Review: Goddess or Madwoman? Even Tompa Lee isn't sure: further adventures
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 16, 2014
Canadian born, Arizona author Edward Hoornaert's bio gleaned from snippets around the ether of the Internet include the following (written by the author): `I'm a slow learner who took a long time to realize what I finally wanted out of life. Hmm. Now that I've typed that, I realize it isn't strictly true. Some things I fell in love with in my middle teens. My high school sweetheart (now my wife). Playing orchestral music (on the oboe). In so many ways, though, it took me forever to learn what now seems obvious. For example, writing. Creating fiction is, IMHO, the most fun I can have with my clothes on, but I didn't figure that out for a LONG time. As I said, slow learner. But now I'm a multi-published novelist and short-story writer who has written both romances, science fiction and, most recently, science fiction romance. I'm also a musician who has played principal oboe in the Kamloops Symphony Orchestra and the Civic Orchestra of Tucson. Aside from the above, my other interests include my wife and four children, listening to music-mostly classical, but anything that's good, coin collecting, sports-baseball and hockey, staying fit.' And while that résumé may not impress the guardians of great literature, it most assuredly prepares the reader for appreciating the tone, humor, flashes of prescience, social commentary, unfettered excitement that Hoornaert has created with this little jewel of a `sci-fi romance'.Having had the opportunity to read Hoornaert's first book in this series - The Trial of Tompa Lee - it is easy to summarize what comes before this book, information that may enhance the story for whom this is the first exposure to Tompa Lee: Tompa Lee, twenty-second-century "street meat" from Manhattan, has clawed her way up to the lowest rungs of the Commerce Space Navy. Unfortunately, she is framed for a heinous act of terrorism and the alien Shons demand that she be turned over to them for trial. Dante Roussel is the Navy policeman ordered to deliver Tompa - but he learns that Shon justice demands a trial-by-combat with Tompa and her supporters battling three hundred accusers. Awmit is her only Shon supporter, an old, feckless nobody who witnessed Tompa's innocence. Appalled by the injustice of two against three hundred, Dante disobeys orders and charges off to help Tompa. In the face of overwhelming odds, Tompa Lee finally discovers the trust and love that she has never known - and in the process, becomes a legend. Now in Book 2 Tompa, both the ambassador to the Shons' planet and regarded as the goddess from outer space, is beset with nightmares and her ally Amwit plans a statue in her honor. Tompa is preoccupied by thoughts of Dante, but the threat of an attack by the enemy Kilcks is imminent. There is a potential love interest with secret agent Ming Mengliev that is thwarted when the Klicks attack. The evil Lord Keevie, leader of the Klick missionaries seeks to slaughter Tompa as such an act would make him a god. With Tompa's circling of the loyal Shons such as Amwit  and Tar-Thara she struggles to salvage the surviving Shons to safety.Attempting to summarize a plot of fantasy borders on superfluous. It is less the story than it is ht telling of it that makes the difference.  The classy style of writing that accompanies Tompa through her crafty odyssey and trial by combat is Hoornaert's forte. It is a space adventure, a terrific wading through the mire of good and evil, and a plot that begs for further volumes, so well has Edward Hoornaert captured our fancy. Grady Harp, May 14