Catch The Lightening: Book 2 Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro

Catch The Lightening takes place about 50 years after Primary Inversion in the same universe and the same family. Althor the 2nd being the nephew-not brother of Soz. Althor through some kind of damage to his Jag ends up on an alternate historical Earth-1987-where he meets Tina- a 17 year old empathic direct descendant of the Mayan Native Americans. Tina lives in a scary, gang-infested alternate 1987 Los Angeles. One night on her way home from her waitressing job she meets a strange gold man holding a box and mumbling to himself. He is looking for the White House where his mother is being presented with an award and his english is very poor. Against her better judgement she speaks to him, he saves her-predictably-from mean gang bangers and eventually she invites him into her home, heart and body. What follows is Althor malfunctioning-though a very interesting mix of computer and man as seen through the eyes of someone like myself. The powers that be in 1987 Los Angeles discovering Althors ship and responding predictably by trying to capture and study both Althor and the ship. Althor ulitmately escaping with the help of some brilliant students from CalTech. Returning, with Tina, to his own time and universe where he must unravel if his ship malfunctioned or was sabotaged. The story line was pretty weak from begining to end with this story. The fact that Tina lives in a gang-infested area on her own at 17 should make her far to savvy to take home a huge stray man-no matter what empathic connection they share. The idea that a bunch of kids from CalTech-however brilliant-are able to break security on a military base to even get back to Jag is shaky at best. The story was just highly implausible to begin with.I like Tina and Althor but this was a weak book to have second in the series. It is almost jarring having read first Primary Inversion and then jumping to this. Although, having read the entire series, I can say that this book certainly has its place and even makes sense about 6 books after this one. I hope Asaro eventually returns to this time period in the Saga of the Skolian Empire-many unfinished business needs to be worked out just about 50 years after Primary Inversion.

Primary Inversion
Catch The Lightening
The Last Hawk
The Radiant Seas
Ascendant Sun
The Quantum Rose
Spherical Harmonic
The Moon's Shadow
Skyfall
Schism
The Final Key-Not yet published due 11/29/05
~~~~Where ever you go, There you are!