Quite creeped out by this one, not sure if I was supposed to be. Alien first contact with dubious consent sexual relations, grievous bullying with everyone in power looking the other way, and slavery masquerading as 'work contracts'. While I normally recommend everything Hoffman to everyone, this is the exception to the rule. ( )

This is one of the oddest, kinkiest YA SF books I've read in a while. In her other fantasy novels, Hoffman has often touched upon the theme of people with too much power over others and how they abuse that power. Teenaged Kaslin has been at the whim of his parents, a bully, and now the aliens he found in a cave on the human-colonized planet where he lives. His relationship with the bully becomes disturbingly romantic (though it mirrors the plight of many female characters in romance novels) and the aliens get pretty freaky too. It's a short book, I finished it on a lazy afternoon. ( )

A very short book.
This book reminded me in many ways of many kids/YA books I've read about young people making first contact with an alien species. (Andre Norton's, for example). A young teenager on a colony world, fleeing a bully, stumbles into a cave and finds an alien "city." Issues with the bully get resolved, the adults get called in, and positive aspects should come out of this for all.
The radical elements here are that the colony world in question is really a criminal world, bootlegging illegal drugs (an issue that is brought up but never really discussed), and that there are a couple of sexually explicit scenes (which have caused other reviewers to go so far as to call the book "soft-core porn.") It's not. The scenes aren't even that explicit, and aren't inappropriate, age-wise, for young teens, either. It's just that there's a definite disconnect between the content, and the style of the language in which the book is written. There's a very ‘juvenile' feel to the writing – especially when ‘alien' words are stuff like "bink bink boo bootah." So more mature content, when it arrives, feels very jarring.
Interesting, but not Nina Kiriki's Hoffman's best (or most original) work. ( )

Such a good start--bizarre, original. It messed with gender roles and consent. Then it just lost steam, fell flat. I'm all for an open ending, but this was a letdown. Still, the start was interesting and entertaining enough to warrant three stars. ( )

Hoffman moves from fantasy to science fiction with this novel set on an alien planet in some future time of human planetary colonization. The main character is a young boy: his age is not made explicit, which causes some problems. The tone is at times middle reader, and then bizarre sexual encounters begin to happen which makes it clear why this book was shelved in the adult science fiction section of my library. The conclusion felt very unfinished as if this is really meant to be the start of a series. ( )