This leisurely novel barely qualifies as science-fiction, even given its extraterrestrial setting. This could have easily been rewritten as the story of a sheltered and spoiled young lady of the 19th century, born in the western prairies but sent East for matriculation by her ambitious mother, who returns to her birthplace to settle her late mother's affairs. The fact of this being set on the planet Keramos hardly matters, and it is the love story that dominates as the young Delanna Milleflores returns disdainfully to the farm she left at five, intending to sell out her half. She learns some truths about herself, her dead mother, and Sonny Tanner with whom she was unknowingly betrothed as an infant. What happens is fairly predictable, quite satisfying, and well-told in a patient and leisurely fashion. ( )

http://startredder.livejournal.com/27... ( )