Rating: 
Summary: Better Than Expected
Review: This novel is the first in a series that has so far reached four volumes, although it can be read as a mostly complete story within itself. Unfortunately, this is partially due to the failure of the background plots to ever cohere sufficiently to become compelling. At its heart, this is a simple "girl meets boy" story, and would've played out just as well as a piece of historical fiction instead of a romance with science fiction trappings.The protagonist, Terese Soerensen, accidentally becomes stranded on an off-limits planet under the remote governance of her brother, the only human duke within the Chapalli Empire, which is ruled by humanoid aliens that have forcibly absorbed the human polity. The planet, Rhui, is populated by medieval-era humans who are unaware of their galactic heritage, having been apparently seeded there from Earth by rogue Chapalli centuries ago. Once on the planet, Tess becomes aware that a group of Chapalli are on the surface illegally and are paying a band of nomads to help them discover ancient ruins which may contain useful secrets. To be rescued, Tess needs to reach Jeds, where her brother has a clandestine team of off-world observers, but she also needs to discover why the aliens are wandering around in contravention of treaty. At the same time, she has to take pains to ensure that the indigenous population doesn't realize the she and the Chapalli are not of their world. Fortunately, the Chapalli are very much caste-driven, and as her brother's heir, she outranks most of them, so she can browbeat them to a certain extent. Thus, when she makes contact with the nomads and finds out they're going to be escorting the aliens across the plains, she's able to force her way into the party, much to the dismay of the nomad leader, Ilyakoria Bakhtiian. The character of Ilya poses certain problems. Essentially, he's a highly educated and philosophical version of Genghis Khan. He has been uniting the jaran tribes, sometimes by bloodshed, so that he can lead them against the settled peoples. What is never explored is why he should want to do this. Basically, he's going to cause untold deaths, both amongst his own people and the city-dwellers, but no one seems to care too much about that. His motivation is never really explored; the civilized folk aren't unduly harrassing or oppressing the jaran, and indeed, most of them are scarcely aware of their existence. Nor do the settled lands hold anything the jaran want; the nomads are pretty content right where they are, out on the plains. So why everyone goes along with Ilya is a bit of a mystery, and Tess's failure to feel any remorse at all about the bloody war that he will unleash doesn't really speak well for her. Another flaw is that the "B" story, dealing with events affecting Tess's brother, the Duke Charles, pretty much just lies there inertly and doesn't contribute a whole lot. This particular plot fairly clearly serves to set up events for subsequent books, but is so uninteresting that it could easily have been removed with no harm done. And even Tess's ongoing investigation of the Chapalli traveling with her and Ilya's band is a bit of a snooze. Far too often, her breakthroughs are the result of people strolling up within earshot of her and blabbing out their secrets. Coincidence plays far too large a role in the book. Nevertheless, the author does a fantastic job with dialogue, particularly the barbed exchanges between Ilya and Tess, who love each other so much from the onset that they actually can't stand each other. Their ongoing duel is skillfully depicted. And the secondary characters, particularly Yuri and Kirill, are vividly drawn. Make no mistake: this is, at heart, a romance story, although not an insipid and cloying one. If you're looking for galactic intrigue and adventure, this would be a poor choice. But if you want to indulge in a tale on a more human scale, albeit one with some serious flaws, this would be a good choice.
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