This space operatic romp marks the debut of a new tie-in series, to Gene Roddenberry's last televised brainchild, Andromeda. Following the tramp freighter Eureka Maru's rescue of the High Guard starship Andromeda Ascendant, which has been stuck in a black hole's event horizon for 300 years, the story flashes back to how the Maru
reached this rendezvous. We soon realize that we're one universe over from Star Wars, complete with a princess to be kept from harm—though Catherine, one of the genetically tailored Nietzschean super-persons and pregnant to boot, is far from your standard congenial princess. The characterization is rather more polished than the perils-of-Pauline plot, notably in Captain Beka Valentine, as well as minor characters like the purple-skinned Trance, who carries an odd streak of good luck with her as she bumbles about. And DeCandido, the author of a number of novels based on Star Trek, Farscape
and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, exhibits his usual dry wit. This is better than average franchise fiction, and bodes well for the series. (Feb. 13)
