Black on Black [Mass Market Paperback]

K.D. Wentworth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999

Frankly, he preferred humans. Rescued from a slave market by a human trader and raised as his son, one question has haunted Heyoka Blackeagle through the years: who - and what - is he? He feels human, indeed he feels like a somewhat alienated member of his father's tribe. So what if he is seven feet tall, furry, and equipped with retractable claws? Human is as human does...Right?

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Baen (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671577883
• ISBN-13: 978-0671577889
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #803,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Praise For "Black On Black", March 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Black on Black (Mass Market Paperback)

I was hooked from the very first page. Wentworth wastes no time in transporting us to a strange and inscrutable desert planet. The action starts with a bang, but skillfully interwoven with telling details about the planet, which provides a seductive, gritty, and sometimes surprising backdrop for the fiendishly clever plot. The twists and turns, enjoyable in themselves, add up to a fascinating story as the protagonist, alien-born but raised on Earth, sets out to unravel the riddle of his childhood kidnapping from his home world, and the possible religious significance of the color of his fur (yes, fur). Wentworth manages to get inside the minds of her characters, even the aliens, in a very satisfying, and sometimes hilarious, way. (For example, an alien using a radio communicator addresses her interlocutor contemptuously as "box," since that is what the radio looks like to her.)

Emotionally jolting and intellectually satisfying, "Black On Black" is a worthy successor to the "Dune" series and the tradition of literary off-world science fiction. I highly recommend it.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Human/versus/Other, April 15, 2001

By 

Walt Boyes "Walt Boyes" (Aurora IL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black on Black (Mass Market Paperback)

Rarely are new alien species created with so much "backstory" so clearly delineated. In Black on Black, K. D. Wentworth brings us not one, but two new aliens: the Hrinn, and the Flek. Astutely camoflaged as an action-adventure space opera, Black on Black is really a meditation and a fugue on the concept of "other." Heyoka, who is neither human nor Hrinn, faces a lifetime of otherness. Raised by a consummate human outsider, a Sioux warrior, he tries to camoflage his otherness by joining the military...yet somehow, the fact that he is about 7 feet tall, with fangs and claws, and huge sharp teeth, and very black fur covering his entire body somehow keeps interfering with his desire to be considered fully human. His journey of discovery to find his roots as Hrinn get him into more trouble than it is worth, yet somehow he manages to float through it without getting too involved....until, that is, his human partner, Mitsu, turns up missing and is found to be a brainwashed slave of the Flek...Hrinn versus Flek...two complete opposites as alien species. The Flek, a hive species while the Hrinn are so individualistic they can hardly live with each other, let alone humans and Flek. Heyoka is very well realized, and stops way short of becoming the invincible star-guided hero that most bad space opera provides. He is a seven-foot-tall bag of insecurities and wants/needs/desires just like the rest of the universe. Wentworth craftily disguises this metaphysical tractatus as a rip-roaring space opera, with plenty of action to disguise the thought pill.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Frankly, he preferred humans..., February 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Black on Black (Mass Market Paperback)

Rescued from slavers, raised among humans, the alien Heyoka must return to his birthworld and regain his place in Hrinnti society. Nebula nominee K. D. Wentworth does a masterful job in giving readers a multi-faceted view of an alien society, its strengths and beauties, warts and foibles. Indeed, Wentworth's particular genius is a wholeness of vision: even the darkest character is shown to have a glimmering of light, whether it is the tenderness in the vicious priest Rakshal's instruction of the cublings or the beauty in the songs of the nihilistic Flek invaders. Such touches, however, never stand in the way of Wentworth's killer plot, full of devious twists and stunning action scenes. Like the young hero of STAR WARS, Heyoka learns that the fate of countless worlds rests on his search for self.