LitPick Review
Just as every Eyloni before her, Kidahin becomes an adult when she takes part in the adulthood ceremony. Soon after this important event, she is put to work on the ship Hunter’s Moon. But things do not go as planned and the ship is forced to land on a nearby moon to make repairs. This is where Kidahin meets Chief Warrant Officer Del Marsch. But unlike any other Eyloni before her, she forms a relationship with this human once he offers to train her. This comes as a surprise to both the humans and Eyloni, as they are two very different species. Marsch must come to terms with his own past as he faces the current task of training an alien. But with this comes many complications, and he will have to prove himself as a soldier to get past the many problems he faces.
Opinion:
This book was unlike anything I have read before, in both terms of story and style. While I am a huge fan of science fiction, it is not too often I come across a book where one of the main characters is an alien. Often it is only the viewpoints of the human characters that are seen. And I know that if they make the alien too strange, the reader will have a hard time relating to them as a character. While I did really enjoy seeing just how different Eyloni society was from the humans, I did not feel as if I had a strong connection to Kidahin or any of the other Eyloni, most likely due to them acting so alien. But on the other hand, I really did enjoy seeing the intricacies of this alien society. The way that the Eyloni used singing was pretty incredible, and I loved it when aliens could do things that humans could not.
The smaller details in this book were done very well. There was a lot of nice world building that helped me to visualize everything that was going on. However, I felt that whenever the point of view changed from Kidahin to Marsch or to another character, it was not always executed well and I got confused and had to reread the section to understand that there was a transition of perspective. I also did not understand the actions of Marsch at times. He is a human, but at times the choices he made or the thoughts he had did not seem human at all. I know he had been through a lot, but I was having trouble understanding what he did. Other than that, this was a good read.
I do recommend it to lovers of science fiction, especially those who love meeting alien species that are anything but human.
