Eclipse
K.A. Bedford
EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
ISBN 1-894063-30-9

James Dunne dreamed of space ships since he was a child. Now, after suffering years of abuse at the Academy, under the guise of training, he's finally an officer who's just been assigned to the ECLIPSE, an exploration vessel. He's sure that things will be different now that he's graduated - no more hazing, no more abuse heaped on him by upper classmen. He quickly finds out that he's wrong.

When he and Sorcha, another new arrival, devise a way to protect her from the ship's executive officer's advances, he makes himself an enemy. When complaining to the wrong person can get you thrown out an airlock, what can you do except suffer and take it? When he's assigned to a "first contact" team because he's expendable, he begins to learn just how corrupt the service is.

This was a very interesting story. The tech was different than what I usually see-very creative but, at times, the detailed explanations of the science did drag on, forcing me to skim a little.

There was flash-forward stuck in there that really wasn't appropriate and really yanked me out of the flow, but it was over quickly. It did confuse me a little, since the character was thinking about his father at the time. I wasn't sure if the letters were written by the father, or the character. It wasn't clear until the end of the book. Personally, I'd have left them out completely. They were distracting and really unnecessary.

Still, it was a good read -very intense in parts, violent in others-and had me staying way too late in the evening when I had to get up early for work the next morning…I couldn't just put it down to finish tomorrow. ECLIPSE, by K.A. Bedford….worth a look.

Reviewed by
Lisa Ramaglia

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