14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Telepathic Bonding, January 21, 2003
This review is from: Turning Point (Mass Market Paperback)
Turning Point is the first novel in the Sholan Alliance series. It is the story of two telepaths: the human Carrie Hamilton and the Sholan Kusac Alda.
Carrie is a colonist on the planet Keiss, which has been conquered by the alien Valtegans. Carrie is tightly linked to her sister, Eloise, so much so that she takes away Eloise's pain. When the Valtegans torture Eloise to death, Carrie not only feels the pain, but displays the wounds inflicted on Eloise. When Eloise dies, the mind link is transferred to Kusac, a fifth class telepath in the Sholan fleet. Kusac is a castaway on Keiss, his ship having been shot down by the Valtegans. When Kusac was wounded by Valtegans at the crash site, his shipmates left him behind to follow at his best pace. In his dazed state, Carrie's mind link has drawn him to her house, where she tends his wounds and nurses him to health. Carrie, with a little help from his talent, does not recognize that he is an alien, rather believing him to be a native forest cat. Neither does she associate the peculiar thoughts appearing in her mind with the wounded creature.
Carrie is being forced into an unwanted marriage by her father. Rather that submit, she runs away with her forest cat. When she is attacked by Valtegans in the forest, she discovers that the cat is definitely not native nor is he very tame. Once she recognizes him as a thinking person, Carrie join forces with Kusac to rejoin his crew and to alert his mothership of the presence of the Valtegans on Keiss.
This novel is very much like Andre Norton's SF in scope, plot and characterization. An alienated human with psionic talents bonds with an alien with psionic talents against just about everybody else. The sexual content, however, is much more explicit than Norton was allowed to explore. While this book was not as polished as the sequels, I did find it to be mostly enjoyable. Check her out.
Some reviewers have said that this novel is the worst that they have ever read. They must not have read some of the dogs that I have tried to read; this work may be somewhat rough, but it doesn't have glaring errors of fact, terrible syntax, and deadly dull dialogue. I enjoyed it despite its minor flaws and I have also enjoyed the sequels; what more could I ask for than good entertainment?
Recommended for Norton fans and anyone who enjoys a strong couple of telepaths fighting for their own place in the universe.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Book Ever, December 15, 1999
This review is from: Turning Point (Mass Market Paperback)
I think this was a really great book. Honestly. If you are mature enough to understand it, and you are patient with the story, it will come out good. I read the other reviews, and I was appalled to see that so many people didn't like the book. I was very surprised. The first book made me want to read the second, third, fourth, and last book. I'm currently reading Fortunes Wheel and so far it is great. I think that the first book went rather slow, I do admit that. But the places where there are dangerous situations or interesting parts, makes the book very unpredictable, and interesting. I've always loved to read books with intellegent cats, alien or not, that have some sort of special "Talent". For anybody who likes science fiction, plot twists, cats, and aliens, etc, this is a good book to read. I can't wait to read the rest of the books in the series! Even if one book is bad, that doesn't make the whole series bad. Not that I'm saying a bad book has been written. My advice with this book, is to read it, and if a slow book does come along, (I don't yet know if one will) don't stop in the middle of the series, bear with it and keep reading! I guarantee you, it'll be worth it. And for all of you who stopped after the first book, read the second book, and you'll love it. If you're thinking of skipping a book, the one after it won't fill you in. So take my advice, read them all.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Space travelling, telepathic big feline meets human girl. Romance ensues., January 21, 2007
This review is from: Turning Point (Mass Market Paperback)
A while back I was busy sorting through boxes of old books, and stumbled over a series that I had bought, but had never gotten around to reading. These were the books by Lisanne Norman, a science fiction series about the interactions between humanity and a race of space-faring felines. At first, I must have guessed that this would be a retread of C.J. Cherryh's excellent Chanur series, which is why these books had languished so long in my 'later' box.
Humanity is colonizing the stars by using sleeper ships, where the colonists are in cryo-storage until they make landfall on the new world. But the colonists on Keiss are having a bad time of it -- first they lost most of the colonists when systems failed, and a few years later, an alien species, the Valtegans, a violent, lizardlike, humanoid race that is bent on conquering whoever they've found. For the humans on Keiss it's rough, especially when the Valtegans enjoy having human women as their concubines and turn Keiss into an R'n'R planet for their troops.
For Carrie Hamilton, life hasn't been very good. She's lost her mother in the initial landing, and now her twin, Elise, has been killed while spying on the Valtegans. Carrie is the quiet one compared to Elise, and when an injury happens to Elise, it's Carrie who suffers. It's a mild telepathic bond, of the sort of freakishness that most twins have, and it is traumatic when Carrie literally feels Elise's death, a loss that is leaving her bereft and very alone.
Kusac is a Shola, a feline race of humanoids -- in fact, Carrie thinks he's one of the native forest cats when she finds him injured near her home. But somehow she feels a bond between them, and in any case, helping him helps to distract her from Elise's loss. Her family tolerates her new 'pet,' and the Valtegans are decidedly uneasy about him as well. And when Carrie is told by a would-be suitor that he's going to force the local council to have her marry him -- she decides that it might be better for her to take her chances with the rebels in the local woods.
What she didn't count on was that Kusac is a very intellegent, very sentient being, and that the bond between them is going to be changing their lives...
For a first time novel, it's not too bad. Author Lisanne Norman has taken a traditional style for her novel -- stories about stranded aliens, and the humans they encounter are a pretty standard plotline for science fiction. So too is having people with telepathic links fall rather dramatically for each other. And then there is the humans-fighting-nasty-aliens angle. Finally, we have a bit of romance, but it's a bit, well, very odd.
From this jumble emerges a fairly decent adventure story, and Norman, to her credit, keeps the pace up throughout the book, which comes in at just under three hundred pages. While it does have a slightly hurried feel in spots, and every now and then the action stops for sessions of 'explainitis,' it's not bad.
I especially liked how she works in Kusac's very different self into the story, and while he does get insufferably noble and good at times, he's a good counter to Carrie's impetuousness and youthfulness -- I had an impression of a young teenager in this one. Indeed, this book has the feel of a young adult novel rather than something aimed at teenagers, but given the adult themes and a hint of sexual content, I'd be a bit careful as to how young of a reader that I would let have this one.
As for reading any more of Lisanne Norman's books, I think I probably will. Her use of an alien species with cat-like abilities will be enjoyable for those of us who have cats in our homes, and it's decent escapist reading for a slow evening. Three and a half stars, rounded up to four.
Recommended.
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