Between Darkness & Light (Sholan Alliance Novels) [Mass Market Paperback]

If you like character interaction, this book is for you. If you're into large calibre problem solving, this book may not be. SciFi shoot-em-ups are OK as far as they go, but if I've always liked real characters acting and reacting in real ways to the problems presented them. As with many book series, it's best to start with the first book, Turning Point, and read them in order.

In Between the Darkness and the Light, Kusac, a 'feline-like' sholan and the main protagonist, has to cope with the loss of his special telepathic link to Carrie, a human, as well as hide the fact that the sholan kit he's trying to rescue from the Valtegan General, Kezule, is his son. And then there's the rotten apple in the sholan contingency. What are his plans? And why is Kusac so attracted to General Kezule's wife? Especially since he doesn't want to be! Then there's the Telaxaudin who's keeping a real close eye on Kusac. What's his hidden agenda? Things have a real potential for getting out of hand and the results could spell disaster for Sholans and Valtegans alike.

I like how author Lisanne Norman plays characters off of each other in ways that keep the tension high and the reader wondering when the other truckload of shoes is going to drop. For me, it made the book hard to put down and resulted in several sleepless nights.

To understand this book, you must have read the previous books in the series. (This is the bad news, why? Because so much of what occurs in this book takes place as if you have read the series.)

This book is very well written. A vast improvement over her last two, but those two books are VERY, VERY critical to this book. To discuss what happens in this book beyond that Kusac is trying to rescue his son Shaidan is to give away too much. The ending? Your left hanging of course. Lisanne has done a great job of making this book entertaining and thought provoking.

Enjoy the book, you will not regret it.

Between Darkness and Light is the seventh novel in the Sholan Alliance series, following Stronghold Rising. The initial work in this series is Turning Point.

In the previous volume, Kusac had taken a Brotherhood team to Kij'ik, General Kezule's asteroid base, and transported a group of Sholan hybrid telepathic cubs back to Haven. He had then returned to Kij'ik with most of his team to assist Kezule in establishing a balanced Prime society. Annur, the Sept leader on Rryuk's Profit, had detached the engine section of the ship and attacked a M'zullian warship carrying the lost matter compiler.

In this novel, Kusac is determined to discover the parentage of Shaidan, the remaining hybrid telepath; the cub's scent suggests that Kusac is the father and Zayshul, a Prime female, is the mother. He discovers that his powerful sexual obsession with Zayshul is the result of scent marking, which Valtegan females do to designate their mates; the scent marking also suggests to other females that he is a satisfactory lover, so the Valtegan females keep flirting with him. His leadership of the team is constantly being Challenged by the xenophobic Dzaou, a sleeper Brother from the far past, who despises and hates him as a Valtegan-lover. Moreover, his psionic powers are returning in erratic surges. Despite all this, Kusac initiates Brotherhood style training for the Prime civilians as well as the Warriors.

On Ghioass, the TeLaxaudin homeworld, the TeLaxaudins and Cabbarans of the Camarilla gather to consider the results of Annur's actions and to evaluate the future possibilities. Despite isolationist arguments, they decide to continue to intervene in the lives of their Children species. They convey the Camarilla decision to Giyarishis, their TeLaxaudin agent on the Kij'ik, and provide him with an assistant.

On Shola, Alien Relations has received a human telepath, Conner, in a cyro pod from an obscure college in the British Isles. AlRel's researches into the matter find that a merlin is a small hawk and that Druids were supposedly wiped out during the time of the Roman invasion. At first, Noni treats Conner in a her usual deprecatory manner, but Conner soon establishes parity with her and they become comfortable together. Meanwhile, Carrie receives a visit from the Rryuk Matriarch concerning the mating of Giyesh and Jeran.

On K'oish'ik, the only surviving member of the Directorate, K'hedduk, plots against the Emperor. The Sholan Ambassador and his Brotherhood advisors discover that the Prime homeworld has also suffered greatly in the Cataclysm and that poverty is the rule outside the City of Light.

This novel extends the interspecies sexual couplings of the previous works to the Valtegans, a non-mammalian species. Possibly Norman is trying to show the provincialism of the Terrans? Nevertheless, the various interspecies sexual encounters do seem to be driven by the plot rather than being gratuitous affairs. Will Norman extend the sexual pairings to the TeLexaudins? Is it even possible?

Recommended for all Norman fans and anyone who enjoys tales of personal and interpersonal development in a SF setting.

-Arthur W. Jordin