Leslie Gadallah

This is book 2 of a series of which I have not read book 1. That was a mistake. Bottom line: if you have not read book 1 of the Empire of the Kaz, don't start here.

I was excited to win this from LibraryThing because I love cats and sf and especially cat sf. But the alien Oriani aren't really cats. They are neither the sweet kitties of Crisis on Stardust Station who are real Earth cats, nor are they the glorious lion-like aliens of The Pride of Chanur, who behave like Earth lions and also show more sort of like people. The Oriani are evil. The Kaz made war on them because they are evil baby killers. At the beginning of this book, their species is justly on the brink of extinction. I wanted cats, but what I got was aliens with weird cultural rules that take away everyone's agency and make everyone unwilling to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done, in the first chapter, followed by the usual cantinas-and-fast-ships stuff that's just boring after the 500th example.

I thought I was following the plot well enough in the first chapter. Ayyah and her people the Oriani live on a poor substitute planet which they can't leave because their ship is a wreck and they aren't reproducing their population. And in the second chapter we meet some humans, who are more relatable. But I didn't connect emotionally with the cat characters. Later I realized that was because Ayyah might be the main character but she isn't the hero. The bugs, the "Kaz," against whom Ayyah and her human ally MacDonald are rebelling, are actually the good guys. The Kaz are the ones taking a moral stand. The cat aliens are evil murderers and the bugs are good, and that's not what I wanted.

The cat aliens are not even cat-like except in that they have fur, isolate themselves when feeling ill, and don't really like to be around other members of their own species kind of like some small wildcats. Their evil is very un-catlike. The Oriani are horrified by the idea of eating meat but routinely murder their own newborns. Real cats form loving maternal bonds with their kittens. That's a fundamental part of what cats are.

I didn't finish the book. I hesitated on whether to review it at all because I didn't read the ending, but I'm obligated to write a review because I received a review copy. Honestly I hated this book so much I considered quitting LibraryThing so I wouldn't have to finish reading it. In the end I decided not to try to make myself finish this awful thing and to go ahead and review it based on the half I did read.

I imagine that people who read book 1 might actually like this, though. Presumably those who read book 1 already got emotionally attached to the characters and understand the milieu. show less

I received a copy of Cat’s Pawn, by Leslie Gadalla from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program. Cat’s Pawn is many things. Unfortunately, none of them are good. I generally try to be a positive critic and find the good parts in any book/movie/album that I come across. I firmly believe there are positives to be discovered in any creative work, no matter how flawed it may be as a whole. Sadly, this has not been the case with Cat’s Pawn. Try as I might, I cannot show more find any redeeming quality in this sci fi attempt. The entire novel is an example of why “show don’t tell” is such an important tenet of writing fiction. From start to finish, we are always told what happens. No in depth description, of characters, events or places ever takes place. The reader is not once made to feel like he is there, like he could see the action. Zero involvement. The action is rushed, and the pacing is all over the pace. It’s as if the author had certain passages which it wanted to get to as soon as she could, making everything leading up to them as brief as possible. Scenes which might flesh out the story and characters more are kept minimal in the rush to get to the next plot node. A plot which is unfortunately more predictable than the next Rambo movie. There’s nothing wrong with writing a story that’s been done before, but with poor writing and virtually no plot twists (one might argue they are there, but give it a go and see if you can find one thing you cannot predict), it just doesn’t hold up. I won’t go into offering examples of why I consider Cat’s Pawn bad writing, as one can open the book at virtually any page and see what I mean. Unfortunately, I can only rate this one star. This is by far the harshest I’ve ever been to a book, but with literally hundreds of little known indie sci fi novels out there waiting to be discovered, you’ll be better off not wasting your time with this. show less

There IS a cat in the book, named "Cat". That's great. The story revolves around Ayyah, a character from Orion, on a suicidal mission that is hard for many to understand; sometimes it appears that even SHE doesn't understand. There is a lot of interplay between the different alien species and how they culturally behave, which is a major factor in how the whole story works. I have read book one of the series, which is totally optional for reading or enjoying this book. I immensely enjoyed show more this book. I cannot say more because of spoilers. The story moves on, not too slowly, not too quickly, and I find myself anxiously anticipating what will happen next. show less

Not exactly an original premise, but reasonably well executed. The insectoid Hivemind the Kaz have been controlling an ever expanding Empire for a million years. The Orians are a more cat-like race, solitary by preference, living in a desert world, but well endowed with technology. Humans are mere stripings having just entered the space exploration, and not yet really encountered the Kaz. Both are competing for their attentions without drawing any attention to the fact.

A human Andrews, show more manages to become embroiled in the honour of a ranking Orian, Taren. Being human he has no such concepts and would rather live his own life, with his own people. Even if that means associating with drug runners and gamblers. Taren has to carefully balance that desire against his own honour, his species' deepest secrets, keeping Andrews alive, and then the Kaz side with Andrews' boss.

It's well enough written, with the loner culture of the Orian sufficiently alien. I'm not quite sure that all the technology has been thought through properly, because the Kaz should be massively overwhelmingly ahead of any little provincial species' just stumbling into space, and they aren't even if the resources are stretched thin. I didn't like the time distortion for the opening and closing chapters, but that's a personal bugbear. It's a good mix of action and dialogue, but the characters are not very self-aware of the issues around them, Andrews seems to take some particularly un-wise decisions. A good contrast to far too many heroes who immediately adapt to alien cultures however.

There are much better insects vs cats in space books out there - Pride of Chanur by C J Cherryh springs immediately to mind - but this is a worthy contender. show less