Karin Lowachee Cagebird

Karin Lowachee, Cagebird - When Yuri was four years old, the aliens who were at war with humanity raided Plymouth Moon, killing many colonists and injuring a lot more. The survivors were relocated to the planet Grace, a half terraformed rock that was low on the basic necessities of life; food, shelter and medicine. During the evacuation, Yuri, his father and his siblings were separated from his mother and sister who were taken to another camp and it looked like the family would never be reunited.

One day a visitor Bo-Sheng arrived on Grace and recruited Yuri to work on a merchant ship. When he signed up and was brought aboard, he learned he was on a pirate ship and he was Captain Falcone's new prot g e. During his years on the ship, he learned to be a geisha who spied on the competition, a killer and eventually a captain of his own ship. He was eventually captured by Black Ops and made a deal with them, but when you deal with the devil, a heavy price is paid as Yuri learns to his cost.

CAGEBIRD is not for the faint of heart. There are graphic scenes of violence and training to be a geisha, which includes explicit scenes of same sex and male-female sex. Making love is not a pleasure in this book but a tool that pirates use to disarm the enemy, get information and recruit young blood. Yuri never had a chance to be a child and when he is finally caught by the authorities, they want him to pimp for their cause. Karin Lowachee provides a thought-provoking, science-fiction thriller that applies to the world today.

Harriet Klausner