Susan R. Matthews

The "origin" story of a young man trained as a surgeon and heir to a noble house of an interstellar empire, compelled by custom to become a torturer, the primary duty of Fleet Inquisitor/Chief Medical Officier. The training course is a set 10 levels, starting at verbal abuse and quickly escalating to physical and potentially fatal violence. This is often ugly, but not ugly enough to entirely convince and while the pace and interest level pick up, there is a discouraging grim despair, not inappropriate, pervading the initial chapters, interleaved with a telling of the standard markers for "this character really isn't the typical dregs, this one is" that have become, though they may not have been in 1997? when it was first published. There is a twist in the character development which adds interest and tension, but is more buried under plot that satisfactorily addressed or developed, and huge hooks for future conflicts aside from the core one left bandaged over.… (more)

I went into this book with no expectations, a used book store chance purchase, from an authour I've never read. It was a pleasant surprise.

The concept is the well trodden generational colony ship fleet. Without ruining anything, things devolve over the years.

I kept expecting the story that develops, to explode into frantic action and meyhem, and it never does. It's so nice when it's not the absolute worst thing that can happen, that drives the novel forward.

For the most part people are people, not dazzling heros and horribly evil figureheads.

The characters are believable and relatable, the backdrop interesting, and the outcome likeable.

Sounds like damning with faint praise perhaps, but I did enjoy it. It was nice.… (more)