Amazon.com Review
Parts of
Nimisha's Ship are reminiscent of the melodramatic intrigue and romance among lords and ladies in Anne McCaffrey's first SF novel,
Restoree (1967). Here, though, danger and drama are downplayed while the course of true love--plus the joy of friendship--moves to center stage. Nimisha, heir to her mother's wealth and high status, tomboyishly prefers the spaceship yards of her absentee father. She sneaks off to work with him and emerges as a gifted ship designer. One day, testing a splendid new space-yacht, she falls through a wormhole to a far-off region of the galaxy. This contains a planet of unfriendly beasties--mostly leathery-winged avians, easily shot down by Nimisha's yacht AI--and stranded wormhole victims: a haggard human party easily put right by medical treatment, and midget aliens who are easily befriended. Romance soon blooms for Nimisha, and she settles down to have the nicest human castaway's babies (twins, then triplets). Meanwhile, rescue missions are on the way, one by the long, slow route and one by accidental wormhole encounter. Happy family reunions follow, with a certain twinkly charm but no real suspense or surprise. It's a comforting, unthreatening read: McCaffrey addicts will love it, but newcomers may prefer to start with her tougher, grittier SF adventures like the classic
Dragonflight.
--David Langford, Amazon.co.uk
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
The magic of McCaffrey's alien planetscapes and exotic space creatures, familiar from such novels as Dragonriders of Pern, is absent from this flimsily SF-clad romance, set on luxurious Vega III centuries into human galactic domination. Upon Lord Tionel's death, his precocious genius daughter, Lady Nimisha Boynton-Rondymense, takes charge of his famous shipyard and test-flies his cherished Mark V space yachtAstraight into an unexpected wormhole that flings her onto an unknown planet. While bearing five children in three years to Jonagren Svangel, a conveniently also-stranded hunk, Nimisha spunkily triumphs in one maudlin adventure after another, but she finally dissolves into a postpartum "leaky ula-ooli-la" when located by a previous lover and her own adolescent body-heir, Cuiva. Not even Nimisha's inexhaustible supply of hooting alien babysitters and Star Trek-like cybernetic shipmates Helm, Doc and Cater can compensate for the vapidly predictable teeny-bopper plot and cellophane-thin characterizationsAthere's not one redeemingly vicious villainAthat bloat this lost-in-space operetta, a leaky ula-ooli-la if ever there was one. Science Fiction Book Club main selection.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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