Customer Reviews

Cat Scratch Fever

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Cat Scratch Fever" is the start of Harper's second major series. This series is set in a colonized world filled with a dazzling array of technology and opportunities. And amidst a society that we can only dream of now, an elemental earthy force of life and death still rules. The main character starts off the book, dragging the reader into her predicaments one by one, leading down the path to her own destruction or salvation.

I absolutely love Tara K. Harper's books. This was the first book I read, though it's her second series. There is a sequel to this already in print, titled "Cataract" and a third book is due any time. The emotion and action that Harper puts into her books and into her characters, and the way she presented it to me as a reader, gripped me by the mind and the heart and would not let go. I suggest this book to as many people as I can, everyone who is interested not only in scifi and technology, but in the bare basics of survival in a ruthless and cut-throat society. When you're nothing but a number, where is freedom. Thick throughout this book is a heavy dose of symbolism related to slavery of one's mind, heart, emotions and body.

Cat Scratch Fever was the first of Tara Harpers books I read and it sold me on her as an author. In Cat Scratch fever we learn about the psycic links between the colonists and the animals and the promise to the cats. Tsia wants one of the animal links unfortunately hers is to the cats. She avoids using her link and does not want to lose it because of the other benefits to the link. Then Tsia gets into trouble and her link to the cats is helpful and the cats seem to welcome her into their world.

I found Cat Scratch Fever to be a very well thought-out book. The characters were, in general, well developed. The interactions between characters were realistic, and showed plenty of personality. The bits and pieces of what appear to be a foreign language are very intriguing, and I found myself actually using them in everyday life! Aside from a marvelous story, Cat Scratch Fever has an interesting message. Tsia's tale of slavery and bondage helped me to understand much about being a slave that I had never thought about before. What happened next in the storyline was never what I expected to happen. Each time I read this book, I find myself caught up all over again in Tsia's struggles for freedom from slavery, both internal and external. A very good book, and I recommend it to other Sci-fi lovers.

I read this book about a decade ago, and it says a lot that after nine or ten years, I'm still filled with revulsion at the thought of it. The entire first third of the book is about a woman being enslaved and tortured psychologically in horrifying ways, and there is not a hint of hope in it until halfway through. And even after that, all the main character can seem to do is angst about how miserable she'd been in the first half of the book! I have no idea why I finished it -- oh, wait, yes I do, I was on a ten-hour flight and had nothing else to do -- but I wish I'd never picked it up in the first place. Avoid this book like the plague.

A vivid account of one woman's struggles with her telepathic link to an interdicted species, this story is not for the light reader. Seemingly effortlessly, Tara K. Harper plunges you into Tsia's harsh, chaotic world so that you feel every lash of the n-rod, every drop of sweat, every heart-pounding moment that could mean life or death.

I actually went looking here, for this book, so that I could warn people off. What a tremendous let-down, to come out of such an interesting premise! The writing, oh, the writing! I have been afraid, since reading this book, to pick up any book with a similar title. If you like action and suspense, and plot twists, fine. Want quality prose? Look elsewhere.