Rating: 
Summary: Hits like a tornado,sighs like a summer breeze
Review: "Plan B" is, quite simply, the deeply laid plans of the Liaden Clan Korval to see to the safety of their entire clan, in the face of a catastrophic enemy. And then there's that little Liad matter of Balance. Liads, "within human mutation tolerances" but almost homicidal without their highly developed and nuanced Code to keep them in line, use Balance for everything from minor insults to death attempts. The secret Department of Interior (so secret, most of Liad doesn't know it exists) has decided that if they cannot recover their Scout and Agent of Change Val Con yos'Phelium, heir to Korval, then it's time to squash the entire clan. But Korval doesn't squash easily. Born of a line founded by a space pirate, a soldier, and the scion of a merchant house, Korval has become something strange and wonderful, a line of master merchants, pilots and telepathic wizards. But first, last and always, Korval is ships. They buy them, use them, mothball them, give them as gifts-and never, ever forget that there must always be a back door, even to a planet.There's action and adventure galore-but never mistake the Liad Universe for just another space opera. This is literate, witty dialogue, brilliant characterization, excellent construction of cultures and aliens who are truly alien even as many of them seek bridges between each other. Liad books tell stories of people who depend on their friends, and who make bad enemies. Here are characters that inspire others to search a galaxy for them. You'll fall in love with Sheather, the huge Clutch turtle, as he stands with great eyes dreaming upon the scarred wood of a real door, accepting the awful dignity of the barrier. How could you resist an 8-foot alien built like an all-terrain vehicle who is fascinated by humans, and constantly trying to learn how to interact with them-no matter how small. "Closer to hand, another music spoke. 'The lady gone away.' Carefully, for he was well aware of the fragility of even full-grown humans, Sheather turned. Carefully, he looked down. A human eggling stood by his knee, face uptilted like a flower, brown eyes opened wide." Warning-if you liked PARTNERS IN NECESSITY, maybe you'd better order I DARE before you start PLAN B. It's not exactly a cliffhanger, but Lee & Miller like to slice their tales right out of a vast history. You will want to know what happens next!
Rating:
Summary: Warning: Sleep Deprivation
Review: After zipping through the Partners in Necessity trilogy last month, I ordered every other Liaden novel I could get my hot little hands on and read them all -- twice. Good thing I'm a fast reader (a survival trait for lawyers), though I must also confess to some degree of sleep deprivation. Lee and Miller are wonderful storytellers and universe-builders. And if they don't keep cranking out Liaden novels, I intend to file a class-action suit on behalf of their growing legions of fans for intentional infliction of emotional harm (yes, there really is such a cause of action, and no, I wouldn't dream of actually filing such a suit). Plan B is a satisfying addition to the Liaden bookshelf, though it has one serious flaw: it's too short. MORE, please! First-time visitors to Liaden might be better advised to start with earlier books (which are now readily available), but it's better to start with Plan B than not to start at all. Much, much better.
Rating:
Summary: Theeeerrree Back!!!
Review: Plan B is the continuation of the saga of the Tree and Dragon Clan, Korval. All of my favorate characters return (and about time!!!) There is Danger every where, intrigue abounds, and old and new friends meet. The characters make you like and care for them. You worry about them. (no, I don't need a shrink . . .Think Tin Man, Dorathy, John Carter, Dejah Thoris, Lazarus Long, ect.) Definately WORTH THE MONEY - BUY IT!.
Rating: 
Summary: Korval goes to War, well written space opera.
Review: This book is a direct continuation from the stories found in these author's "partners in necessity". While it can be read as stand alone novel, it is recommended that "partners" and "pilot's choice" be read first to bring the characters and their backgrounds into context. Most of the main characters in the previous novels in this series either get an outing or a mention in this book, which is part of an evolving series. However, "Plan B" is an action-adventure novel, rather than a straight love story which is the core of most of the previous Liaden novels. Having said that, it's also half a book in a way and is a definite set up for the conclusion of the current series in "I Dare" which is due out in 2002. This is an enjoyable, well paced novel, with well defined characters. At the end of it you will wish "I Dare" were already published so you can finish the story.
Rating:
Summary: Must read continuation of Carpe Diem
Review: Although I read science fiction and fantasy voraciously, I had never heard of the Liaden novels until Meisha Merlin republished the first three books, Conflict of Honors, Agent of Change, and Carpe Diem in an omnibus edition. I just couldn't help myself--the artwork on the cover forced me to read them. And I wasn't sorry. Plan B is a direct sequel to Carpe Diem. While some reviews have suggest that readers can begin with Plan B, I don't recommend doing so. The characters' personalities are fleshed out in previous books as well as concrete examples of the Liaden and Clutch cultures. For example, the concept of Liaden melant'i is present in this novel, but is perfectly explained in Conflict of Honors (this is the first novel collected in Partners in Necessity); if I hadn't read CoH, I'm afraid I would have missed the point. Miri Robertson, a former mercenary sergeant, and Val Con yos'Phelium are fleeing several organizations who want them dead. A crime syndicate has put a hit on Miri. Val Con used to be a scout/spy for the mysterious Department of Interior, an nefarious group who are loyal to the citizens of Liad but have no conscience in achieving their goals. When Val Con discovers the covert nature of the group, he defects. When the "ends justify the means", the Department of Liad has no ethical problem in hunting Val Con and destroying his outspoken and half-breed family. Having escaped to Miri's family's homeworld, disaster strikes when a warlike alien race attacks the planet in conquest. Will Val Con's family and Miri's mercenary friends arrive in time to save them? This is a good bridge novel and leaves the reader aching for more.
Rating:
Summary: Speak to me of danger, do!
Review: The biggest danger posed by this book will be your inability to put it down and the immediate need for another fix of Liaden Universe novels! I don't know how this series escaped my attention back in the 80's, but I started with Partner's In Necessity (omnibus of the first three novels, Conflict of Honors, Agent of Change and Carpe Diem) and was instantly in love. I read the whole book in under a week and immediately had purchase all the available books, including Plan B, which follows hard on the heels of Carpe Diem. I spent a weekend reading them all together in order, and even though I think Plan B is well-crafted enough to be read on its own, the background information and hints that you pick up in the earlier books makes it worth your while to start at the beginning and work your way to Plan B. I was impressed that Plan B fit so seamlessly with the previous novels. The action picks up right where it left off, and the characters words and deeds are so consistant with what has been written before you never would have guessed there was a ten year publishing gap between them. The strengths of these books is in the wonderful cast of characters. Val Con, Shan, Nova, Anthora, Priscilla, Miri, Edger...they are all so well drawn with their own mannerisms and speech. Part of the dramatic tension in Plan B is getting the various members of Clan Korval all in the same place/space at same time since many of them haven't even met each other. You just know that Shan will approve of Val Con's lifemate Miri, but you want them to meet and talk to each other and interact, though perhaps it would be better to save Aunt Kareen for later... While Plan B isn't strong on technological details, it is big on heart. The driving force is to preserve Clan Korval from the evil Department of the Interior, a xenophobic and power-hungry shadow organization within the Liaden government. They fear and resent Clan Korval's power and influence and the current clan members' partial Terran heritage. This sets the stage for planetary invasion, conspiracy, sabatoge, family reunions, long-lost heirs, galatic mobs, eccentric ancestors, talking tress, truces with enemies and a host of other difficulties to be overcome and it all makes for great reading. By my measure, any book that makes you want to buy the sequel and/or prequel(s) sight unseen must have something going for it, and for all the faithful readers who had to wait 10 years (!) to get Plan B in their hands, well, they have my deepest sympathy. Right now I'll be re-reading my copies until I Dare makes its appearance. Thanks to Meisha Merlin Publishing for picking up this series, and let's hope there will be many more adventures yet to come!
Rating:
Summary: Plan B is Grade A reading
Review: For those who have stumbled on this book title from something else entirely, you should know that this is part of a series. You would be missing a great deal if you tried to read this first, without having read _Partners in Necessity_, the reprint of the first three books in the series. This series falls into several subgenres of science fiction- partly good old space opera, partly romance, partly fantasy (I'm sorry, but anything which has wizards and goddesses in it is fantasy - not science fiction). Perhaps the best thing in the book is the dry sense of humor. Miri has lots of wisecracks, Val Con is a master of irony, Shan has very sarcastically expressive eyebrows, and the Clutch Turtles are themselves. The interstellar crime cartel, the Juntavas, appear at times to be "the gang that couldn't shoot straight." Jeeves the robot makes an appearance with Anthora and the cat. I don't think that the Yxtrang as they are developed in this book are the extrapolation I would have expected from the portrayal of them in the previous books. They are far too human. Frankly, the Department of the Interior seems more ruthless and warlike than the Yxtrang. Nonetheless, I like the character of Nelirikk Explorer. Not sure how the heck he learned to sew, though. Toward the end of the book, several random things struck me together, to start the sort of train of thought that could be somebody's thesis in English or something- not me, gods forbid, but someone: the surname of dea'Judan; the resemblance of the name Daav to David... and I started wondering, is this Moses' flight out of Egypt? Are we going to have 40 years of wandering through space? Will we be finding more "lost tribes"? Somebody out there can take this and run with it- start doing an extended comparison of this book to Exodus. Maybe it's not really there. But it could be fun to look for it.
Rating:
Summary: "Our Story So Far..."
Review: Back in the Thirties and Forties, the Saturday Matinee at the local theatre included a double feature, cartoons and... a chapter play! (Otherwise known as a serial.) Just in case you'd missed the previous ten chapters, serials always began with some variant on "Our Story So Far..." "Our Story So Far..."! Wonderful words; for the next fifteen or so minutes, you were going to see the hero and/or heroine battle incredible odds, thwart the Black Scorpion's latest insidious scheme, save the girl... and then, just as a stunning reversal of fortune left the Good Guys suddenly facing Certain Death the dreaded words "To Be Continued" would flash upon the screen. "Our Story So Far..." -- except for, perhaps, "Once Upon a Time...", there are few words as magical in the English language, because they promise another installment of some incredible adventure that you simultaneously want to go on forever and want to rush ahead to the end to find out how it all comes out. And so we come to "Plan B". In chronological story order of books published in Miller and Lee's "Liaden" series, "Plan B" is, so far, The End Of the Line (and, be warned, though the ending of this book is not quite so screamingly tense as the end of a chapter play installment, it *is* "To Be Continued". I think i would not recommend following the stories in true chronology -- the two stories in "Pilot's Choice" are, in fact, earliest in story order, but i don't think they're really easily understandable if you read them first -- too much is, i think, assumed to be known to the reader. No, i would find "Partners in Necessity", which collects the first three stories actually written, and i would happily devour all three stories in that volume, getting to know Shan and Priscilla and Val Con and Miri and their friends and relations, as learning something about the wonderful Universe that Miller and Lee have created for their characters to play in. And get to know Edger and his companions, the Clutch-Turtles. That alone is almost enough reward for reading the first volume... *Then* drop back about thirty or forty Standards and read "Pilot's Choice", which explains much and foreshadows more. And then come here to "Plan B". Our Story So Far: Korval, one of the mightiest clans of ultra-civilised Liaden, has clashed with a super-secret organisation within the Ministry of the Interior. Powerful as Korval is, temporally and militarily, it is felt best for the Clan proper, the members of the central yos'Galan and yos'Phelium families, to disperse and continue the battle from widely-separated locations. Captain Shan yos'Galan and his lifemate, the wizard Priscilla Mendoza, First Mate, aboard "Dutiful Passage", Korval's most powerful ship, are seeking Shan's foster brother, Val Con yos'Phelium, rightful head of the clan, who is fleeing the vengeance of the Ministry of the Interior, for which he had been an Agent of Change (a spy/asassin). With Val Con is his new lifemate, Miri, a former mercenary soldier who, believing herself all her life to be Terran, has recently discovered that she is the long lost scion of an important Liaden clan, one of Korval's closest trading partners. They are also fleeing the Juntavas, the Galaxy's most powerful criminal organisation, which has the death-mark on Miri. Arriving at the Clanhouse of Clan Erob, on that clan's home world, all is going well (though a recent series of civil disturbances have unsettled the world)... when the Yxtrang, the cruel space-raiding race who are, as the Clutch Turtles asy, "the third race of Man" arrive and invade, leaving Val Con and Miri and some other mercenaries trapped on world to organise a defense... And leaving "Dutiful Passage", who has been having troubles of her own, sailing unaware through hyperspace straight into the midst of a powerful invasion fleet. Now Read On... Some questions left over from the previous books remain unanswered, as do some more Interesting Points raised in the course of this book, at the end. There is definitely one more book coming, i believe, and i *think* at least one more after that. I hope so. I want some explanations. I want to know just how the co-founder of Korval, Jela, was related to the Yxtrang. I want to know just what *is* it with that blasted tree. I want to know what happened in the thirty or so years between the end of "Pilot's Choice" and the beginning of "Conflict of Honors", the earliest of the stories, first in "Partners in Necessity. And i want to know what finally happens with the Ministry of the Interior. If ever there was a spook shop that needed a thorough cleanup and daylighting, they're it. But mostly, i just want to read more stories about these people i like so much who have such fun adventures.
Rating:
Summary: Space opera at its best!
Review: This was the longest wait of my life (as a reader, I guess)! After hearing rumors that these authors had died or something, I was ecstatic to hear that sequels were FINALLY in the works. "Plan B" is what every space opera fan loves. The intensely loyal extended family of Korval springs into action with the mere words "Plan B is in effect!" and thus the story begins. Secrets upon secrets. Ancient prophecies come to fruition. And True Love conquers all! What more could you want? Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: 5 Stars of course
Review: The series is a keeper. Read them in order once a year, and you will have a happier life. All has been said by other reviewers, so all I can do is encourage the authors to continue, even if they win the Lotto. If they stopped, just think of all the unhappy fans out there. Next should be the movies. Spielberg, get to work!!
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