"Romantic science fiction at its best!"
For Anthropologist Dr. Tessa Bergin, getting to interact
with an advanced civilization is a dream come true.
However, halfway through their two-year space flight to
PIM9162 the scientists discover that something happened to
the vastly populated planet and upon arrival, it appears to
be a crumbling civilization devoid of life. Tessa has formed a friendship with Dr. Layleh Lehman, who
is part of the first landing party. So, when the first
landing party doesn't report and the captain is threatening
to just leave them dead or worse, stranded on the planet,
Tessa takes a shuttlecraft to try and rescue them. She
finds that the planet isn't devoid of life and her life is
in danger! There are many things that I really like about WHEN NIGHT
FALLS. The story is a little longer than one you would find
in an anthology and I think it's well thought out and does
not feel disjointed, something I find very common with
short stories. I also really like the fact that our hero,
Lucien, is very much an alien. I got a moment of laughter
over the fact that he resembles a demon and Tessa is fairly
certain that his people had visited Earth starting the
Christian concept of the devil. Because there is time travel involved in Tessa's journey to
Lucien's home world, in actuality twenty or so years have
passed since a plague destroyed his people. Meaning Lucien
has been living alone. When he comes to the rescue of
Tessa, Lucien does explain that the strongest male will
keep her. He therefore takes certain efforts to protect her
and keep her hidden by chaining her to the wall, so she
can't reach the window. WHEN NIGHT FALLS is very sensuous
and quite a turn on! There is mild bondage, because Tessa
tries to escape and Lucien is trying to teach her
a "lesson". While I would have liked to have known more about the
planet, Lucien, Tessa or had more information provided,
time is elapsing during the story. For some reason, knowing
time is passing and not just two days makes reading short
stories better because it doesn't seem like they meet and
then are in love. But I think what makes this story for me
is Lucian takes her back to Earth. This event really has
Tessa thinking and having to make the decision: Go back
home to the known or jump into the unknown where there
might be love. My only real complaint is that the grammatical errors need
editing. I read the electronic version, so I don't know if
things were corrected in the paperback version. Regardless,
I enjoyed WHEN NIGHT FALLS very much and can only hope that
Layleh has her own story because she was rescued by
Lucien's enemies the Anjels. Posted December 12, 2005
Reviewed by Cynthia Eckert
Posted November 22, 2006
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