Trinity on Tylos

Deep Space Adventure

At 26, Venice Dylenski is the youngest member of the executive staff of the colonization ship Excalibur. Under pressure to keep up with the more experienced officers, she often wonders if the Excalibur's Captain McPherson gave her the assignment to ensure her husband Steve would sign on as the executive officer.

Dodd gives her readers little time to catch their breaths and her complex heroine little time to nurse her damaged ego after a climbing accident that begins the novel. Our collective attention is soon diverted by the arrival of the Archeonite III, an alien ship with superior fire power and with Azareel, a captain following an expedient plan.

Venice raises security concerns when the friendly Archeons request a cooperative information exchange. Captain McPherson refuses to listen and soon finds Venice and enlisted crewmember Alathea Duke taken captive, then spirited away aboard the alien ship to parts unknown.

We know from the novel's back cover blurb that Azareel captures two females for use as surrogate mothers to rebuild an Archeon race decimated by plague. Dodd's intent, then, isn't surprising the reader with this event, but weaving a fast-paced story about how a strong, complex heroine copes with her abduction.

Venice is a duty-oriented marine with a high degree of skill in martial arts, weapons, and tactics. Azareel, from a military tradition where women are viewed as the spoils of war, believes his single-minded mission of creating an Archeon colony on Tylos justifies any means necessary for success.

He tells Venice and Alathea, "whatever roles you played on your old ship were insignificant compared to being the mothers of a new Archeon race."

While Alathea, who served as an agricultural technician on the Excalibur, shows early signs of adapting to her circumstances, Venice remains openly defiant. In her opinion, her responsibilities are to destroy the Archeonite III, communicate with the Excalibur, and escape-or, if necessary, to die fighting.

Azareel mockingly tells her she's playing the role of the oppressed captive and Alathea urges her to face facts and not make life needlessly more dangerous.

"With all due respect, Major, we're stuck," Alathea tells Venice. "We might as well get used to the idea of staying here for a long time."

In Trinity on Tylos, Dodd reprises and expands upon the captive woman theme she explored in her first novel. While Angela Donaldson in The Gift Horse comes from a dismal existence of poverty and loss and makes, as Dodd once said, "a deal with her devil" in exchange for a better life, Venice Dylenski sacrifices a rewarding career and a happy marriage to save the lives of others.

Malcolm R. Campbell for "Living Jackson Magazine"

No text was provided for this review.