Rating: 
Summary: Unpleasant realities
Review: This has to be one of the most unpleasant scifi books I have read in recent memory, yet I have to give it four stars. The story was compelling. I could not relate to or forgive the main character, but I could certainly understand the personal and moral dilemmas he faced. In my life I do not face polarity of his type, yet all of us face morally challenging situations in our own lives. Our own personal backgrounds will often dicate how we deal with them. I hope that I meet my dilemmas with as great or greater strength than Kosciusko did.This book is not for all, but it is worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Repellent and dishonest
Review: I thought this book was one of the most dishonest works I have ever read. If I could have given this 0 stars, I would have. I have no problem with the concept that someone can become "addicted" to wielding power over someone. However, everyone around this character (except for the "really bad people") comes to love, respect and admire him, even those whom he has tortured, even those who are enslaved to him. HE is, apparently, the tormented one. Much is made of him not being able to refuse to become a torturer. Rubbish -- he is a man of wealth and privilege. All he has to do is give up some of his privilege and rebel against daddy. Oh no! Can't do that! Must torture people instead. And they must love me for it! This book left a disgusting taste in my mouth.
Rating: 
Summary: Competent.
Review: This is a competently written and brutal story of the corruption of a good man under a hideous system. It wasn't at all fun to read; it was believable.
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling
Review: I've now read all 3 books in this series. Each one demands to be read to the end. Kosciusko's life is a metaphor for the moral compromises we all make in our daily lives due to the unjust systems we are embroiled in, and how we learn to compartmentalize them. The portrayal of the love a tortured/beaten person so often conceives for his or her tormentor is matter of fact, and this is something that most people are either to squeamish or too politically correct to examine. Yet any battered-women's shelter counsellor can tell you it's the rule rather than the exception. How can Susan Matthews tell a tale of a torturer...even an excellent torturer... and make us love and understand him, and even see the beauty in his craft while sharing his simultaneous distaste and passion for it? I don't know, but I'm looking forward to book 4 (if there is to be one)!
Rating:
Summary: A hard subject matter, but startling in vision and beginings
Review: The idea of torture as a basis for SciFi is difficult but when the entire work is considered with the developement of character, Susan has created a classic and I look forward to her next novel...
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down
Review: A solid story, and mostly interesting characters, except for the over-the-top depiction of Andrej's rival Mergau. What I liked the most was the thought that went into providing motivations for each character; there always seem to be many, finely considered logical threads involved in a decision or viewpoint or expression of a character's viewpoint. (In that respect, I agree with the other reviewer who said this novel could only have been written by a woman.) In particular, Andrej's relation with his man Joslire is convincing on both sides, and moved me deeply. Concerning prose: it is very clear and direct on the whole, at times extremely good, but occasionally surprisingly awkward. In part I think this stems from Matthews' attempt to hint at the dialects and accents of the various cultures, plus of course the formal conventions of the military; but some of the instances cannot be explained away so easily. In any case, it is only a minor stumbling block. Finally, regarding milieu, although the setting is standard space opera fare, the details are convincing and one has the feeling that there is much left unsaid---that the rest of the universe is really "out there" somewhere. My only complaint vis-a-vis the background is, though, a rather fundamental one: wouldn't there be more efficient, less violent ways to interrogate criminals in the future? After all, the "governors" are halfway there! All in all, though, a fine book; the best I have read in a while. I look forward to reading the sequel. (BTW, the reviewer who suggested that the characters are not human because they use base eight is wrong: there are many references to "hominid classes" in the book. I mention this because I would be put off by a book that saved such a detail as a nasty surprise for the end...)
Rating:
Summary: excellent - necessity of law & responisbility
Review: Very reminiscent of Dvid Feintuch'd "Hope" serie
Rating:
Summary: Wow.
Review: I picked this book up without knowing anything about it, or its author, beyond what you can skim from the cover blurbs, and boy am I glad I did. Susan Matthews has done a fine job, in many ways, with spinning an illuminating tale from an ugly subject. What I liked: The fascinating way in which Matthews explores the ways in which persons can acclimate themselves to the performance of appalling acts. Beyond the "frightening truth" that the main character discovers in himself, there is also the way he mines his experience with his family and religion for perhaps not a justification for confession under torture, but at least a framework that both makes it more palatable to him and gives him a model for perfecting its practice. Matthews also provides another fascinating study through the main character's fellow student and nemesis-- a woman who, on the one hand, is happy to engage in torture to advance her position and that of her patron, and yet is incapable of "effective" torture because of her own unexamined experience. The juxtaposition of her perceptions of interchanges and those of others is also fascinating. What I didn't like so much: Matthews does a lot with the "bond-involuntaries" in the story that is interesting, but I think she doesn't do as much as she could. While their experiences are described, their reactions to those experiences are given comparably short shrift. It is not enough, at least for me, that Matthews' main character discovers that he can learn a lot from the bond-involutaries' ability to weather their trials and, in many ways, forgive. Nor is it quite sufficient, standing alone, that we are shown the impact that Andrej's recognition of their humanity has on them (although this impact is shown quite well). The tale Matthews tells could have been even more profound if she had given a little more emotional depth to her bond-involuntary characters by really exploring the conflicts they clearly must have had. Unfortunately, there are times when Andrej's bond-indentured "companions" read a little too much like the former slaves in "Gone With The Wind." The good news is that it isn't all that frequent, nor is it anywhere near as shameless and revisionist as Margaret Mitchell's work. For all of what I didn't like, I am going to recommend this book highly. There are not enough science fiction writers who dare to dip their pens into the wells of human darkness, nor are there very many who have done it so well.
Rating:
Summary: An intriguing near-miss of a book
Review: Set in a "Star Wars"-esque universe, this time following the bad guys, Andrej Koscuisko is being trained as a Chief Medical Officer [read: torturer] for the Fleet. Andrej is a man of seemingly deep conscious, although this drops when he takes to his task. Actually, the most intriguing character is Noycannir, a fellow student and member of the judicial bureaucracy. Her intense egotisitical/paranoid view of the universe is well-delineated. There is little discussion of the more psychological aspects of torture, focusing on the more grusome and basic uses of knives and whips. Ms. Matthews also tends towards long sentences that become unwieldy at times, to the point of distraction. There is a good core idea here, but not as well executed as it might be.
Rating:
Summary: Awkwardly written to the point of outrage by the reader.
Review: Unrelenting exploration of institutional pain and those trained to deliver it. The Author needs an editor who can delete enough words in the sentences to make them flow. An example--the character takes a "wet shower"--really is there a dry one? The main character is so noble you want to throw up. Its a hard read because the author can't just state something. Sometimes I had to read a sentence three times to get its meaning. She needs to study Hemingway. A boring book and hard to read. Can I get my money back?
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