Book Review: Jenna Starborn

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Jenna Starborn     Amazon US PB Amazon US TPB Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada TPB
Sharon Shinn
Class/Genre:   Science Fiction   Woman Main Character
Ace, April 2002, $14.95, 400 pp.

In the far distant future, Earth has advanced so far technologically that she has colonized many planets in quite a few galaxies. On the planet of Baldos, a woman who thought she was barren contracted to have a child that was gestated in a gene tank. When Jenna Starborn was born, the woman now pregnant with her son, treated Jenna cruelly, refusing to adopt her.

Eventually, the authorities took her out of the home and ensconced her on Lora where she went to school at Lora Tech and learned to be a nuclear technician. After she graduates, she applies and obtains a job as a generator tech on the planet Fieldstar. Her employer Everett Ravenback of the domed estate of Thornafone Park falls in love with Jenna and asks her to marry him, but on her wedding day she learns a truth about him that causes her to flee across the galaxies in fear.

Sharon Shinn, like Anne McCaffrey and Catherine Asaro redefines the boundaries of the science fiction romance genre and in doing so creates a memorable, beautiful work. The heroine, a woman looked down by the elite of the galaxy, is a strong-minded and moral person who will not break her own ethical code even if it means giving up the man she loves. Jenna Starborn, in the decades to come, will be a cult classic.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner