1986, St Martin's Press, Dec 1987

Who recommends: Shelley, Preeti, Rebekah
Who discommends: Lynn, Isabel

I have this book and really enjoyed it. It is on my keeper shelf for rereading. L.A. Taylor died before she had a chance to write more sci/fi - she also wrote romance and I think a few mysteries, all out of print.

I consider this book to be very light reading, of the fun bathtub kind. The romance is integeral to the plot and it could almost be a futuristic romance novel but this is several cuts above anything I have seen released under that heading.--Shelley (9 Oct 99)

I enjoyed THE BLOSSOM OF ERDA. It was fun in a Star Trek episode kind of way.--Preeti (07 Jan 99)

On the plus side, it moved at a nice clip and there wasn't anything I disliked about it. On the negative side, I just wasn't drawn enough into the story that I cared greatly about what happened to our hero/heroine. This was going to be a mild recommend until I realized that I can't even remember the plot after only a week. Have to be a mild discommend instead.--Isabel (14 Feb 00)

I just finished BLOSSOM OF ERDA by L.A. Taylor. I thought it was a just fine. Most of it was pretty good but I thought the ending was weak and I was dissappointed by the situation that the h/h were in at the end of the book. The writing was fairly amateurish, though usually not intrusively so. (I've just tried to train myself to seperate off part of my mind to concentrate on the actual writing.) I think the book is worth it for the 1/2-2/3 of the book that the h/h spend on the planet.

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(Mostly complaints - I guess I'm just in a critical mood. :})

I think the fight with Maele and the bad guy in the staircase was supposed to be the climax, but it just didn't have enough punch for me. I thought the introduction of an old friend of Maele's that had harbored a secret love for her was just out of left field. Was it ever established exactly why the bad guy hated Maele? Was it because she was a woman and/or that she turned him down? That was what Maele and Derl thought, but there were intimations it might have been because she was a latent telepath or that he thought she was unloyal. Was the bad guy really a bigot or just afraid of telephaths sensing his plans? And what was that writing on the wall in the staircase that the old friend saw and mentioned twice but never went to read? That bugged me. Was it supposed to be some metaphor, i.e. he didn't "see the writing on the wall"? And why would the h/h consider it an acceptable situation in the end to be on a ship together but pretending that they didn't love each other? As you can see, most of my complaints are from the period after they get back to headquarters. Guess I just expect a lot from my reads ... ;)--Rebekah (29 May 00)