#95. FLOATING WORLDS By Cecelia Holland

Published : 1976
Pages : 628
Overall Mark : 7/10

The Styths, a powerful and aggressive mutant race from Uranus and Saturn, have been launching pirate raids on ships from Mars. Earth’s Committee for the Revolution has been asked to negotiate a truce between the Middle Planets and the Styth Empire. The task falls to the resourceful and unpredictable Paula Mendoza.

Her initial meetings with the Styth warlord don’t go well until she adopts an unconventional approach…

CECELIA HOLLAND (1943-) Cecelia Holland was born on New Year’s Eve, 1943. She is a well-known and acclaimed writer of historical fiction. Floating Worlds is her only SF novel.

VERDICT
This is a strange novel with a lot of ideas coming out of left field. The idea of Paula being almost forced into an arranged marriage in order to help peace talks with an alien race may not sound like anything new, but Holland's treatment of the characters is imaginative and makes for a pleasing, though not necessarily pleasant, read.