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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, just not as "Challenging", August 6, 2005
Susan Kearney definitely has the potential to be a great author. Her characters are interesting with lively dialogue, the love scenes are atleast warm if not roasting, and the storylines are more than inventive. However, The Dare didn't have the same edge of your seat breathlessness that the Challenge had.
Our main couple are both characters from the The Challenge. Zical, our hero, is a warrior on a planet with loads of psychic abilities who is a little lonely. Dora...well she was The Challenge's heroines bestfriend in the form of an AI super-planetcontrolling-computer. She was the thinking personality of the computer if you like. But she longs to be human and after setting scanners on Zical she decides to grow herself a body.Her transfer into that body and her adaption to the human race are the start of this couples tale.
Dora's never able to fully leave her computer self behind and Zical screws up on a universal proportion when he almost gets an entire galaxy, himself, Dora, and his crew killed - several times. But after the couple rockets off into the depths of space, while still intiguing, the story really started to drag for me. That's not to say that it wasn't good, it was! There were just a lot of inconsistancies. I kept thinking the book would have to have a continuation but all of a sudden - after 356 long pages - everything was wrapped up tidily in a few paragraphs!
If you loved the Challenge and Ms. Kearney than it is worth reading the latest story. Just don't feel you need to rush out to get it.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sequel to The Challenge, June 28, 2005
Dora had been a sentient computer for three hundred years before she met the Earthling called Tessa (from previous book "The Challenge"). As Dora's friendship with Tessa grew, she met many new people. One of them is a Rystani captain named Zical. Dora builds herself a body, an exact duplicate of a female holosim character that Zical often spent hot nights with. After creating Ranth, another sentient computer, to replace her computer self, Dora enters her new human body. She especially wants to experience love and caring with Zical like she has witness bloom between Tessa and Kahn. But Zical is used to Dora the computer, not Dora the sexy and sassy bombshell. She is too different from Rystani women. In addition, he still feels responsible for not being able to save his previous mate from being killed.
When Zical locates a hidden chamber within Mount Shachauri, he accidentally summons the ancient machines called "The Sentinel". The Sentinel protects the galaxy from invasion by a warlike horde called the "Zin". Zical gathers his crew for what could very well be a one way mission. They must intercept the Sentinel and take them back to the galaxy's rim. Fortunately for Dora, this puts her and Zical in very close quarters for a very long time.
**** Tessa and Kahn's amazing tale in the previous novel "The Challenge" had Dora as a secondary character throughout most of the story. Zical entered that adventure about half way into it. If you read the first novel then you could not help but love Dora. It never entered my mind that Dora could have her own story. Fortunately, author Susan Kearney has a more fertile imagination than I. Susan Kearney not only succeeded at giving Dora a human form, but also made her very realistic by adding a human flaw or two.
In addition, a new character named Kirek is introduced. He is a four-year-old genius. I can reveal nothing else without spoilers so I will not even try. However, I have hope that Kirek will get his own story told someday. I highly recommend this title for fans of romance and sci-fi. ****
Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book is some of the BEST Futuristic Romance yet!, October 10, 2005
Wow! Ms. Kearney has a way with characters that speak to you on every level. The Dare is much better than The Challenge and I am looking forward to The Ultimatum in 2006. It is obvious that Ms. Kearney has invested a lot of thought in her development of the 'worlds' that make up this line of novels.
The humour is great, the sex sublime (not for the faint at heart!) and the narrative beyond normal romance genre requirements. This is not your average "Boy-meets-Girl" story. Worth picking up and adding to your NEVER-LEND-IT-OUT-PILE!
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