The Dawn Star [Kindle Edition]

Catherine Asaro (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Catherine Asaro is one of the reigning queens of brilliant romantic fantasy." -- Midwest Book Review on The Misted Cliffs

Product Description

High in the Misted Cliffs lives a magic unlike any other.

With no teacher to guide her, no mentor to discourage her from the impossible, Mel Dawnfield pushed her magic to its limits-- and surpassed them. Only to find that her powers aren't enough to halt burgeoning rebellion within her husband's fledgling realm-- or a plot devised to strike at the very heart of Mel's family.

The lines have been drawn.

Mel's mage strength has become greater than any power ever known, but dare she forge her spells into weapons to protect her people, her husband? For her magic might transform the brutality of war into the birth pangs of a peaceful empire... unless it proves the death blow to her world.

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 290 KB
• Print Length: 448 pages
• Publisher: Luna; Original edition (September 1, 2007)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000W4RFOS
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,951 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #6 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Romance > Series > Luna

More About the Author

Catherine Asaro: Renassaince Woman

Propped against the bookcase in Catherine Asaro's home office is the framed diploma of her Harvard Ph.D. in chemical physics. Nearby, dangling from the doorknob, is a bag stuffed with the tights and leotards she wears when she pulls herself away from her writing for ballet classes. A former professional dancer, this California native has little time for the ballet barre these days. Instead, she's fielding speaking offers and meeting deadlines for her novels.

Winner of the Nebula (R) Award for her novel, THE QUANTUM ROSE, and her novella, "The SpacetimePool," Catherine blends exciting adventure, science, world building, romance, and strong characterization into her fiction. Her latest science fiction novel is DIAMOND STAR (Baen), and her most recent fantasy is THE NIGHT BIRD (Luna). She also writes thrillers, including ALPHA and SUNRISE ALLEY.

DIAMOND STAR (is about a rock star in the future. The book's release is the culmination of what Catherine describes as "one of the most exciting collaborations I've ever done." Working with the Baltimore rock band Point Valid, she recorded a music CD that offers readers a soundtrack to the book. Starflight Music released the CD, also titled Diamond Star, performed by Point Valid--Hayim Ani, Adam Leve, and Max Vidaver--with Catherine as a guest artist. Catherine wrote the lyrics for most of the songs, and Hayim wrote the music with Point Valid. Catherine also composed several cuts on the album, and Hayim offered her several of his original compositions.

After Point Valid dispersed to college, jazz pianist Donald Wolcott joined the project as the accompanist for Catherine's vocals. Asaro and WOlcott perform and book conventions and other venues, doing selections from the soundtracks to Catherine's books as well as jazz and pop songs.

Catherine's short fiction has appeared in Analog magazine and various anthologies, including "Walk in Silence," "A Roll of the Dice," and "Aurora in Four Voices," which all won the Analog Readers Poll for best novella, and were nominated for both Nebula(R) and Hugo Awards. Her novella, "The Spacetime Pool" (Analog, March 2008), is currently up for the Nebula(R). Catherine has also published reviews and essays and authored scientific papers in refereed academic journals. Her paper,"Complex Speeds and Special Relativity" in the The American Journal of Physics (April 1996) forms the basis for some of the science in her fiction. Among the places she has done research are the University of Toronto, the Max Planck Institut für Astrophysik, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. She was a physics professor until 1990, when she became a consultant and writer.

In Catherine's youth, the arts were her focus. She studied ballet from age of five, trained in classical piano, and spent hours curled up with books. She successfully pursued London's Royal Academy of Dance syllabus through the first professional level and enrolled at UCLA as a dance major. Then she discovered she loved math and science. "I hadn't studied it much in high school, but at UCLA I ended up taking a lot of science and math," she remembers. "I struggled at first and sometimes I felt like I had no clue. Then one day I read the chapter in my chemistry book on quantum theory--and I was hooked. It felt more right than any other subject I had studied." She went on to earn a BS with Highest Honors from UCLA, a masters in physics from Harvard, and a doctorate in chemical physics, also from Harvard.

Catherine attributes her ability to entertain a broad reading audience in part to her upbringing. "My father is one of the four scientists who postulated that a comet hitting the earth caused mass extinctions, including the demise of dinosaurs. My mother was a student of English literature who loved to write, so from the beginning I was influenced by both the sciences and arts." While pursing her degrees, Catherine continued to dance, founding the Mainly Jazz Dancers and Harvard University Ballet. Perennially on deadline, she now focuses more on her writing than research, but she often speaks on the intersection of science and art at venues such as the Library of Congress and Georgetown University.

Catherine is also proud to coach the Howard Area Homeschoolers, whose students have distinguished themselves in numerous national math programs, including the USA Mathematical Olympiad, MathCounts, and the American Regional Mathematics League. She has served two terms as president of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. (SFWA).

Born in Oakland, California, Asaro grew up in El Cerrito, north of Berkeley. A challenger of rules since her childhood, she explores the boundaries of genre fiction in her novels. "It's like stretching different muscles for dance class," she says, adding that dancing and math aren't as dissimilar as people may think. "There is a beauty in seeing a math problem come together just as there is in performing a ballet. And the discipline it takes to do ballet well is similar to that needed to do math." But no matter what the style of her novels, she writes from the heart. "The flashy adventure is fun," she says, "but the characters mean the most to me, both as a reader and as a writer."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not quite there...., August 5, 2006

By 

Allison (Chicagoland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dawn Star (Misted Cliffs, Book 3) (Paperback)

After the lead up from the previous novel, I was looking for a culmination of the previous stories in this one. Although she did a great job in exposing the emotions felt by Cobalt and Mel, I feel like she fell short in completing these events - unless she has another novel planned. We never really hear about Mel's parents again and the other members of her family, except for a new look at Drummer, who hadn't been mentioned since the first novel. I can understand that this novel is mainly centered around the journey that Mel has to undergo, but it would have been interesting if the other mages that we had come to love through these stories made a final appearance in this novel. I enjoyed this story, but it just seemed anti-climatic in its ending.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but missing something..., July 13, 2006

By 

pinkpetal - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dawn Star (Misted Cliffs, Book 3) (Paperback)

Mel and Cobalt are back at their finest. Cobalt still has problems containing his anger and yearns to get along with his grandfather and his growth in this novel is pretty amazing. Two more characters, Drummer and Jade enter the picture and their story is relatively interesting.

Asaro never seems to write a bad book, but in this book I was looking for something more. I started the series with Charmed Destinies and I was just waiting for Jarid to make an appearance. However he has no significant role in this book. Drummer was probably the biggest disappointment, however. His character seemed really shallow to me.

But Asaro pulls out with four stars due to Cobalt's role in the novel, the amazingly amusing war conference, and the believeability of the majority of the characters (well, as believeable as a fantasy story can be, anyway).

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Desert Romance, July 22, 2008

By 

Arthur W. Jordin (Smyrna, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Dawn Star (Misted Cliffs, Book 3) (Paperback)

The Dawn Star (2006) is the third novel in the Misted Cliffs series, following The Misted Cliffs. In the previous volume, Princess Melody Dawnfield of Harsdown was married to Prince Cobalt Chamberlight of the Misted Cliffs. Cobalt and Varqelle -- the former king of Harsdown -- led the Misted Cliffs army against Blueshire and Shazire and conquered these lands.

Varqelle was felled in the final battle against Shazire. Mel used her magics to try to heal him, but failed. Still, Varqelle died knowing that Cobalt loved him.

In this novel, Drummer Headwind is in trouble again. He has been abducted by foreign agents. They take him to the Topaz Palace in Taka Mal and install him in a suite. Drummer is now a hostage against the good behavior of Cobalt Chamberlight, the husband of his niece Mel.

Vizarana Jade is the queen of Taka Mal. She inherited the throne as her father's only child, but she has rivals for the position. Her cousin Baz loves her and wants to marry her, but believes that a woman has no business being the head of state. The Atajazid D'az Ozar of Jazid also wants to marry Jade, but he too would take away her throne after becoming her husband.

Meanwhile, King Stonebreaker of the Misted Cliffs dies from a stroke and Cobalt is now King and Mel is Queen. After receiving the news about Drummer, Cobalt wants to invade Taka Mal immediately and totally raze every village and town. Mel talks him out of this course, but he tales most of his army with him to the border for the negotiations.

Naturally, Ozar has the Jazid army arrayed along the border when the Misted Cliffs troops march toward Taka Mal. The armies of Aronsdale and Harsdown also march toward their border with Taka Mal.

In this story, Jade visits Drummer in his guarded quarters after his arrival in the Topaz Palace. Drummer greatly admires her beauty and Jade admires his music. But she derides the honeyed words of his songs.

Drummer starts to love Jade and she loves him. She presents him with fine clothes and invites his to a feast, where he meets the leaders of Taka Mal and Jazid. Then she comes to him in the night and they make love. Jade offers him a Topaz Pact and he accepts it. But he doesn't really understand the agreement.

Drummer is very confused. When he find his door unlocked, he leaves the room and goes to the stables. He buys a horse with a ruby on his clothes and rides away from the palace.

When an embassy from Aronsdale and Harsdown arrive in the Topaz Palace, Jade lacks a hostage to trade for a treaty. She sends troops to find Drummer and stalls the negotiators. Her troops follow Drummer into the Rocklands, a waterless waste.

This tale introduces the inhabitants of Taka Mal. Two hundred years before, these people had broken the empire of Misted Cliffs and taken away the lands of Blueshire and Shazire. Now that the Misted Cliffs have retaken their lost territory, the people of Taka Mal believe that they will be the next conquest.

Drummer learns that he has the family talent for shape magic. He has always been able to do minor magics, but he finds himself able to do much more under the stress of his capture and love. Enjoy!

Highly recommended for Asaro fans and anyone else who enjoys tales of exotic magics, political intrigue, and headlong romance.

-Arthur W. Jordin