I am a confirmed bookaholic and have most of Catherine
Asaro's backlist in my possession. My problem is I have no
time to read the many, many books I have in my huge pile of
books I own. With that being said, I was given the
opportunity to read and review DIAMOND STAR. Having not
read the earlier books in the Skolian series, I was a
little hesitant but upon starting this amazing and
intriguing book, I discovered that it only enhanced my
desire to read the other books of the series!
I was intrigued by the fact that Catherine Asaro bared
Del's soul to her readership. We saw his highs and lows.
Del is an engaging character from the get-go and I found
myself pulling for him throughout the entire book. When
Del has the opportunity to become a rock star, even if it
is an accident, he jumps at the chance. Maybe now he will
amount to something and will make the members of his family
proud. After all he is just lowly man on the Ruby Dynasty
empire totem pole, right? He feels he has so much to atone
for in his life.
DIAMOND STAR may have been the first of Catherine Asaro's
Skolian Empire books that I've had the opportunity to read
but this
certainly won't be my last. I'm only glad that I have so
many available to read on hand already! The neatest thing
though is that I also received the music CD with the book
and now have it in my car to listen to as I'm driving!
It's an excellent companion to the book!
Del was a rock singer. He was also the renegade son of the
Ruby Dynasty, which made his career choice less than
respectable, and gave him more to worry about than getting
gigs and not getting cheated by recording companies, club
owners, or his agent.
For one thing, the Ruby Dynasty ruled
the Skolian Imperialate, an interstellar Empire, which had
recently had a war with another empire, the Eubian Concord.
For another, Del was singing on Earth, which was part of a
third interstellar civilization, and one which had an uneasy
relationship with the Imperialate. Del undeniably had
talent, and was rapidly rising from an unknown fringe artist
to stardom.
But, with his life entangled in the politics of
three interstellar civilizations, whether he wanted that or
not, talent might not be enough. And that factor might have
much more effect than his music on the lives of trillions of
people on the thousands of inhabited worlds across the
galaxy.