2004-12-03 W-O-W-! This is not one to miss!

Gem ser'Edreth is a wizard with electronics and a freelance thief. He is a loner by choice. The only help he wants is that given to him by the small robot spiders he creates. These little fellows help him enter computers via cracks to take it over or steal data, help check for traps, pick locks, even crawl into rooms and spy.

Lady Saxony Belaconto is a planetary crime boss. She wants an ancient object, a Trident, that would allow her to control the hesernym trade. She seeks Gem out with a commission to steal it. Of course, he refuses. Being a loner no one has any hold over him. Persistent, the crime boss waits and watches. Then she learns Gem has a cousin.

Corbinye Faztherot, if you ask the people who live on land "Grounders", is an assassin. If you ask the people who live on ships "Worldwalkers", she is a seeker. Her duty is to bring back the ship's Captain-to-be so that his Crew (A.K.A. family) may know him and he may be about the business for which he was foretold in "The Tomorrow Log".

Gem suddenly finds himself embroiled in interplanetary politics, a potential interstellar war, a ship filled with an unwanted Crew, and in possession of an ancient object of power and its Witness. Things will never be the same.

***** W-O-W-! When authors Sharon Lee and Steve Miller team up marvelous things happen! This is one of those rare books that hook the reader, not in the first chapter or on the first page, but in the first sentence which contains only nine words. I eagerly await the next in this fabulous series! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.