The first half of Catch the Lightning takes place in an alternate Los Angeles on Earth in a time similar to the late 20th century. The main character is Tina Pulivok, a seventeen-year-old Maya girl living in East L.A. She has relocated to Los Angeles and is living on her own while she works as a waitress. The hero, Althor Selei, a cybernetically enhanced Jag fighter pilot, is thrown into the alternate universe when his star fighter malfunctions. Tina meets Althor late at night when she is returning home from work, and he is trying to figure out why he ended up on a planet that bears little resemblance to the Earth he expected. After Althor helps Tina escape an incident of gang violence, the two become fugitives.
Tina is an empath. She is aware she is different but has no name for her abilities and is afraid to tell anyone about what she experiences. Althor is a member of the Ruby Dynasty, and as such he is heir to the throne of an interstellar empire called the Skolian Imperialate. He is also a Rhon psion and can read moods, sometimes even thoughts, from other people. He and Tina share an immediate attraction, in part based on their abilities.
During the night, while Althor stays with Tina, the Air Force discovers his Jag star ship and takes it to a military installation. Specialists there examine it, unaware that a technology-induced telepathic link ties the ship to the Jagernaut mind of its unknown (to them) pilot. As a result, they have no idea their tests are killing Althor.
With the aid of several Caltech students Tina knows, she and Althor infiltrate the military complex and regain the ship. As soon as Althor repairs its damaged systems, he and Tina return to his spacetime. They are almost immediately captured by the group that sabotaged Althor's ship, after which they are sold as slaves to his enemies, in particular an Aristo named Kryx Iquar. Althor is stunned to learn that the person who betrayed him was his close personal friend, Ragnar Bloodmark, an influential Skolian admiral who helped raise him. After being held captive and tortured for several days, Althor and Tina escape with the help of his sentient Jag fighter.
In the end, Tina marries Althor, and together they discover the origin of Althor's ancestors, the Raylicans, who were a displaced group of Maya from Earth, relocated to the planet Raylicon during an earlier era by unknown aliens.
Context
Although Catch the Lightning is chronologically the last book in the series (to date), the novel was the second of Asaro's fourteen books published in The Saga of the Skolian Empire and is considered a stand-alone work. The events take place fifty years after the Radiance War, as described in The Radiant Seas.[3]
The book is known for breaking the expectation of young adult science fiction at the time, a genre which prior to that time primarily focused on young male protagonists. In showcasing instead a young female protagonist with a romantic story line, Catch the Lightning helped open the genre to a new audience of readers. Other examples of such novels include Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders series and the work of Lois McMaster Bujold.[4]
Asaro uses the two-part structure of the novel to explore the clash between different cultures, a theme inherent to the genre of planetary romance as done by authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Marion Zimmer Bradley. The main character, Tina Pulivok, is a young woman of the TzotzilMaya from the Zinacantan village of Nabenchauk on the Chiapas plateau in southern Mexico. Praised for the quality of her prose,[5] Asaro builds the character's background in detail, including the use of scholarly texts and permission to include the translation of a Zincanteco poem from a Smithsonian treatise.[6]
Tina is already experiencing the culture shock of living in Los Angeles after growing up in the Chiapas Highlands, an idea further explored in "Ave de Paso,” a short story by Asaro which appeared in Fantasy: the Best of 2001.[7] Althor is dealing with the clash between his universe and 1980s Los Angeles, which heightens the contrast between his and Tina's backgrounds, a conflict enhanced by his cybernetic differences from a normal human being. In the second half of the novel, when Tina travels to Althor's universe and time, the differences in their backgrounds become more pronounced, and the resolution of those differences within the context of the adventure forms a prominent theme of the novel. By using alien settings to consider what it means to be different, Asaro looks at conflicts inherent in different cultures and peoples on our own world.[8]
Catch the Lightning is the Skolian book that most features the world Raylicon, ancient home of the "lost children," those humans taken from Earth thousands of years ago and stranded on Raylicon. The mystery of why a starfaring species moved humans to a dying world and then disappeared, leaving nothing behind but the wreckage of starships, is a central question of the saga. The displaced humans eventually conquer space flight and raise the interstellar Ruby Empire. Built with only partially understood technology, it falls three centuries later, and it takes another four thousand years for the Raylicans to regain the stars. (The Radiant Seas, 1999) During that time, the colonies on other worlds are stranded, and those that survive lose their technology, becoming lost worlds. Raylicon is the culture that survives, and in modern times the mysterious ruins of the Ruby Empire exist side by side with the modern cities of the Skolian Imperialate. The chapters set on Raylicon, which come late in the book, offer the most detail in the saga about the culture and history of world that originated both the Skolians and their enemies, the Eubian Concord, aka the Trader Empire.
Asaro has been accepting of the term romance despite the controversy and has expressed pleased surprise that her works attracted the interest of the romance community.[19]
Lois McMaster Bujold is an American speculative fiction writer. She is an acclaimed writer, having won the Hugo Award for best novel four times, matching Robert A. Heinlein's record. Her novella "The Mountains of Mourning" won both the Hugo Award and Nebula Award. In the fantasy genre, The Curse of Chalion won the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature and was nominated for the 2002 World Fantasy Award for best novel, and both her fourth Hugo Award and second Nebula Award were for Paladin of Souls. In 2011 she was awarded the Skylark Award. In 2013 she was awarded the Forry Award for Lifetime Achievement, named for Forrest J. Ackerman, by the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. She has won two Hugo Awards for Best Series, in 2017 for the Vorkosigan Saga and in 2018 for the World of the Five Gods series. The Science Fiction Writers of America named her its 36th SFWA Grand Master in 2019.
The Vorkosigan Saga is a series of science fiction novels and short stories set in a common fictional universe by American author Lois McMaster Bujold. The first of these was published in 1986 and the most recent in May 2018. Works in the series have received numerous awards and nominations, including five Hugo award wins including one for Best Series.
Catherine Ann Asaro is an American science fiction and fantasy author, singer and teacher. She is best known for her books about the Ruby Dynasty, called the Saga of the Skolian Empire.
Planetary romance is a subgenre of science fiction in which the bulk of the action consists of adventures on one or more exotic alien planets, characterized by distinctive physical and cultural backgrounds. Some planetary romances take place against the background of a future culture where travel between worlds by spaceship is commonplace; others, particularly the earliest examples of the genre, do not, and invoke flying carpets, astral projection, or other methods of getting between planets. In either case, it is the planetside adventures which are the focus of the story, not the mode of travel.
Spherical Harmonic is a science fiction novel from the Saga of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro. It tells the story of Dyhianna Selei (Dehya), the Ruby Pharaoh of the Skolian Imperialate, as she strives to reform her government and reunite her family in the aftermath of a devastating interstellar war.
Schism is a novel in the Saga of the Skolian Empire, a series of science fiction books by Catherine Asaro. It was first published in 2004.
Skyfall is a 2004 novel by Catherine Asaro which tells the story of how Roca met her husband Eldrinson, Bard of Dalvador, ruler of a province on Skyfall.
The Moon's Shadow is a novel from the Saga of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro which tells the story of Jaibriol Qox III—how he became emperor of Eube after the interstellar Radiance War, and founded peace talks between his people, the Eubians, and those of the Skolian Imperialate.
The Saga of the Skolian Empire, informally called the Skolian Saga or Tales of the Ruby Dynasty, is a series of science fiction novels, novelettes and novellas by Catherine Asaro, revolving around characters from an interstellar empire known as the Skolian Empire and their power struggle with the rival Eubian Concord. The plot of the book unfolds over several generations of characters and revolves around political intrigues, but also contains subplots regarding physics, bio-enhancements, virtual computer networks, romance, mathematics, and military conflict as it is affected by supraluminal space travel.
The Quantum Rose is a science fiction novel by Catherine Asaro which tells the story of Kamoj Argali and Skolian Prince Havyrl Valdoria. The book is set in her Saga of the Skolian Empire. It won the 2001 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 2001 Affaire de Coeur Award for Best Science Fiction. The first third of the novel appeared as a three-part serialization in Analog magazine in the 1999 May, June and July/August issues. Tor Books published the full novel in 2000.
Rhon psions, also known as Ruby psions are a fictional group of extremely powerful psions in the Saga of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro.
Sunrise Alley is a romantic science fiction novel by Catherine Asaro about a retired EI engineer named Samantha Bryton, and her adventures with an escaped EI who claims to be a human named Turner Pascal.
Primary Inversion is a science fiction novel in the Saga of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro. As Asaro's debut novel, it first appeared as a hardcover in 1995. It was nominated for the 1996 Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Memorial Award and placed tenth on the list for the Locus Award for Best First Novel.
The Last Hawk is a 1997 science fiction novel by Catherine Asaro. The novel is an installment in the Saga of the Skolian Empire series and details the life of Kelricson Garlin Valdoria Skolia during his eighteen years of imprisonment on the planet Coba
The Final Key is a science fiction novel in the Saga of the Skolian Empire, a series of books by American writer Catherine Asaro. As the direct sequel to Schism, it tells the story of a major Eubian assault against the Skolian government and Eldrinson's rise from a rustic farmer to a member of the powerful imperial Triad.
The Radiant Seas is a novel from the Saga of the Skolian Empire series of books by Catherine Asaro. The book continues where Primary Inversion ended and centers on the story of the devastating interstellar Radiance War. It won the HOMer Award for Best Novel of 2000 from the SF and Fantasy forum on CompuServe.
The Ruby Dice is a 2009 science fiction novel. Written by Catherine Asaro, the book wraps up many of the events of Saga of the Skolian Empire.
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance is a science fiction novel by American writer Lois McMaster Bujold, part of the Vorkosigan Saga. The action centers on Miles Vorkosigan's cousin Ivan Vorpatril, now a captain, and a Jackson's Whole refugee called Tej. By internal chronology, the book is set a year or so after Diplomatic Immunity (2002), about four years before Cryoburn (2010).
This is the complete bibliography of American space opera and hard science fiction author Catherine Asaro.
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