Author: Lori L. Anderson

 ISBN: 1413407102 

The following review was contributed by: Paul Lappen & CLICK TO VIEW Paul Lappen's Reviews

Jamie McGivens and Tony Stone are among a group of
humans who have been kidnapped and taken to the planet
Elos, by a humanoid race called the Berloff. The men
are to be slaves, and the women are to be used for
breeding. Jamie becomes the property of Locom, the
leader of the Berloff.

Keenu is the grown son of the leader of a race of
native Elosians, who have suffered constant Berloff
slave raids. His quest is to find Dolan, his
grandfather, who left their home village many years
before. Using Dolan's wisdom (and experience living on
Earth), the plan is to get themselves arrested by the
Berloff (the easy part), and somehow free all the
slaves from the "inside" (the hard part), to stop the
whole slave system, permanently.

The breakout happens, and the four flee into the
jungle. While in Locom's possession, Jamie was forced
to let Locom have his way with her, and she is having
a hard time dealing with it. Back on Earth, she was
the sole caregiver for her sick mother, and the last
thing she remembers before her abduction was finding
her boyfriend in bed with another woman. So Jamie is
not appreciative when told that Keenu had to establish
a mental Link with her (sort of a permanent Vulcan
Mind Meld), that is not easily broken, when she is
injured in the breakout.

Tony falls prey to one of the many deadly creatures of
Elos, and Jamie almost joins him. She is brought to
Keenu's home village to recover. Dolan was thrown out
of the village years before, under very unpleasant
circumstances, and little has changed. Damar, the
Elosian ruler, and Dolan's son (and Keenu's father)
does not want Dolan there, and the fact that he has
brought an. . . alien with him makes it that much
worse. After she recovers, Dolan brings Jamie back to
an Earth that holds nothing for her. Her mother died a
couple of days previously, the police want to know
where she has been for the last month, and her
ex-boyfriend really wants to get back together with
her, to the point of being obnoxious. Jamie also
discovers that she has some pretty strong feelings for
Keenu.

This works best as a story about the human spirit and
about bonds between very different people, that
happens to take place mostly on an alien planet. The
reader could do a lot worse than to read this novel;
it is very much worth the time.