Cataract

After reading all of the `Tales of the Wolves' and finding them a bit too contrived in some places, I've decided to hunt down the `CatScratch' tales at my local used bookstore, which, if you can tell from the page, is probably one of the only places you can still get these books in print. Unfortunately, they didn't have the first book in the series so I had to take `Cataract' home in its slightly okay condition. Will reading this book first instead of the former a good idea? To me, I wasn't exactly confused reading this; I got the sequel to `Cat Scratch Fever' well enough. `Cataract' spans ten years after the first book, where Tsia takes on a new identity as Feather of the mercs. They are her only source of protection, the only people who keep her free from outside threats who probe at her ID dot--something all humans have that pretty much marks who they are/were, and their current jobs and such. Tsia and the mercs also have to look out for blackjack, an evil being that could be lurking in their midst, disgusted as a merc like Tsia is. Not that Tsia has problems of her own already, trying to find a sister who abandoned her, and coping with her guide when she finds herself attached to a cougar cub named Ruka. Because I've read `The Tales of the Wolves' series, this book just feels too much like a Wolfwalker clone, so it really comes down to what you read first to truly like the novel. Wren and Doetzier, fellow mercs, bring to mind of twin Aranurs, with their grey eyes and similar attitudes of the world. Even the guide parallels a wolfwalker, with the cat acting like the wolves in the series. I wouldn't mind some difference, but besides switching the howls to purrs, cat and wolf could be the same species in the series. The death scene of a fellow merc and Tsia's inability to feel anything about his death is written almost in the same way when Dion couldn't feel her son in the packsong. So, it really comes down to what you read first to truly like this book. And if the Wolfwalker series feel a tad too `medieval' for your tastes, you will like `Cataract' in its futuristic aspects alone, with the spaceships, the enbees that allow one to breathe underwater, skin grafts to repair wounds...it's all here, and it's all very interesting and fun to read. But if you want to pick this book up to get something different, I'm afraid the only difference is Tsia and the future of the world they live in, since it just feels a bit too much like Wolfwalker to be something truly different. But I like it, even though it was a little bit predictable, and the action is spot-on and suspenseful. But it doesn't really stand strong on that aspect alone, and while I enjoyed reading this, I really won't hound for the first book of the series when I can get what happened in the sequel.

In Cat Scratch fever we learn about the psycic links between the colonists and the animals and the promise to the cats. Tsia's guide link unfortunately is to the cats. Cataract takes place ten years later, she has avoided using her link but now the mercenaries she has been hiding out among are in trouble and her link to the cats is helpful, plus has been useful to one of the cats in giving her the ability to help it. I can't wait for the third installment to the cat series.

A great bok Tara really puts her heart and soul into her writing. Keeps you curious the whole time.

Unless you've read previous books in her "cat" series, it's difficult to grasp what's going on [I haven't read any by her except for all of the Wolf books]. Otherwise, detail abounds and the *telepathy* theme is marvelous [as well as the Ixia, which I didn't fully understand at first...read the book]