NETHERWOOD

Author: Michele Lang ISBN: 0505527596 3/2008 ACTION/SCI-FI Publisher: DORCHESTER

THERE’S A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN… And her name is Talia Fortune. Her mission: capture the cyber outlaw, Kovner, a man who knows she is more than just a sheriff—Talia is also a woman, with a woman’s desires. Scion of the Fortune family and primary shareholder of the mega-conglomerate FortuneCorp, she is the Hand of Fate…or at least of the Home Office. With the power to punish, she’s been sent to Fresh Havens—a corporate off-world colony run by her uncle. But the colony is full of hidden danger. Sabotage, deception, destruction…it will take every ounce of Talia’s strength and courage, fighting skills honed in the Amphitheatre and knowledge learned at the Academy, just to survive. Her ability to love and trust will be sorely tested, especially in the clutches of her quarry, the Outlaw of Fresh Havens, her cyber-lover and now her enemy. He and the answers lie in the Gray Forest, in a reality beyond the bubbledome, the Grid, and everything she’s ever known. Her future lies in… NETHERWOOD

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Michele Lang sets NETHERWOOD in the latter part of the twenty-second century where mega-corporations rule Earth and the universe. Talia Fortune, the heir to one of these mega-corps known as FortuneCorp, is torn. She loves (or as close to love as she'll allow herself to feel) the cyber outlaw known as Avenger and follows him in real life to an outpost planet in order to arrest him on behalf of her company.

Lang masterfully moves Talia and her consciousness back and forth from avatar to corporate sheriff to cloned woman in love, as she pursues Avenger and his real life being known as Van Kovner, through cyberspace, outer space, and a real flesh and blood existence. What begins as a Robin Hood style dilemma, where the bad guy could really be trying to save human civilization, transforms Talia into a whole being capable of true love, ultimately to the point where she is willing to sacrifice her body and soul for his love and the salvation of humanity.

It was a real competition to see which pair of beings had the hottest sexual encounters: Talia and Kovner or their avatars Amazonia and Avenger, or the two combined reaching each other telepathically. Suffice it to say this Sci-Fi is definitely a smoking hot romance in disguise.

NETHERWOOD surprised me with its ability to please me on both the romance and Sci-Fi fronts. There are plenty of references to a techno future with computers, bots and droids while continuing the thread of real people passionately connecting. I heartily recommend it.

Susan Barton