<\/a>From the back cover:<\/b>
\nSkyfall<\/i> goes back to the beginning, to the rebirth of Skolia, showing how a chance meeting on a backwater planet forges a vast interstellar empire. Eldrinson, a provincial ruler on a primitive planet, is plagued by inner demons. But when he meets Roca, a beautiful and mysterious woman from the stars, he whisks her away to his mountain retreat, inadvertently starting a great interstellar war, and birthing the next generation of rulers for the Skolian Empire.<\/p>\n

Review:<\/b>
\nSkyfall<\/i> is technically the ninth book in Catherine Asaro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Saga of the Skolian Empire<\/i> series, but is first if one is reading in internal chronological order. It works well as an entry point, though there were a few things that could\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve used a bit more explanation\u00e2\u20ac\u201dpresumably this happens in the books that were actually published before this one.<\/p>\n

Beautiful and golden (like, literally) Roca Skolia is a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ruby Psion,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d an extremely rare and valued psion<\/a> descended from similarly rare parents who currently rule the Skolian Imperialate. Because of her pedigree, she is expected to marry someone of the ruling assembly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s choosing and produce more Ruby Psions, the only people capable of controlling \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Kyle web,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d an instantaneous interstellar network that somehow protects Skolia. Roca\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been married twice before and her grown son, Kurj, has a lot of mental anguish about the death of his father, the abuse perpetrated by his stepfather, and the atrocities committed by another group of psions who relish the pain of others. <\/p>\n

When Roca\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s away on government business (she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the foreign affairs councillor), Kurj calls an assembly vote to discuss going to war with the sadistic psions. She knows he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll try to stop her from casting her dissenting vote, so goes underground to try to make it back home in time without attracting his notice. Her route takes her to a remote, unspoiled world called Skyfall by \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Allieds\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (descendents of Earth) and Lyshriol by its natives. There, her plans are foiled by a treacherous snow storm, and while she waits for it to pass, she falls in love with Eldri, a passionate and epileptic bard with significant psionic gifts, and ends up pregnant just in time for Eldri\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rival to lay siege to his castle.<\/p>\n

It wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be incorrect to label Skyfall<\/i> as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a romance novel in space.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Certainly Roca\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relationship with Eldri, who believes she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a gift from the sun gods and is otherwise baffled by the technology she sees as commonplace, is quite romantic, with the two of them drawn together pretty much instantly and conceiving easily when other Ruby Psion births have required much medical intervention to achieve. Roca\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s position brings political factors into their relationship, however. It turns out that Lyshriol was once a Skolian colony, so when Kurj eventually comes looking for her and Roca\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s family finds out she has actually married<\/i> this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153barbarian,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it is ultimately Eldri\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s genes that convince them to accept him (after a barrage of tests during which Eldri\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mental abilities and illness are evaluated).<\/p>\n

There aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a whole lot of sci-fi elements to the novel, though there are enough to give one a picture of how things work in the Skolian Empire and its relationships with other spacefaring people. Genetic manipulation seems quite normal, as are cybernetic implants, and I am totally envious of the language node Roca has, which enables her to process and gradually learn new languages. Kurj has turned himself into an intimidating metallic giant, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still not enough to shield him from his self-conflicting inner demons. In his case, Asaro effectively uses technology to show just how damaged he is, with some pretty fascinating results.<\/p>\n

Suffice it to say, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m looking forward to reading more in this series!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the back cover: Skyfall goes back to the beginning, to the rebirth of Skolia, showing how a chance meeting on a backwater planet forges a vast interstellar empire. Eldrinson, a provincial ruler on a primitive planet, is plagued by inner demons. But when he meets Roca, a beautiful and mysterious woman from the stars, … Continue reading “Skyfall by Catherine Asaro”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,8,5,7,109],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-1350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-catherine-asaro","category-books","category-m","category-review","category-skyfall","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1350"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1373,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1350\/revisions\/1373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}