| $@%&! level: Medium-Low “Bedroom” level: Low (some happens, but it's mostly just suggested) Violence level: Medium-High (there's a fair lot of it, but not so very graphic) Back Cover: “Heris Serrano—formerly a commander in the Regular Space Service—must take whatever job she can get after her resignation under a cloud. What she can get is the captaincy of a rich old lady's space yacht...a rich old horsewoman, who has little liking for the military, and whose spoiled nephew Ronnie (and his equally spoiled friends) have been foisted on her after his folly embarrassed the family. Lady Cecelia's only apparent interest is horses—she intends to go fox hunting on the private pleasure planet of a friend of hers, Lord Thornbuckle. But events conspire to make it far more than a fox hunt.” |
Here's an odd thing, though. Heris Serrano is supposed to be the main character, right? She's certainly the one who carries the plot and sort of causes things to happen. But this isn't really her story. Oh, she's vitally important to it, and she defeats her antagonist in the end, but she doesn't really do much changing or growing, aside from growing to enjoy riding horses and becoming accustomed to being the captain of a space yacht instead of a battleship. But the young people, now they do a lot of growing. It's amazing what a fight for survival will do for a rich spoiled brat's maturity level and overall world view.
I said the parts in the beginning weren't necessary to the story, but I'm going to hedge my bets a little here. I'm pretty sure this was written with the intention of becoming the trilogy it eventually became, which means the parts at the beginning may have quite a lot to do with the story later on. Just not so much in this book. Aside from starting that lesson with Ronnie, getting Heris Serrano to try horse-riding, and getting Lady Cecelia to pay more attention to how her ship works, all of which do pay off later, you could almost skip that part. Unless, like me, you enjoy character interaction as much as action-adventure.