Publisher's Weekly
In this first volume of her projected Highroad trilogy, Rasmussen ( The Labyrinth Gate ) creates the most delightful robot since R2D2: Bach, who whistles lieder under his cybernetic breath. The rest here is standard space fantasy. The settled section of the galaxy known as the Reft has a bloated galactic bureaucracy that expertly directs the anger of the majority toward a bitterly repressed minority. Some fugitives from another quarter of the universe become entwined with partisans of the Reft's nemesis, the insurrectionist Jehane. Lily, martial-arts student and daughter of a privileged family, is pulled into a maelstrom of intrigue and violence, and is soon a key player in the interlocking fates of the foreigners and the insurgents. The story inches forward without momentum, largely because Rasmussen simply withholds information from her characters in a vain attempt to sustain plot tension. (Feb.)

Library Journal
When her martial arts instructor, the elusive man known as Heredes, is kidnapped by alien bounty hunters, Lilyaka Hae Ransome defies her family and flees the planet of Unruli in pursuit of the kidnappers. Populating the world of the future with multicultural spacefarers, immortal terrorists, and swashbuckling galactic pirates, Rasmussen ( The Labyrinth Gate ) creates a fast-paced space opera with a likable, courageous female protagonist. For large sf collections.