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When the humans settled on the new world, they were forced
to negotiate for land with aliens that already inhabited the
planet. Nouri decided to observe the strangers, suspicious
of their motives and fearing that they would not honor the
agreement. He was right, and the price for his knowledge
was getting caught in a trap set by human poachers. One of
the colonists, Cara, comes to his aid, and he becomes
entranced by her.
Cara has always resented her parents’ decision to leave
Earth. She is happy when she discovers a mythological
beast in the alien sacred forest. Although she is violating
the treaty, she returns again and again to find him. Cara
is willing to risk everything for the beast she calls
Rae—little does she know that nothing is as it seems.
I genuinely liked Chameleon, yet it doesn’t
compare to Ms. Anjou’s other work, which for me carries more
heft. The story is well-written but much lighter fare
despite the angst. Perhaps I’ve become more used to the
layered intricacy used in previous books, although it’s not
fair to compare Chameleon to them simply
because it’s limited to less than 100 pages. This is a good
story hovering on the brink of “very good,” yet wavering,
due to limited to space. Or so it seemed to me. I would
have preferred for it to be longer and I wanted more time to
get to know Nouri and his people. Cara is realistically
depicted, and her character made it easy to connect to the
story. The humor is wonderful, and I’ve always admired the
way this author uses comedic elements to make fun of
situations that rightly deserve it. Although this story
fell a bit short of my expectations, I got a kick out of
reading it. There is not very much that could detract from
Ms. Anjou’s creative writing skills and that’s enough for me
to continue reading her work. |
