Rating: 
Summary: good reading
Review: After reading Black on Black I went to the local library and checked out the rest of K D's books. I think K D's books are very interesting and enjoyed Black on Black enough to order Space on Space ahead of time. Her Moonspeaker series and Imperium game were just as interesting and hard to put down. I compare her books favorably with the Pern series by MaCaffery.
Rating:
Summary: good reading
Review: After reading Black on Black I went to the local library and checked out the rest of K D's books. I think K D's books are very interesting and enjoyed Black on Black enough to order Space on Space ahead of time. Her Moonspeaker series and Imperium game were just as interesting and hard to put down. I compare her books favorably with the Pern series by MaCaffery.
Rating: 
Summary: Traditional Science Fiction
Review: Although traditional science fiction isn't my usual cup of tea, I found BLACK ON BLACK to be a very good read. The world is real enough to almost leave grit in your teeth and the characters, most of them alien, come alive, with complexities one wouldn't expect from most writers. I'm looking forward to reading her next book, STARS OVER STARS, and future books.
Rating:
Summary: Traditional Science Fiction
Review: Although traditional science fiction isn't my usual cup of tea, I found BLACK ON BLACK to be a very good read. The world is real enough to almost leave grit in your teeth and the characters, most of them alien, come alive, with complexities one wouldn't expect from most writers. I'm looking forward to reading her next book, STARS OVER STARS, and future books.
Rating:
Summary: Space Opera With A Difference
Review: BLACK ON BLACK is a nicely realized space opera with a difference. In the ordinary way, we have humans (and allies?) at war against a nasty alien species (the flek) that takes planets and alters the environment, obliterating the native species in the process and exploiting the resources for their own purposes. The planet Anktan, inhabited by the hrinn, has been a backwater in this war. It has a small human outpost, but the hrinn are a low-tech species that don't travel off-planet. When Sgt. Blackeagle, a hrinn who has spent almost his entire life in human society, returns to Anktan looking for his heritage, he finds himself a stranger among his own kind. He also finds that Anktan has become a pawn in the human-flek war.The difference in BLACK ON BLACK is that the humans and flek play a secondary role in the story. The book is primarily about Blackeagle and the hrinn, and is told mostly from their point of view. Telling a story convincingly from an alien point of view is a trick that's not easy to pull off, but Wentworth does a nice job of it here. She makes Blackeagle, with all of his doubts and confusion, and the native hrinn, with their alien customs and habits, seem both believable and sympathetic. BLACK ON BLACK is a notch above ordinary space opera. Wentworth tells her story from an unusual point of view and tells it well. I'm looking forward to the sequel. If you like science fiction, I think you'll enjoy this. I did.
Rating:
Summary: The Lost-Male Returns
Review: Black on Black is the first novel in the Hrinn series. Heyoka Blackeagle is a hrinn who was stolen from his people as a cubling. Rescued from the slavers by a old trader, Ben Blackeagle, Heyoka has been raised among the Oglala Lakota. Now he is a Confederate Ranger and is spending a leave on Anktan searching for his hrinnti roots. Unfortunately, his partner, Mitsu Jensen, insists on joining him. In this novel, Heyoka approaches the hrinnti near the base, is disparaged as one of the Dead smelling Outsiders, yet is invited to the males' house for more talk. Mitsu ignores his efforts to go alone, follows behind him, and is caught by the hrinnti. Heyoka has just learned that he comes from the Levv Line, but rushes out of the males' house when he hears the sounds of Mitsu fighting her captor. Although he tries to hurry through the crowd, he is slowed and slashed by some of the males and she is gone by the time he gets there. Heyoka returns to the base to start a search for Mitsu, but the Director of the Research Station, Eeal Eldrich, refuses to let any of his people join the search. Moreover, the station doctor sedates him while tending his wounds. When he awakes the following morning, the trail is long cold, but he goes out anyway. As he attempts to enter the Line Hold where Mitsu is being held, the males catch up to him and escort him down into their meeting house. There he is accused of being a fake manufactured by the Outsiders and is challenged to a duel. The leader of the house, Nisk, intercedes, declares that he is sponsoring Heyoka, and takes the challenge for him. When Nisk loses, both he and Heyoka have to leave the area by sundown. Something is going on that involves the research station and some of the Line leaders, something that resulted in the destruction of the Levv Line almost thirty years ago. To the hrinnti, a new and awesome pattern/in/progress is forming, centered on the black-on-black male, Heyoka. Some of the hrinnti are trying to kill him and others are protecting him. Meanwhile, someone is using off-world weapons to kill hrinnti. The author obviously knows something about the American Plains Indians and other Indian tribes, for some the hrinnti culture and environment seems to derive from these people. However, the hrinnti society also has some similarity to the pack behavior of wolves. All in all, the author has created a believable sentient, but predatory, species and culture. The author does have some problems with human military ranks and terminology, but seems to have corrected these deficiencies in the sequel. However, the author does comprehend some aspects of human military thinking and the depiction of both the hrinnti and the flek aliens shows a rare talent in speculative xenopsychology. Recommended for Wentworth fans and anyone else who enjoys reading about exotic cultures in a science fiction setting.
Rating:
Summary: The Lost-Male Returns
Review: Black on Black is the first novel in the Hrinn series. Heyoka Blackeagle is a hrinn who was stolen from his people as a cubling. Rescued from the slavers by a old trader, Ben Blackeagle, Heyoka has been raised among the Oglala Lakota. Now he is a Confederate Ranger and is spending a leave on Anktan searching for his hrinnti roots. Unfortunately, his partner, Mitsu Jensen, insists on joining him. In this novel, Heyoka approaches the hrinnti near the base, is disparaged as one of the Dead smelling Outsiders, yet is invited to the males' house for more talk. Mitsu ignores his efforts to go alone, follows behind him, and is caught by the hrinnti. Heyoka has just learned that he comes from the Levv Line, but rushes out of the males' house when he hears the sounds of Mitsu fighting her captor. Although he tries to hurry through the crowd, he is slowed and slashed by some of the males and she is gone by the time he gets there. Heyoka returns to the base to start a search for Mitsu, but the Director of the Research Station, Eeal Eldrich, refuses to let any of his people join the search. Moreover, the station doctor sedates him while tending his wounds. When he awakes the following morning, the trail is long cold, but he goes out anyway. As he attempts to enter the Line Hold where Mitsu is being held, the males catch up to him and escort him down into their meeting house. There he is accused of being a fake manufactured by the Outsiders and is challenged to a duel. The leader of the house, Nisk, intercedes, declares that he is sponsoring Heyoka, and takes the challenge for him. When Nisk loses, both he and Heyoka have to leave the area by sundown. Something is going on that involves the research station and some of the Line leaders, something that resulted in the destruction of the Levv Line almost thirty years ago. To the hrinnti, a new and awesome pattern/in/progress is forming, centered on the black-on-black male, Heyoka. Some of the hrinnti are trying to kill him and others are protecting him. Meanwhile, someone is using off-world weapons to kill hrinnti. The author obviously knows something about the American Plains Indians and other Indian tribes, for some the hrinnti culture and environment seems to derive from these people. However, the hrinnti society also has some similarity to the pack behavior of wolves. All in all, the author has created a believable sentient, but predatory, species and culture. The author does have some problems with human military ranks and terminology, but seems to have corrected these deficiencies in the sequel. However, the author does comprehend some aspects of human military thinking and the depiction of both the hrinnti and the flek aliens shows a rare talent in speculative xenopsychology. Recommended for Wentworth fans and anyone else who enjoys reading about exotic cultures in a science fiction setting.
Rating: 
Summary: don't bother
Review: I thought this would be a decent read (despite the cover), but instead I found it to be stale, old, and frankly, rather boring. It's your standard underestimated native aliens with -gasp!- an unexpected twist. It's ok if you aren't expecting anything from it, but otherwise, don't drop the cash.
Rating:
Summary: Somewhat repetitive writing but an excellent tale!
Review: I was certainly intrigued by Heyoka Blackeagle, the main character in this highly imaginative novel, as we follow him on his quest to understand himself and his place in both his birth and his adopted civilizations. The intense descriptions of the Hrinn culture with its varied characters and unique mythos create an extensive and realistic stage in our imaginations upon which the drama is played out. As I read on, I found myself staying up later and later each night until the truly thrilling and satisfying conclusion that left me with much to ponder. My objections to this book are to the author's repetitive dwelling on certain certain aspects such as the pain associated with Heyoka's leg wound, how difficult and important it is for him to control his claws, how vile certain things smell, that become somewhat tedious and tend to break the spell. I also feel that Heyoka's partner, Mitsu, was largely extraneous; more of a problem than a strong contributor to the quality of the tale, as were curious personal features such as his double thumbs and double rows of teeth. All in all, however, it was a very interesting exploration of some possible alien cultures, and a satisfying story of self-realization.
Rating:
Summary: Praise For "Black On Black"
Review: I was hooked from the very first page. Wentworth wastes no time in transporting us to a strange and inscrutable desert planet. The action starts with a bang, but skillfully interwoven with telling details about the planet, which provides a seductive, gritty, and sometimes surprising backdrop for the fiendishly clever plot. The twists and turns, enjoyable in themselves, add up to a fascinating story as the protagonist, alien-born but raised on Earth, sets out to unravel the riddle of his childhood kidnapping from his home world, and the possible religious significance of the color of his fur (yes, fur). Wentworth manages to get inside the minds of her characters, even the aliens, in a very satisfying, and sometimes hilarious, way. (For example, an alien using a radio communicator addresses her interlocutor contemptuously as "box," since that is what the radio looks like to her.) Emotionally jolting and intellectually satisfying, "Black On Black" is a worthy successor to the "Dune" series and the tradition of literary off-world science fiction. I highly recommend it.
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