of the physical action scenes take place in the first third. I only wished that Asaro's given herself an opportunity to flesh out the character of Jaibriol Qox, a matter that I suspect is rectified in the sequels. Still this book stands alone, the conclusion is very satisfying.
Rating:
Summary: Primary Inversion
Review: Asaro already hooked me on Soz when I read her short "Aurora in Four Voices" in an Analog magazine a couple of years ago. I then keyed my wife into the serialized novel (also in Analog) that will be "The Quantum Rose" and she then skimmed through all the easily available Skolian books in the library. I'm finally just now getting into the novels, here, and I'm impressed. The hints that she drops here and there about the scope of her universe are insanely tantalizing, and in Sauscony Valdoria, Asaro's got one of the more fascinating science-fiction creations. The ambitious story and the narrative gambles payoff well, even if most of the physical action scenes take place in the first third. I only wished that Asaro's given herself an opportunity to flesh out the character of Jaibriol Qox, a matter that I suspect is rectified in the sequels. Still this book stands alone, the conclusion is very satisfying.
Rating: 
Summary: Skilful, compelling writing
Review: Asaro has begun her Skolian Empire saga with a strong first novel. Sauscony Valdoria is one of the few true Rhon left in the Allied worlds. Only Rhon can rule `psiberspace' and manipulate the invasive, essential Skolian Web (similar but on a totally different scale to the Internet), and for that there needs to be a Triad. Soz is one of 2 possible heirs to the military arm of the Triad, the other being her own brother (while another brother, Kurj, currently holds the position). Ambition, missions, secrets and manipulations have made Soz and her family distrustful of each other, while with their telepathic gifts they have an undeniable need for closeness - a need Kurj sees as a weakness. Soz is not only telepathic, but also a bioengineered psi warrior pilot - thus on all fronts she seems to inspire fear rather than love. She's long lived, and has a history behind her that brings much depth to the character, and the reader is able to read much into her actions as a result. Jaibroil Highton is the Highton heir to the Traders - enemies of the Skolian empire. When Soz and Jaiobriol first meet, they find they are able to make the rare psi bond of true Rhon - essentially they are enemies, but the only true match for each other. Asaro doesn't make it easy for Soz, who is conflicted by many loyalties and also by her own drives, desires and ambitions. Ultimately events work around her until she feels she has no choice but to act, although the cost is high. By the end of the book, she has lost as much as she has gained. A strong, complex, character driven novel with much in it as a vision of the future. The scientific elements are well thought out and well drawn, although I did get a little lost in the science of it from time to time. Nevertheless, a must for any Psi-Fi (ha!) reader
Rating:
Summary: Skilful, compelling writing
Review: Asaro has begun her Skolian Empire saga with a strong first novel. Sauscony Valdoria is one of the few true Rhon left in the Allied worlds. Only Rhon can rule 'psiberspace' and manipulate the invasive, essential Skolian Web (similar but on a totally different scale to the Internet), and for that there needs to be a Triad. Soz is one of 2 possible heirs to the military arm of the Triad, the other being her own brother (while another brother, Kurj, currently holds the position). Ambition, missions, secrets and manipulations have made Soz and her family distrustful of each other, while with their telepathic gifts they have an undeniable need for closeness - a need Kurj sees as a weakness. Soz is not only telepathic, but also a bioengineered psi warrior pilot - thus on all fronts she seems to inspire fear rather than love. She's long lived, and has a history behind her that brings much depth to the character, and the reader is able to read much into her actions as a result. Jaibroil Highton is the Highton heir to the Traders - enemies of the Skolian empire. When Soz and Jaiobriol first meet, they find they are able to make the rare psi bond of true Rhon - essentially they are enemies, but the only true match for each other. Asaro doesn't make it easy for Soz, who is conflicted by many loyalties and also by her own drives, desires and ambitions. Ultimately events work around her until she feels she has no choice but to act, although the cost is high. By the end of the book, she has lost as much as she has gained. A strong, complex, character driven novel with much in it as a vision of the future. The scientific elements are well thought out and well drawn, although I did get a little lost in the science of it from time to time. Nevertheless, a must for any Psi-Fi (ha!) reader
Rating:
Summary: Character-driven debut
Review: Asaro's debut novel takes place in the distant future during a long-term war between two empires, the Skolians and the Traders, with a third, originating from Earth, as a neutral power. Sauscony Valdoria, elite fighter pilot and potential heir to the Skolian empire, is, like all fighter pilots, a natural empath whose abilities are boosted by biologically implanted computer links. While on leave on a neutral, Earth-controlled planet, she meets a Trader aristo and is strangely drawn to him, quickly discovering that he too is a psi sensitive. This should be impossible in Trader aristocrats because their sexuality is sadistically stimulated by the sufferings of empaths and their bloodlines are rigorously controlled. However, this aristo is intended as the most dangerous weapon the Traders have ever had - capable of bringing down the entire Skolian internet. Sauscony should kill him, but she's fallen in love. Asaro builds a complex and absorbing story, based mostly on character. Events affecting whole societies turn on personality and personal conflict. The speculative material linking computers and psi power is well done as are the infrequent space battles. The only drag on the pace is the heroine's inner turmoil which is, at times, repetitive. A small flaw in an otherwise outstanding debut.
Rating:
Summary: Unique sci-fi
Review: Asaro's future universe:
There are essentially 3 civilizations in Asaro's future universe. The Allied Worlds are those established by humans from Earth. The Skolian Empire and the Eubians (the Trader Empire) are remnants of another human civilization (the Raylicon Empire) that left Earth long ago and established a presence in the stars. When the Allied humans left Earth to explore the universe, they were suprised to find that humans were already there.
Allied humans are much like you and me. Skolians, however, are generally empaths, and their civilization is based on a royal family with exceptionally strong empathetic abilities. They are "psions", who can read emotion almost as well as communicating with words. The Eubians (or Traders) literally derive pleasure from the pain of a psion, who transmits the emotion and amplifies it like an antenna. Some of the Eubians are pretty nasty in their taste for the pain of their Skolian pleasure slaves. Other Eubians, however, aren't so bad.
The Skolian Empire and the Eubian Concord have a nasty history with one another. The caste-like system of the Trader Empire rests on a slave/indentured servant relationship between upper and lower classes. Any psion captured by the traders is immediately enslaved and sold for the purpose of being tortured in order to pleasure his or her captors. Such a culture, of course, is repulsive to the Skolians, and therefore the two cultures don't get along.
How unfortunate it was for humans from the Allied Worlds, full of expectation and curiosity, when they stumbled out to the stars only to find that someone had beaten them there. To top it off, these two advanced civilzations had been at each other's throats for millenia. The Allied humans assumed a role of neutrality, and have stayed that way, even though they do support the Eubian slave-trade.
This book, in particular, deals with one Skolian heir who is admirable in the way that she is a strong and amazingly capble woman. Sauscony Valdoria (or "Soz"), heir to the Skolian throne, is a Jag pilot, an elite fighter group composed entirely of highly empathetic psions. Soz can deal out some serious butt-whoopin' when she needs to, but her personality is more of an INFP for those of you familiar with the Myers-Briggss personality test. Soz is an introverted, intuitive, feeling and perceiving person who is exceptionally intelligent. From her description, she sounds pretty hot, too. Do not let this distract you from the plot, however, as it is well written and intriguing.
The science:
"Inversion" is a concept developed by Catherine Asaro to account for rapid transit through large distances in space; a possible solution to the problem of time dilation. Einstein kind of put a stick in the mud when, in 1905, he told everyone that Special Relativity wrote in a universal speed limit at ~3x10^8 m/s, citing anyone caught travelling near this speed with a significant time penalty. Some authors embrace time dilation, like Poul Anderson in "Tau Zero" and Joe Haldeman in "The Forever War". Others find ways around it, like Gene Roddenberry in the "Star Trek" series. Other authors ignore it altogether. The neat thing about Asaro's solution, however, is that it is mathematically sound, even if it is not possible by today's understanding of real and imaginary numbers and their role in real space.
-- For the reader who is not fond of math, skip this paragraph. For everyone else, read on -- All numbers have a real and imaginary part, i.e., a+ib, where "a" is the real coordinate and "b" is the imaginary coordinate. "i" is the imaginary number i=sqrt(-1). In Einstein's equation for time dilation, if one simply makes a substitution "iV" for the velocity "V", one gets an i^2 term in the equation, which is simply "-1". This completely changes the behavior of Special Relativity. It breaks the speed limit, and time dilation can even become "time reduction". Similarly, length contraction becomes "length elongation", and the mass inflation term (defined in terms of momentum), actually becomes "mass reduction".
It's pretty neat how it all works out, actually. It would be to one's benefit to simply flip oneself out of real space and into imaginary space, and then hit the gas pedal. The faster you go, the lighter you get, and you can actually make time on the way. In fact, you could go back in time if you felt like it (ahem...nevermind that Stephen Hawking might bring up the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics). No better way to travel, in my opinion. With this simple mathematical trick, Asaro has opened up a science fiction can of worms, where she can put an infinite number of spins on a fundamental plot line.
That's not all Asaro came up with. She's got a Ph.D. in chemical physics, for Pete's sake, so she knows this math stuff really well. Imagine Klein Bottles that maintain objects in imaginary space while being transported through real space. Quantum stasis fields that freeze all the atoms in an atomic state and hold them there for a finite time. An infinite information network that spans all of real space while only existing in imaginary space. This is neat stuff.
Perhaps the best thing about this book (and her other books) is that Asaro balances hard science fiction with a genuine effort to write about *people*. Catherine Asaro is a unique woman because she is not only a chemical physicist (Ph.D., Harvard), but also a ballerina. Her characters often show a similar duality. Some of her books are more romance novels than hard sci fi, but there are quite a few gems in this series. "Primary Inversion", "Radiant Seas", "The Moon's Shadow", and "Schism" all tell the story of Sauscony Valdoria and her loveable children, and these are some of her most "hard" sci fi novels. In addition, the story of Soz's brother, Kelric, is told in "The Last Hawk" and "Ascendant Sun", and both of these novels are equally entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and exciting! Can't wait for the next one!
Review: Catherine Asaro has created an intriguing universe. Gritty and action packed
Rating: 
Summary: Great writing wasted on a horrible story
Review: Given the number of plot summaries already here I'll skip that for this review and go right to the analysis. Catherine Asaro's writing abilities are either the result of a brilliant writer or a dedicated editor. Whatever the reason, the book is an enjoyable read. At no point does the author get bogged down on the science, and that only helps with the flow of the story. It's a little surprising that a scientist can present these ideas without making it come off like a lecture. The story is where it all breaks down. Granted, making a judgement on the plot is a very personal thing, and people may not agree with this assessment, but the number of "good" reviews this book has gotten has prompted me to present an alternate view. The story is broken into three sections. The first is a contrived meeting between the main characters. Given the number of available locations, the rarity of a Rhon and the precautions necessary to keep Jaibrol under control there is no way this meeting, the foundation of the story, could happen. It's ridiculous. Part two is a psychological diversion that creates some interesting character development but little plot development. In a longer story this would be appropriate, but it's too long for this book. Part three is just as convoluted as part one. Again Soz and Jaibrol come together in a ridiculous fashion. This, of course, allows them to escape together and the story ends. With the story seemingly based upon the struggles of Soz and Jaibrol to find happiness, the absurd character meetings and the wasted second part make the overall story simply a mess.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing
Review: Granted, I was sick and stuck in bed, but I still devoured Asaro's Skolian books in a week. I couldn't get enough. They're a great blend of sci-fi and romance. I can't wait for the next installment.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing
Review: Granted, I was sick and stuck in bed, but I still devoured Asaro's Skolian books in a week. I couldn't get enough. They're a great blend of sci-fi and romance. I can't wait for the next installment.
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