With my kids on the verge of adulthood most of my fantasy/adventure recommended reading in recent years has been of the YA variety. The must-read titles they give me as diversions from politics and murder mysteries have been really enjoyable, but have not really pushed me to seek out similar work in the adult range. I’m a big Sci-Fi fan in general, but other than Douglas Adams and Stanislaw Lem I can’t say I’ve read much that qualifies as Sci-Fi literature. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it, it’s just that I don’t seek it out to read. So when I heard Sellenria described as part Star Trek and part Middle Earth I was intrigued.

Without giving too much away, the story turns the “when cultures collide” motif into a story of personal awakening. The main character is torn down and rebuilt in an environment where the privilege created by the technological advances of his home world is reflected in the societal inequities of the world in which he now finds himself. In a world where isolation breeds ignorance, the lines between technology and magic blur. Age old tales of palace intrigue and assassination are undermined by even older natural powers. Sellenria does, in fact, boldly go, but the twist is that someone has gone before. That someone has set into motion forces which the novel’s main character may be the only one able to stop.

Boeheim’s writing is sharp and sophisticated. The characters and landscape are imaginative and richly described. Once I was a few pages in I found it hard to put down and before I had finished I lost a lot of sleep over this book. I was left wanting more. I felt some of the story lines were left unexplored. As the story became more complicated at the end, the ink given to characters gave way to plot advancement. There is room to take several of them farther and of course one wonders what the future holds. I eagerly await more books describing this world and the characters the author has created, be they prequels, sequels or origin stories.