Home :: Books :: Science Fiction & Fantasy  

Arts & Photography
Audio CDs
Audiocassettes
Biographies & Memoirs
Business & Investing
Children's Books
Christianity
Comics & Graphic Novels
Computers & Internet
Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertainment
Gay & Lesbian
Health, Mind & Body
History
Home & Garden
Horror
Literature & Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers
Nonfiction
Outdoors & Nature
Parenting & Families
Professional & Technical
Reference
Religion & Spirituality
Romance
Science
Science Fiction & Fantasy

Sports
Teens
Travel
Women's Fiction
Eternity Row

Eternity Row

List Price: $6.99
Your Price: $6.29
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 >>

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: not so terrible, not so great either
Review: I thought I had stumbled onto another really great series when I read Stardoc... but have to say that the novels which have followed haven't been of the same caliber. Not a total waste of time, just not as riveting. Don't let this one stop you from reading Stardoc!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: space opera at its very exotic best
Review: She called him father until the day she learned she was his clone. Dr. Cherijo Torin escaped from him and his experiments on her but the League, of which earth is a member, denied her request for sentient status and instead declared her the property of her creator. Rather than submit to that megalomaniac man, Cherijo escapes and ends up joining the Jorenian alliance.

Cherijo is happy aboard the Jorenian spaceship Sunlance accompanied by her beautiful daughter and her telepathic Terran husband. She treats the sick and cares for the injured while evading the bounty hunters out to bring her back to her creator. Cherijo never expects a calm life. On this voyage, she and her shipmates are almost sacrificed to a planet's deity, she plays matchmaker to a lovesick alien, and learns why the natives of an entire planet are sterile but whose inhabitants cannot die. All in a solar moment for Cherijo.

The protagonist's life is fulfilled, but ever changing and action packed; readers adore and admire Cherijo. ETERNITY ROW is space opera at its very best as the plot contains exotic alien life forms and colorfully fascinatingly strange planets. S.L. Viehl has created a character and a futuristic setting that is second to none in its readability, quality, and social mores.

Harriet Klausner

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Weakest in the Series.....
Review: The first couple of Stardoc novels featured intresting alien cultures, excitement and ethical dilemmas. This one not only disappoints on those issues, but features the most annoyingly cute little kid since Totty in ADAM BEDE. You need a hit of insulin to get through this one. This supposedly gifted kid can't get out two words without baby talk, made exculsively of oh-so-cute misprounciations. What a tweet widdle kawaktow--not. As Dorothy Parker said, "Tonstant Weader Frowed Up."

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: SF Babytalk
Review: The first couple of Stardoc novels featured intresting alien cultures, excitement and ethical dilemmas. This one not only disappoints on those issues, but features the most annoyingly cute little kid since Totty in ADAM BEDE. You need a hit of insulin to get through this one. This supposedly gifted kid can't get out two words without baby talk, made exculsively of oh-so-cute misprounciations. What a tweet widdle kawaktow--not. As Dorothy Parker said, "Tonstant Weader Frowed Up."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Cherijo is back, and doing what she does best!
Review: This is a continuing story, and I very much recommend that you start with the first book, Stardoc, and read the sequels in order: Stardoc, Beyond Vallarean, Endurance, then Shockball. If you haven't, the rest of this review will contain spoilers for the first four.

Contrary to what a lot of other readers seem to think, I believe that Eternity Row has brought Cherijo back into her groove.
In this Fifth installment of the StarDoc series, Cherijo Grey-Veil is back on board The Sunlace with her husband/linguist Duncan Reever, and their new child Marel. With them on the huge HouseClan Torin ship are their two tag-alongs from Shockball; Hawk Long Knife, a Terran/Taercal halfbreed, and Dhreen, an Oenrallian who is Cherijo's former-friend and recent betrayer.

Eternity row starts with HouseClan Torin decreeing that they will no longer turn their backs on their enemies, and have outfitted The Sunlace for war, willing to declare ClanKill on any who attack. Being upset enough about this, Cherijo goes to visit Dhreen and accidentally shoots him, causing a grievous injury. When Dhreen wakes from his surgery, he has trauma induced global amnesia. And everywhere Cherijo goes, she is now followed by the suspicious new psychiatric resident Qonja, cousin to Clan Torin.

Eternity Row is packed with more adventure than the third and fourth books, which bogged down a little on the war between the League and the Hsktskt. Although The Sunlace rescues some ships disabled and floating with both League and Hsktskt survivors, Cherijo treats them aboard the Sunlace until they can be offloaded, and thankfully does not return to this in this installment.

Instead, they head for Hawk's home world of Taerca hoping that he can locate his father. What they find is an openly hostile race of dying people, living under strict religious standards. It's trouble on Taerca, and trouble after the leave the planet when Squilyp's mail order bride from Omorr arrives, a haughty little thing who immediately begins to push around the big Jorenians. Trouble waits for Cherijo still when they arrive at Dhreen's home world of Orenrall, where things are not what they seem to be. Orenrall is hiding a horrible secret from the universe, and its up to Dhreen to remember it before the Bartermen sell them all as slaves.

Eternity Row is back on the 5 star list along with books 1 and 2 in the series, recapturing the excitement, bizarre worlds and species, and helter-skelter race against life and death that Cherijo always gets herself tangled into. Strange planets, purple moulds, feline deities, squishy worms, planetary drug addictions, the strange ClanCousin Qonja watching her every move, and a racial struggle for death rather than life all will plant themselves in Cherijo's path and force her to confront them.

What I really liked about this installment in the series is that they put aside the war for a while to concentrate on bringing back the more sci-fi elements of the series. I like the books better when Cherijo and Duncan get along, their squabbling can get tiresome at times. And I love the places and Beings that S.L.Veihl can dream up, and was getting tired of the Hsktskt/League conflict.

The worst and most annoying thing about this installment is the baby talk that Marel speaks. Okay, I know she is supposed to be a precocious child, but I dearly hope that her speech is better in the next StarDoc book. And Ms. Veihl, you had better be working on it now, because I can't wait to take off again with Cherijo on her adventures. Enjoy.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A terrible let-down to a series that showed great promise
Review: This is a terrible book. Terrible, just terrible. A great disappointment after her earlier books, some of which were actually quite good. This book is badly written, answers no important questions about the series, and is exceptionally unsatisfying. The ending smacks of deadlines and contractual obligations; it feels more like a sketchy half-baked outline than the big wrap up (so far) to the series.

Oh, and Ms. Viehl, if you write another book about these characters, please, please skip enough years to spare us the daughter's irritating baby talk. And please don't introduce another mystery like her teleportation ability (I assume that's what was behind her appearing in mysterious places) without at least giving us a little resolution. It's irritating enough when you finally bring us to Maggie's world and then give us her weak revelation and then basically tell us it isn't true. You have to resolve something in a 400+ page book, and the ridiculous health crisis that gets solved in ten minutes at the end of the outline-style ending just doesn't cut it. Also, the Bartermen are a terrible plot device, but not nearly as bad as the aliens who (again) kidnap Cherijo to sell her into slavery. Worse is the fact that they're so tiny that she just clonks their heads together and knocks them out to rescue herself. It's like the ending of a Superfriends episode, where everyone has a laugh at the expense of Wendy and Marvin (or Zan and Jayna, if you prefer). An amazingly cheesy ending to a book that wasn't worth the cover price.

I only give it two stars because of a lingering affection for some of the characters, few of whom get much chance to shine in this stinker.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The best book of the series so far
Review: This one has to be the best book in the series. Eternity row finally shows us why Dhreen is the way he is, and why he betrayed Chejiro to her father. I don't want to give the plot away, but I will say one thing. The author really knows how to knock holes in one's preconceptions. Eternal life would surely be looked upon by us all as a blessing... well Viehl shows us the possible reality of such a thing and it is hellish. :¬)

Mark E. Cooper
Warrior Within (ISBN:0954512200)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Stardoc becomes an obstetrical specialist
Review: While I agree with some reviwers that this is not the best of the Stardoc series, those familiar with the characters will enjoy getting more deeply into the lives of the supporting cast. If you have never read a Stardoc novel before, this is definitely NOT the place to start. The author needs to get out of the obsession with reproduction and on to other topics. If you have read the other Stardoc novels and want to see what is happening with Cherijo and her extended family I would advise buying it used if possible.


<< 1 2 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates