BloodWind
Charlotte Boyett-Compo
Hard Shell Word Factory
2001
532 pages
$7.00
ISBN: 0−7599−3589−0
Dark Fantasy
Years ago the leaders of Rysalia were systematically destroying any and all peoples and worlds that stood in their way. Their scientists developed a retro virus that would make their quest for domination that much easier. The V-7 retrovirus was designed to sterilize all of the women on a planet - no births, no population growth, no new soldiers to defy them. When the virus was deemed ready and was shipped to the various frontier stations, a combination of volatile chemicals and improper handling protocols caused the containers to rupture and disburse throughout the air supply at FSK-14. They soon found themselves facing this horrible truth; the virus that quietly caused animals to become infertile immediately killed the Rysalian women and before they could warn anyone of the disastrous events the same thing happened on the other fourteen space stations and on Rysalia Prime. Within two hours, all of the Rysalian women were dead. It wasn’t until later that the Rysalians realized that the men were not unscathed. The virus attached itself to the spermatozoa and rendered any female that had relations with a Rysalian male sterile. This was the death knell to the Rysalian civilization until one of their captains found his way to an uncharted system with a small backward world called Earth. They found that the women of Earth were close enough to themselves to breed. Thus began the practice of kidnapping fertile women from Earth and expecting them to be slaves to the men of Rysalia.
Bridget Dunne was one of these women. Luckily she was found to be intelligent enough to assist in the Behavior Modification Center and did not have to become a Breeder. After seeing the way that women are treated by the Rysalians she gladly joined the Resistance and was given an enormous task; to try and bring the dreaded Kamerone Cree to their side.
Kamerone Cree is a feared man throughout the known worlds. He is more than a man, he is a Reaper. He is what the others fear, a genetically engineered killing machine. He has no emotion and an unswerving loyalty to the Brotherhood that runs Rysalia and its territories. In order to sway him the Resistance must strip him of his conditioning in a horrifying way. Can he survive what these women have in store for him?
I have read other books in this series and am constantly surprised by the depths of emotion that Charlotte Boyett-Compo is able to imbue in her characters and her plots. She is a master at taking a hero that begins as a monster and grinding him down into a man you can respect and care for. Kamerone Cree is a monster in the eyes of almost everyone, but by the end of the book he is a loving man who is willing to risk anything for the woman he loves. I was so pulled into the lives of these characters that I had a hard time letting go. Luckily there are a number of other books dealing with the Reapers and the consequences of the actions taken in this book. I gladly give this book the highest rating I can of 5 Reapers out of 5.
--Serena Polheber, gottawritenetwork.com
January 2006
copyright Serena & GWN
