Review: Wonderfully imagined
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 3, 2014
Three hundred years ago a starship carrying a group of humans crashed on an alien world. Although they believe that it's just a matter of time before they are eventually found and rescued, while they wait they have successfully built themselves a self-sufficient community and learnt to live with the occasionally fearsome weather and the strange and often dangerous animals and plants on the planet. Unknown to them, their planet has already been found by an alien insect-like life form called the Garsal, an aggressive species that creates giant breeding hives wherever it can and is gradually taking over the Universe.Shanna and Kaidan are teenagers whose parents have a farm where they breed and train starcats, beautiful black panther-like cats with iridescent ripples of blue, red or purple colour in their coats. They are highly intelligent and can be trained to obey commands and form a life-long empathic bond with a human of their choosing.Much of the planet is uncolonised and unexplored with many dangerous plants and animals that can kill or poison the untrained, and some that may also offer useful medicines. The settlers have established a group of Scouts who patrol the wild areas around their settlements and learn about the new life forms out there. When Shanna nears the completion of her schooling and has to decide what career she wants to follow, she chooses to join the Scout Corps. All Scouts have their own starcat that they train to help in their exploration and Shanna is lucky enough to be chosen as a companion by two beautiful young brothers, Storm and Twister, raised by her own family. She also takes on the role as her cadet troop’s starcat training which brings her it’s own trials and tribulations. It is on the cadets first training trip to the wilderness area that the Scouts first discover evidence of the Garsal presence on their planet and realize that their own presence and survival on the planet may be under threat.I greatly enjoyed this novel and am so glad the next instalment in the series will be released soon as I’m looking forward to finding out what happens next. I really enjoyed the author’s world-building with the many weird and wonderful plants and animals that she has imagined and described in detail. The characters in the story are also well drawn and developed, particularly Shanna and her brother Kaidan, who is emerging as an important character, but also the older experienced Scouts and trainers involved in working with the cadets. The starcats are also amazing and I’m sure everyone who reads this book will want their own beautiful creature by the end of the novel.