"It's a big universe, remember! Anything could be out here."

This book is so much fun. This is a story of the very first of all the first contacts. Humans have been to the stars, they've colonized planets and all that. They have FTL drives that are still slow enough that they need cryogenic freezing to travel between their colonies and Earth. But they've never seen alien life.

Well, of course, this is a sci-fi story, so that won't last long.

One of my favorite things about this book was the way the first contact was treated.

"Nobody's right and nobody's wrong, we're both just different. We have no right to judge each other."

Humans have never spoken to another race, so it's not like these two races can just meet each other and start talking. It takes time to build translators. It takes time to learn the language. There are barriers.

The plot is very much an 'exploration' type - even if sometimes all that's being explored is the interpersonal communications of two races.

I keep telling myself that what I'm feeling isn't love, that I'm too young for that…but it feels like love. Is it possible to really love someone when you're almost seventeen?

Mahree is a great main character to follow. She's got a sense of wonder and adventure that is desperately needed in a story like this. She's also very mature for her age. Sure, she has some teen issues, but if her age had never been mentioned, I could have easily pictured her a good three-five years older.

The supporting cast is great. I like all of them and I like how they react to things. And, honestly, the main alien we deal with is a total sweetheart! Love the friendship that builds between the two races.

However, I did have a couple of problems. First, I hated the nicknames in this book. Everyone was either 'honey,' 'baby' or 'sweetheart'. Everyone. Even the cat was called honey. It's almost like 'pookie bear' and 'snookems' for level of horrible 'pet' names. Excuses while I throw up a little.

Also, the love interest. I thought I'd like him. And I did. At first. I thought he was cute and sweet. But then…he just seemed to get demanding. He tried to tell Mahree what she could and couldn't do and he really put her on the spot about their relationship. He was clingy and controlling.

The romance was handled well in regards to Mahree not just going with the flow or being a doormat, though.

There was also a really nice does of humor with the confusion of two races meeting and not understanding each other very well.

"Beg pardon? What, please, means 'shit'? My link lists no definition."

(Originally posted on my blog: pagesofstarlight.blogspot.com)

If Heinlein or Asimov had been brought to the future, schooled deeply in feminist theory, and told to write an adventure story, I doubt it would have differed from this. The prose is almost identical to classic sci-fi style, complete with purple prose and no showing without outright telling - but the characters are much more rounded, the women actually interesting, and the plot thrilling. It's a bit of a slow starter, but once you get into this book is a wonderful romp through old-fashioned sci fi universes, certainly to amuse any fan of classic pulpy sci-fi.

3.5 stars, but rounding up because this just hit the exact 80s pulp scifi, campy itch I had.

Fun, easy, and wholy cheesy, this book gave me the same feeling as a good campy episode of Doctor Who.

Female written, female MC, and a bittersweet ending. Heck yes. I don't like that she was 16, but her voice was appropriate to the age I guess, so I'll let it go (mostly).

I initially gave this 4/5 but I’ve thought about it for months now and I loved it. It has its flaws but Crispin writes great aliens and characters.

This is about the 3rd or 4th time I've read this book and it still is as good as the first time. Definitely for those who enjoy scifi

I really enjoyed the start of this series. I had read the author's Han Solo trilogy some years back and thought it was great. This proved to be just as quality as those books. The books centers on a human girl Mahree and her journey with first contact with an alien species. It brings them into contact with much more than that and the need to solve a dispute between them in order to become members into a league of systems. The characters are well developed and the story keeps your grip throughout. I recommend it.

Pleasant but unremarkable read.

That was a lot of fun. The prose is a little dated at this point, but I'm keeping this one around. I want to read more. And I want to go to starbridge.

One of the better YA novels I've read. I like that it is optimistic Sci-Fi. I like that it features a heroine without getting preachy about gender roles. I like that there's a talking rug.

My ratings should be the only review of books from me showing on goodreads. They are my unincentivized, unconnected consumer product opinions.

The star rating reflects solely my subjective reading experience and resulting opinion of the book according to the rating scale used by goodreads. It's not intended to destroy anyone's livelihood nor to churn out book promotions for them — just my opinion/reaction shared with other readers and a means to track my reading, provide book comparison data and aid in book recommendations feature.

I rate here according to goodreads scale meaning that because goodreads determined most readers choose books they think they will enjoy, the goodreads average/okay rating on a 5-unit scale (2½) is rounded down to 2 stars where other sites like retailer Amazon round up to make 3 stars the average/okay read.



[A briefer way to put that is that yes I rate books one star lower on goodreads than on Amazon without in any way considering that to be bullying anyone or restriction of trade—I just do look to see if a site's scale runs 1-5 or 5-1 then what each unit means in that site because that's how I was taught to use scales.

I'm too durn old to be convinced otherwise, too durn ornery to believe that the only correct way to do anything is how it's done on Amazon.com site, and firmly remain convinced only people—not inanimate things like commercial products aka books—can suffer the psychological trauma of being bullied.]