Stars Over Stars [Mass Market Paperback]

K.D. Wentworth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 27, 2001

Raised by a human, Heyoka Blackeagle thinks like a human, even if he is a typical hrinn - seven feet tall, covered with fur, retractable claws. In the war against the insect like flek, Heyoka distinguished himself in the Ranger Corps. Now, on a planet from which the flek have been driven, hes leading a group of humans and hrinn, trying to prove that hrinn can make proficient rangers in spite of their disdain for following orders. Then a hidden, fully functional flek star gate is found, ready to transport flek hordes. And word comes of a flek advance. The planet must be evacuated, but rather than abandon his team in the jungle, Heyoka stays behind, only to find that his human partner Mitsu, once a flek POW, is hallucinating, seeing nonexistent flek. And then the real flek arrive...

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Baen (February 27, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671319795
• ISBN-13: 978-0671319793
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #817,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hrinn uber alles, April 15, 2001

By 

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

This review is from: Stars Over Stars (Mass Market Paperback)

Aliens are usually giant bears with human personalities...or giant cockroaches with human personalities, or giant somethingorothers with human personalities. In Black On Black and Stars over Stars, Kathy Wentworth has done something that few SF writers can: she creates two races of highly believable aliens, the Hrinn and the Flek...and she explores the issues of the differences in the minds of humans and aliens. Using Heyoka Blackeagle, the ultimate outsider, the Black on Black of Hrinn legend, who is raised as a Sioux warrior, and Mitsu, the human who is transformed against her will into a Flek hivemember, she explores what it is like to be human...and what it is like to be "other." The Hrinn are neither giant wolves or giant bears or giant wolverines...they are simply Hrinn. Their culture and their personalities are clearly and carefully drawn. So are the Flek, which Wentworth transforms from a faceless and remorseless enemy into a people, worthy of protection and defense. This is a great read, as well as a deep well.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful military SF with extra kick, March 7, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Stars Over Stars (Mass Market Paperback)

It is no accident that K. D. Wentworth is a multiple Nebula® Award nominee.

In other hands, STARS OVER STARS, the second installment in the Heyoka Blackeagle saga, could be just what a surface reading suggests: an exemplary example of a military sf novel. In Wentworth's hands, however, STARS OVER STARS becomes much more than a straightforward non-stop action adventure. Layered into the straightforward oft-told tale of a group of military trainees learning to work as a team are two major themes Wentworth deftly explores.

The book opens with Heyoka trying to train the first Ranger recruits from Heyoka's native planet. The new recruits, like Heyoka, are Hrinn, seven-foot tall furry wolf-like aliens. Unlike Heyoka, they were not raised in Human society and so are having difficulty adapting to Human standards and customs. Wentworth masterfully plumbs the social dynamics of the canine-like pack society of the Hrinn. Other authors might have stopped with this wonderful accomplishment, but Wentworth uses it as just the wedge to pry open the real themes of the book.

Beginning with the struggle of the rebellious Hrinn recruit Kei, and continuing with the inner anguish of the Human Ranger, Mitsu, Wentworth explores the twin themes of self-identity and where that identity fits within the larger social group. Wentworth never preaches it, never blatantly hits the reader over the head with it, never for one second stops the seesaw planetary battle, but each character in the book goes through the struggle to find self and to find one's place in the larger group: Kei; Mitsu; Heyoka himself; the treacherous Skal; the priestly Visht; the cull Kika with her secret. Even the gentle insectoid Laka and evil Flek characters go through this inner journey: Fourth Translator and Second Breeder, World Architect 459--no character is immune. Even whole societies must face the change these questions bring.

STARS OVER STARS offers its readers what a good military sf novel should: carefully crafted alien cultures, detailed small-unit tactics, an endorphin-draining frenetic plot. Yet, with Wentworth's buried twin themes, STARS OVER STARS has a resonating depth to it that gives its readers that extra kick only a great novel can give.

Whether as a standalone or as the sequel to BLACK/OVER/BLACK, read K. D. Wentworth's new STARS OVER STARS.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Misfits prove their worth, August 16, 2003

By 

Chrijeff (Scranton, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Stars Over Stars (Mass Market Paperback)

On the planet Oleaaka, Ranger Sgt. Heyoka Blackeagle, a lupinoid hrinn who was raised in the Restored Oglala Nation on Earth, is struggling to make a going concern of the first integrated human-hrinn Ranger unit. The hrinn are fierce fighters, but they have absolutely no concept of chain of command and hate sitting around and waiting to get in on the fight they've been promised against the insectoid flek. Heyoka's second and longtime partner, Cpl. Mitsu Jensen, is still recovering from the brainwashing she endured as a flek POW. And Oleaaka has what everyone assumes to be a native species of its own, the laka, who supposedly--nobody yet understands how--drove the flek off 48 years ago. Entirely by accident, the Ranger unit discovers a hidden flek transport station, and everything starts going downhill from there. As has been mentioned by other reviewers, the multiple pov's may be a bit hard to follow--we get the chance to see through the eyes of just about everyone, from Heyoka and his kinsman Kei to assorted laka. But what makes the book work, like its predecessor, is Wentworth's amazing ability to put herself into the skins and minds of her nonhuman characters and portray them as true aliens, with their own cultures, concerns, and convoluted ways of thinking. In the end there's an opening left for yet another book in the series, as Heyoka's unit literally saves the day (it's been two years since the book was published; I can only hope that the author is putting the finishing touches on the final conquest of the flek!). Of course, I knew very early on that Heyoka was going about his program the wrong way, but given his raising that may be inevitable, and at least he realizes eventually that he can't, and shouldn't try to, make hrinn into carbon copies of humans. At the same time, his weirdly assorted group wouldn't survive if it hadn't had *all* the beings in it that it does; each plays an important role in the final triumph. Excellent military sf and a vivid portrayal of an alien, yet ultimately comprehensible, people.