Hellflower

I found Hellflower to be an interesting read. It took me about 1 week, so at 252 pages I covered about 30 pages a day. I read Honor Harrington books in a day to two, while textbooks take me months. There was alot of use of regional and slang dialect invented for the book. The main characters are Butterfly St. Cyr, a legal/illegal trader with her own small space ship, with police warrants and some tragic parts of her backstory. She has a friend and helper named Paladin which is a highly illegal AI computer. Her life becomes more complicated when she saves a hellflower warrior who she calls Tiggy Stardust. The three of them have a violent difficult time staying alive while taking the jobs that can keep her flying between the planets of show more the Phoenix Empire. Butterfly’s options become more and more limited as the powerful players around her close in and whose motivations she can’t figure out. Her secret weapons include a reckless moxie, the aid of Paladin and the nearly insane and honor bound hellflower. These secret advantages help her move through the story while keeping one step ahead of the closing noose of Imperial affairs. show less

An action-packed space opera told from the point-of-view of a lower-class, female outcast teamed up with an equally outcast AI. The narrator's recklessness got on my nerves, but it's standard fare in this kind of adventure story. There are lots of interesting plot twists as the main characters try to figure out how they've become pawns in the machinations of the big houses. The characters are likable, and the plot moves along.