Ascendant Sun
Catherine Asaro
Tor Books, March 2000
ISBN:0-312-86824-3 (trade paperback)
The adventures of super-sexy space-stud Kelric Garlin continue, as he comes back from the dead in
Ascendant Sun, the fifth--and so far raciest--installment in Catherine Asaro's popular Saga of the
Skolian Empire series (which kicked off with 1995's Primary Inversion). But Kelric needs to
keep his miraculous resurrection hush-hush: presumed dead after crash-landing on Coba 18 years
ago in Last Hawk, love-prisoner Kelric endured and finally escaped the lusty attentions of the
planet's swoony ruling matriarchy. Back at last, the bronze-god telepath finds that his world has
been turned upside down: The galaxy-uniting psiberweb has collapsed, the Allied Worlds of Earth
control the Skolian Empire, and his family, the Ruby Dynasty, are all either dead or held hostage,
leaving him as the sole and long-lost Imperial Heir, a man nearly everyone in power would see
imprisoned or assassinated--if they knew he was alive.
Harvard-trained physicist Asaro continues to astound by straddling the SF and romance genres so
adroitly, alternating between chin-rubbing speculations on quantum theory and blushingly steamy sex
scenes with all the skill of an accomplished ballet dancer (which, coincidentally, she also is). Surely
junior-high kids will get their paws on this title tout de suite (and quickly skip to the "good" parts),
but Asaro's award-winning prose, her knack for high-adventure story-telling, and her equal
expertise in both science and romance make this a worthy read for any fan of either genre. --Paul
Hughes (Amazon.com)
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