Catch the Lightning, by Catherine Asaro
Jul. 16th, 2007 03:36 pmCatch the Lightning
by Catherine Asaro
352 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/SF/Romance
Nearing the end of my Asaro reading spree--I still have a novella of hers in Irresistible Forces and a personal copy of The Quantum Rose, but the light is approaching! Not that I don't love Asaro and her crazy physics, but this is the tenth volume that I've read in half of one month. Some authors, like George R.R. Martin and Guy Gavriel Kay, I can read over and over without getting bored--unfortunately, Asaro hasn't joined that list.
This didn't work for me. Doesn't mean that it's a bad book or Asaro's a bad writer--it just didn't click for me. I read it quickly and enjoyed it somewhat, but the romance stayed superficial. There's a lot of narrative infodump, and I do mean a lot. Easy to skim over, but still annoying. Chronology also screwed with my head--by publication date this is the second book, but in chronological order it's the latest. I'm assuming that it occurs after The Moon's Shadow, since Althor Selei doesn't exist then. As a side effect, this book (Catch the Lightning) is extremely inconsistent. For one, Dehya is still the Assembly Key when she should be co-ruling as the Ruby Pharaoh. I'm okay with small plot-holes from book to book--I didn't exactly read in order, after all--but Assembly Key /=/ Ruby Pharaoh. That's a huge difference in plot.
Asaro tries really hard to make each of her books self-contained, and I appreciate that. But after ten books, it's tedious to read the same (often near-verbatim) explanations. I'm on the fence about recommendation--decide for yourself.
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calico_reaction's review
by Catherine Asaro
352 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/SF/Romance
Nearing the end of my Asaro reading spree--I still have a novella of hers in Irresistible Forces and a personal copy of The Quantum Rose, but the light is approaching! Not that I don't love Asaro and her crazy physics, but this is the tenth volume that I've read in half of one month. Some authors, like George R.R. Martin and Guy Gavriel Kay, I can read over and over without getting bored--unfortunately, Asaro hasn't joined that list.
This didn't work for me. Doesn't mean that it's a bad book or Asaro's a bad writer--it just didn't click for me. I read it quickly and enjoyed it somewhat, but the romance stayed superficial. There's a lot of narrative infodump, and I do mean a lot. Easy to skim over, but still annoying. Chronology also screwed with my head--by publication date this is the second book, but in chronological order it's the latest. I'm assuming that it occurs after The Moon's Shadow, since Althor Selei doesn't exist then. As a side effect, this book (Catch the Lightning) is extremely inconsistent. For one, Dehya is still the Assembly Key when she should be co-ruling as the Ruby Pharaoh. I'm okay with small plot-holes from book to book--I didn't exactly read in order, after all--but Assembly Key /=/ Ruby Pharaoh. That's a huge difference in plot.
Asaro tries really hard to make each of her books self-contained, and I appreciate that. But after ten books, it's tedious to read the same (often near-verbatim) explanations. I'm on the fence about recommendation--decide for yourself.
Links
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calico_reaction's review
