One of the fun parts about Science Fiction is watching the author create a technology and society that is beyond ours, manipulating the situation and including details that help us believe that it really might work. This requires the author to do a great deal of planning to make sure it all fits. Then the author MUST go through the story and make painful decisions as to which items of planning are providing too much detail and holding up the action. Only the most important and most interesting details can survive the cut.

Unfortunately, this author has not made the necessary edits. The story starts out beautifully, with a great premise and an admirable and sympathetic main character placed in a believable situation. The sexual tension between himself and the beautiful alien is intense, in a combination of serious and comedic interactions. This is not your typical “human hero and sexy alien” plotline.

Unfortunately, we are then treated to about a hundred pages of demonstration of how it is possible for an intelligent human mechanic can repair a sophisticated spaceship. During this time, the conflict is involved with demonstrating how this mechanic can find the parts for this job when he has a motorcycle gang, the police, various shady characters and an alien bounty hunter on his trail.

This is a good story arc, seamlessly intertwined with the love story, but it needs a lot less plotting and planning to allow the execution of the schemes to take precedence.

The author seems aware of this lack of tension, and several times brings in the “What Jamie didn’t realize…” gambit.  This is  an old technique of the author intruding into the story line in an attempt to create suspense, and it doesn’t fly well with modern readers.

The writing style is a cut above that of most Space Operas: smooth sentence structure, spirited dialogue, and no serious distractions to draw our attention to the narrator. Except the exhaustive preparation.

In general, this is a well-planned and enjoyable story with great action sequences, but there is too much talking and planning, which slows down the action and reduces the suspense.

4 stars.