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As a child, Kathryn's life was devastated when her parents were killed in an unprovoked attack by the alien S'sinn on the human farming colony of Luckystrike. She might easily have grown up in an orphanage, if her rare empathic abilities hadn't been discovered by the interstellar Guild of Translators. Instead, she grew up with the Guild, being trained for the prestigious and critical job of translating between species.

Still, it's hard for Kathryn to forget her traumatic past, so she is horrified when, as her first assignment, she is paired with a S'sinn translator to facilitate negotiations in a smouldering dispute between humans and S'sinn. Her counterpart, Jarrikk, is equally furious. His childhood wingmates were slaughtered by humans, and, in the ensuing human-S'sinn war, his wing was so greviously damaged that he is flightless -- a fate worse than death to the proud, bat-like S'sinn.

If these two colleagues cannot bury their hatred long enough to work together, then surely peace between their two races is a lost cause, and the interstellar Commonwealth will be plunged into war.

This is the set-up for Lost In Translation, a brisk-paced space opera from Regina science writer Edward Willett. And Willett delivers a neatly-constructed plot, peopled with lots of aliens, including a ruthless S'sinn warmonger and a chilling human traitor.

It's decent enough entertainment for newer SF readers, but I found that the book did not keep me engaged throughout. My first irritation was the flashback structure. The novel opens with a prologue in which a frightened and reluctant Kathryn is preparing to translate with Jarrikk; then Willett goes back and fills in nine chapters of background. Having been primed with the suspenseful negotiation scene, I found it difficult to wait patiently through this prolonged set-up.

I'm also not a big fan of Star Wars-style space opera, and I kept wishing that Willett had taken more time to build his settings. For example, he did a good job when he had the S'sinn use "beats" (presumably wingbeats) to measure time -- a scale which seems intuitively right, and well as being easy to use. On the other hand, he didn't bother to consider how a society of winged beings would design buildings. Stairways seemed to me an improbable feature of S'sinn architecture, as did gates.

This is strictly a space opera outing, capably written and with lots of sudden changes of direction toward the end, much like a movie script. Many readers will enjoy it. I simply found that the story didn't have enough character depth to get me emotionally invested in the eventual outcome.

Donna McMahon discovered science fiction in high school and fandom in 1977, and never recovered. Dance of Knives, her first novel, was published by Tor in May, 2001, and her book reviews won an Aurora Award the same month. She likes to review books first as a reader (Was this a Good Read? Did I get my money's worth?) and second as a writer (What makes this book succeed/fail as a genre novel?). You can visit her website at http://www.donna-mcmahon.com/.