Knight by Timothy Zahn
Knight is the sequel to Pawn. I’ve always enjoyed Zahn’s work. He writes a good story and his characters show moral strength. Nicole has grown a great deal since Pawn. She is becoming the actual protector of the Fyrantha and sees the need to confront the Shipmasters.
Zahn has done a good job in developing the character of Nicole. She is becoming confident and discovering she does not need to be a pawn. Humans are prisoners but although they have pacifistically defied the Shipmasters they are increasingly put into the position where pacifism may be impossible.
Zahn creates a great mini world within the Fyrantha, an alien warship/AI struggling to stay alive.
I enjoyed the book and look forward to the next book in the series.

Shelved under "dnf."

I don't rate books I don't finish, but this one fell to around 2 stars and never climbed back up. I kept skimming the meaningless tensions, hoping to find some meaningful progress, but it never manifest. The problem is the single point of view character: 19 yr old Nicole is kidnapped by aliens because she can speak with their ship and relay mechanical problems to the crew. Cool, right? This opens up all kinds of mysteries and worldbuilding questions. But instead of exploring that, we are stuck in Nicole head 24/7. She diagnoses problems, bur has no understanding or ability to fix things. Worse, she insists on hanging out with an abusive criminal who gets her into trouble constantly! Why would either of these things interest readers? And Nicole doesn't know who her friends are, among the other kidnapped aliens and humans. She's immature.

Overall, this story needed another narrator to bring out whatever mystery and conflict the author was hoping to entice readers along with.

My thanks to Timothy Zahn, MacMillan Tor/Forge and Netgalley for this free egalley! The opinions I share are completely my own and in no way compensated for by publishers or authors. If you liked this review, you can read more of my speculative fiction reviews on my blog.

I received an advance ebook copy of this book from Netgalley.

I have read and enjoyed many of Timothy Zahn's previous books, going back many years, so when this one became available, I snapped it up. And I was not disappointed, other than in myself for not being able to put the book down and get some sleep. I read the entire book in one sitting, and will definitely read any and all further books in this series. (And anything else Mr. Zahn cares to write.)

Nicole hears voices in her head, which she cannot quite understand, and which no amount of self-medicating can silence. She is leading a fairly desperate day-to-day existence when one day she and two companions (a thug and a doctor) are transported to an enormous spaceship. Nicole soon learns that those voices are real and she learns to understand them. She is assigned to a maintenance crew, but she and her companions are given very little information about the ship's mission and their part in it. It is not until Nicole starts exploring on her own that she begins to find out what's really going on, and that she and her group of human companions comprise only a very, very small piece of the puzzle.

I look forward to future books in this series so I can find out what happens next.

Zahn does it again! Of all his series, I think this will be one of my favorites. Fast-paced with great characters. Could not put it down. Can't wait for the next in the series.