ARC Review: Gold Dust by Catherine Asaro

Gold Dust
Author: Catherine Asaro
Series: Dust Knights (Book 2)
Publication: Baen Books (October 7, 2025)

Description: BORN TO RUN; BORN TO FIGHT, A PAIR OF STAR-CROSSED LOVERS COMPETE IN THE OLYMPIC GAMES

COMPETITORS IN THE INTERSTELLAR OLYMPICS MUST OVERCOME POVERTY AND INTRIGUE

Three interstellar civilizations vie for honors in the Olympics, including the Skolian Imperialate. The thriving, populous worlds of humanity have always dominated the Games. The team from Raylicon, a dying world of scorching temperatures, has never won honors.

IS CHANGE COMING?

Mason, the coach for the Raylicon track and field team, makes a startling discovery: The Undercity, an ancient culture hidden in ruins beneath the desert, carries a secret. In a place where crushing poverty exists alongside a culture of dramatic beauty, a group of spectacular runners has existed for centuries, even millennia, unknown to the outside universe.

The Dust Knights are the best of those marvels. With the help of Major Bhajaan, an Undercity native, he recruits the Knights. And so change sweeps their world. The Undercity faces a civilization they've never trusted, one that sees them as barely even human. Now, they must all learn to work together.

THE KYLE UNIVERSE

Skolia needs the Undercity to trust them—for hidden within its enigmatic population is one of humanity’s greatest resources. Their inbred population has created a large concentration of Kyle operators, an otherwise almost extinct group of humans. Kyles can do more than run; only they have the neurological makeup needed to utilize a vital technology, one that gives Skolian its sole advantage over their conquering enemies. The army wants the Kyles to work for them, but after centuries of being despised and left to die by the rest of humanity, the Undercity wants nothing to do with them.

Until Angel, one of the top runners among the Knights, joins the Kyle Corps—and dives into a world of neurological marvels, including star-spanning networks that access a dimension with dramatically different laws than our space-time universe.

THE STAKES COULD NOT BE HIGHER AS THE DUST KNIGHTS COMPETE FOR THEIR WORLD—AND THE FREEDOM OF HUMANITY

My Thoughts: The second book in the Dust Knights series has a number of dust knights trying to qualify for the Olympics. They have to deal with all sorts of prejudice and the poverty of their lives. After all, they agreed to run for the Raylicon team in exchange for clean water and food. 

Besides training for the Olympics, Angel is working for the Army training to be a telop - a critcally needed skill to keep the Skolian Imperialate from being conquered by the much more numerous Trader Empire. Many more than average of the people who live in the Undercity are empaths and telepaths which is one reason that Raylicon has become interested in the population they disparaged as lazy and stupid. 

Angel is quickly outpacing her instructors and, in true Undercity style, is exploring the vast new world she is being trained to navigate. Her investigations help Bhaaj who is investigating a possible forced merger between two interstellar corporations. The Scorpio Corporation and Abyss Associates are both companies of interest to the Majdas who are Bhaaj's employer. The CEOs of both corporations happen to have children who are on the new Olympic team. 

One of the viewpoint characters is Kiro, the son of an executive of the Abyss Association. He really wants a track Olympic medal and is willing to slight his accounting degree at Cries University to pursue his dreams. He's also an empath who forms a firm friendship with three other young people from the Undercity who have been looking for a fourth for their dust gang and are also training for the Olympics. 

This was another excellent story with great worldbuilding. I enjoyed Angel's descriptions of Kyle Space. I also enjoyed figuring out the mystery which centered around the two corporations, their connection to Undercity Drug cartels, and secrets buried in the past. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from Baen Books. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Ribbon Dance by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Ribbon Dance
Author: Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
Series: Liaden Universe (Book 27)
Publication: Baen Books (June 4, 2024)

Description: On a world where cake is a necessity, it takes the Grid to protect the civilized and the deaf from the dire influences of the ambient and to keep the chaotic Haosa at bay.

Having arrived at recently Dust-bound Colemeno, Trader Padi yos’Galan is essential to Master Trader Shan yos’Galan’s plan to recoup Clan Korval’s fortunes by establishing new routes for the clan’s tradeship. Shan’s inner Healer insists Padi come to terms with her as-yet unplumbed psychic abilities, which might place her in the top tier of dramliz, if she can learn control.

Padi yearns to concentrate on trade, but Colemeno’s fey ambient and deadly long-term politics combine to bring her face-to-face with the Haosa, and in particular with the mysterious and untouchable Tekelia, as Korval’s trade mission’s necessity of a port audit collide with a cruel history of murder, deception, and brutality. Amid the dangers, Padi unexpectedly finds herself eagerly exploring her dramliz side when faced with the unspoken powers of the ambient, the sky-filling energy of the ribbon dance, and Tekelia’s mutable eyes.

My Thoughts: This twenty-seventh book in the Liaden universe is the direct sequel to TRADER'S LEAP. It takes place on Colemeno and is about the Dutiful Passage and its traders looking to find new profitable trade opportunities for Clan Korval. 

Colemeno was settled long ago by exiled Small Talents from Liad. Their escape was aided by Clan Korval and Clan Ixin. The planet is in the Ambient which has a powerful magnifying effect on those with talents. The Ambient almost caused the settlement to fail since many of the talents couldn't survive in the face of that much power. It led to the development of a grid which buffered the Ambient. Those who live under the grid are determined to be Civilized. Those who can survive without the grid and have wild talents are the Haosa. And those without talents are called the Deaf and are only recently allowed an equal place in society. 

This story is told in part by the Councilor for the Deaf Majel ziaGorn who is determined to better the lot of his people even while some other council members really want to revert to the old times when the Deaf were under the control of the talents. Currently, Deaf businesses are seeing a rash of attacks that were under the legal limit but considered mischief which is building a potential revolution among the Deaf.

Majel volunteers to be the liaison for the trade mission to help them with their work and to let them know about local custom. Meanwhile, the trade mission is facing some obstacles too. Pressure from the kezlBlythes to send business their way is an obstacle to be overcomes. Especially since the kezlBlythes aren't shy about using their talents to pressure and intimidate and even murder. 

And Padi, besides her work as a trader opening up a new port, is dealing with her own talents and a new relationship with Tekelia who is the Speaker for the Haosa. 

This was another excellent entry into the long-running Liaden Universe series. It is filled with great worldbuilding and wonderful characters. 

Favorite Quote:

"I accept your gift of information. In return, I offer a list of the most untrustworthy trade banks, cargo agents, and bars along the Iverson Loop."

"I accept," Padi said, adding truthfully, "A handsome gift." Trader Isfelm waggled her fingers.

"Only a list of mistakes already made. There's no need to make them again." Padi laughed.

"Very true! Especially when there are perfectly terrifying new errors out there awaiting our attention."

I bought the eARC from Baen books. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Neogenesis by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Neogenesis
Author: Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Series: Liaden Universe® (Book 21)
Publication: Baen (January 2, 2018)

Description: Menace from Back Space Looming out of the Dust of Time

The Complex Logic Laws were the result of a war waged hundreds of years in the past, when two human powers threw massive AI navies at each other and nearly annihilated themselves.  Being human, they blamed their tools for this near miss; they destroyed what was left of the sentient ships, and made it illegal to be, manufacture, or shelter an independent logic.

Strangely, however, the Free Ships and other AIs did not turn themselves in or suicide, they merely became wary of humans, and stayed under their scans.  A clandestine support network grew up, including hidden yards where smart ships were manufactured, and mentors--humans specially trained to ease a new intelligence into the universe--socialized them, and taught them what they needed to know to survive.

Among those with a stake in the freedom of Independent Logics is Theo Waitley, who is somewhat too famously the captain of intelligent ship Bechimo. Theo's brother, Val Con yos'Phelium, presides over a household that has for a generation employed an AI butler.  Recently, he approved the "birth" of the butler's child, who was sent, with human mentor Tolly Jones, to rescue or destroy an orphaned AI abandoned at a remote space station.

Then there's Uncle, the shadowy mastermind from the Old Universe, whose many projects often skirt the boundaries of law, both natural and man-made – and the puppet-masters at the Lyre Institute, whose history is just as murky – and a good deal less honorable.

All have an interest in the newly-awakening Self-Aware Logic that is rumored to have the power to destroy universes.

The question is:  Who will get to it first?

My Thoughts: This is another exciting episode in the Liaden Universe. Some plot threads begun in THE GATHERING EDGE and other earlier books come to resolution in this episode. It takes place on Surebleak, on Inki's ship Ahab-Esais, on the Uncle's ship Vivulonj Prosperu, on Admiral Bunter, on the Tarigan, and at Tinsori Light.

We learn more about the Uncle where Daav and Aelliana are biding while they get over the Uncle's ministrations fearing that he might have subverted them in some way to Korval's detriment. The Uncle has business of his own too as his sister, who holds the key to one of his plans, disappears from her safe place.

We also get to spend more time with Tocohl, Tolly and Haz who are all variously in peril. Tolly has to find a way to fix Admiral Bunter so that he doesn't take him to the Lyre Institute where he will be reprogrammed. Tolly has to gain the ship's trust so that he can go in and repair the core mandates. Tocohl has been kidnapped by Inki who wants to reprogram her to make her Inki's slave. Haz heads off into space to rescue Tolly and ends up in danger from the Lyre Institute herself.

On Surebleak, Miri and Val Con are dealing with a new inspection by a trade organization to upgrade the status of Surebleak as a port and dealing with the two Pathfinders Theo found in THE GATHERING EDGE and their mysterious briefcases. Ren Zel is dealing with the strengthening of his addiction to his psychic gift which gives him the power to unmake the universe. Theo comes to Val Con in his role as a Scout Commander to get some other Scouts determined to capture and destroy her ship Bechimo off her trail. Those Scouts are convinced that Bechimo is Old Tech and is in violation of the Complex Logic Laws.

What ties many of these plot threads together is the search for an ancient Artificial Intelligence. The Uncle wants it. The Lyre Institute wants it and has dispatched Inki to find it. Haz and Tolly rendezvous with Inki and Tocohl at the Tinsori Light to deal with an AI gone insane and with the power to destroy the Universe in its madness.

This was action-packed and exciting. It was good to catch up with beloved characters and to learn more about characters who were previously in the background and now take a turn in the spotlight. Naturally, since this is the 21st book, some beloved characters are off doing something else and a few only make cameo appearances.

Favorite Quote:

"I am a generalist, I fear. Scout Commander, First-in. There are not very many of us, which must be counted fortunate, as we are all flutterbees, sipping nectar from every flower, indiscriminately. Intuition is wanted most in a Scout Commander. A keen eye, a retentive memory, and being rather too stupid to die are also seen as desirable qualities."

I bought this eARC from Baen. You can buy your copy here.