Chris Reher

I received this book through librarything.com.

I was lucky enough to win Chris Reher's "Rebel Alliances" a few months ago and absolutely loved it so when "The Catalyst" came up on the giveaway list, I crossed my fingers and got lucky again. (Hey Chris, send me the others. Please please.)

We meet Nova Whiteside and Sethran Kada and get our introduction to the Union (of planets, one presumes, or species) and the precarious political situation the Union faces. Seth is a rebel, or a brigand, or show more something, and he was Nova's sweetie when they were at the Academy together, learning to be pilots and Union officers. But Seth skipped out one night and now, 6 years later, he tumbles back into Nova's life.

"The Catalyst" is the first of the Targon Tales and one of the first books that Ms Reher published. It's a little rough around the edges compared to "Rebel Alliances" but hey, compared to the average space opera these days, it is a masterpiece. And if the upward trajectory of Ms Reher's control of the written word continues at the same slope, lucky readers might sublime after reading the final paragraph some future exquisite book.

Oh yeah. Nova Whiteside rocks.

Keep 'em coming Chris. show less

As I get older the more appealing books without the typical Shakespearean ending with all the ends tied in a neat bow are. This is one of those books with a bittersweet ending that was fun getting to.

part of galactic empires, edited by patty jansen. not bad. feisty female MC and an interesting universe, decently written and plotted... i thought the ending was a tiny bit too deux ex machina, but worth reading to that point...

This book was disappointing. The main character, Nova Whiteside, is an interesting sort of person starting immediately, but the plot is all shambles and the writing style is probably 80% dialogue. This book needs desperately to be fleshed out and expanded upon, providing more descriptions between verbal confrontations at least.

In addition to that, this would have been much more interestingly written as two separate books: one about a rebellion and one about drug trafficking. In the last few show more pages the authors ties them together, but it is a very loose tie and unconvincing. Nova herself says that she discovered everything accidentally. Fact is, we go from sexual assault to a battle to a kidnapping to a rescue to blackmailing to a battle to love angst to a battle to an investigation to a battle to bomb defusing to uncovering a drug trafficking ring to her commander finally signing off on her transfer papers before there's another battle.... The world built here is interesting enough to hold its own... there is no rise and fall of action at all in the book. It's just a machine gun of high intense action to the face. All the time. And that was what I didn't like about the book.

But I did like Nova. I liked her kick-ass-I'm-doing-the-thing attitude and her strong, confident belief in herself.

This book had so much potential, and it grieves me to see that there are four more, probably all as solidly three-starred as this one. Potential to flesh them out and be so much more, but the author had his own vision and didn't flesh it out to it's full realm of possibilities. show less