Primary Inversion:Book1 of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro

I recently read this series. I had been reading reviews about the Skolian novels-mostly favorable-for years. A few years ago I read the first two books but lost interest because the first, second and third books really only have a very loose connection.

Let me lay the groundwork for these novels. In the distant space traveling future, humans leave Earth to explore space and find, quite to their surprise shock that humans from Earth already have established two warring, space faring civilizations. In the mostly good corner you have the Skolians with their Ruby Empire. The Skolians are the descendants of the Mayan Native Americans taken from Earth by some benevolent race of aliens given advanced technology and then left on a planet-Raylica- to make their way home as best they can. They are a empathicly capable matriarchy-following Raylican/Mayan traditions with a female Pharaoh-the Ruby Pharaoh. Eventually the Skolians are able to leave the planet they have been left on and they become a mighty space faring civilization colonizing mulitple planets and with a vast intergallatic empire. Eventually, for unclear reasons, the empire begins to fail and Skolians lose their space faring technology. Skolian civilization again manages to gain space travel and around that time a geneticist-Rhon-is trying to develop a less sensitive empath. He blunders and creates the Eubians-the anti-empaths. Eubians are able to feel intense sexual pleasure by causing pain to empaths. Naturally, these two people are at war and have been for generations by the time the Allied Worlds of Earth reach space. Both Skolia and Eube have strong technically advanced societies. Skolia is able to use the empathic leaders-the Ruby Pharaoh, the military leader Imperator and sometimes one other empathic member of the family, to power vast psibernets which allow instanteous communication between planets, ships and military. So far this ability is pretty much all that is keeping the Skolians free of Eubian rule. The Eubians have a larger society and are more advanced technicially-they are also brutal monsters with over 90% of their population slaves. The Allied Worlds of Earth are minor players mostly trying to keep the peace between the two major powers.

My least favorite of any series is usually the first book. The first seems to always be more concerned with introducing and building characters and plots than truly telling a story. I would say that is true with this series, but not as true. My favorite character in this series is definetely Soz. Her and Jaibriol II's meeting is told in the first novel of this series-Primary Inversion. For that reason alone I liked this introduction to the series more than I usually like introductions to series. Primary Inversion introduces readers to my favorite aspect of the Skolian universe-Jagernauts(Jags). Jags are cybernetically enhanced empathicly capable human fighter pilots. They can stay connected psychically with each other and their ships which make them capable to coordinate the attacks that keep Skolia free from Eubian rule. Yet, what must it be like to be empathic and a soldier? To die with every enemy you kill? I liked that this novel focused somewhat on what long term effects of constant battle are. What it is like to be a soldier on active duty for 40 years-with no real end in sight of either the war nor your active role in it. Sauscony (Soz) is in line to inherit her older half-bothers' (Kurj) military leadership and place in the psibernet. She is competing with her older full-brother(Althor) in a battle to see not only who is best suited to replace Kurj as Imperator and leader of the military, but also who is left alive to do so. Her youngest brother (Kelric) and the third Imperator-in-waiting is declared missing and presumed dead at the begining of the story. The toll all of this death, killing and in Soz's case even capture and torture have placed on the soul of an already sensitive psychic. What living under these conditions have warped and will warp her into being Not able to lay down the load cause millions of lives are at stake and there is no one else to shoulder the burden. Having the courage to ulitmately walk away from power, from war, from hate-to build your own way. All of those conflicts are in a story that is in many ways a futuristic re-telling of Romeo and Juliet. Only in this story, Juliet is the soldier and Romeo is along for the ride.

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!