100 Pages A Day...Stephanie's Book Reviews

NASA has been monitoring a seemingly abandoned alien ship, the Target, in a nearby asteroid belt since the 1960's.  Unknown to the public, watching the ship has been the reason for many advances in space technology. Now, with an asteroid in the path of the Target, NASA wants to get its hands on any technology aboard the ship before it's destroyed.  In assembling a team to go to the ship, they are missing one component, a linguist to decipher any writing on the ship and communicate if anything is alive on board.  Dr. Jane Holloway has a knack for languages and a passion for adventure.  When the team finally reaches the Target after a grueling journey, Jane finds out that the ship is not quite abandoned, the being on board has found a way to communicate with her and it wants her to something for the ship.

A suspenseful space adventure with a scientific base and atypical aliens.  What captured me most in Fluency was Jane's character.  I knew she was intelligent, but she also is brave, loyal and can act under pressure.  As the ship reveals itself to Jane, her personality reveals itself and she is forced to act with information that is only known to her.  This splits the team, some crew members believe she is crazy, others believe that her increased knowledge must come from something aboard the ship.  This divide creates an interesting tension.  There wasn't a ton of action in the book, but there were some fighting scenes with dangerous space slugs, most of the action is taking place within Jane's mind as she learns how to communicate with the entity aboard.  My biggest dislike was the sort-of, jumbled romance between Jane and crewman Alan Bergen.  There was a lot of tension, weirdness and not really great circumstances for an actual romance when Jane was seemingly passed out half the time when she was communicating with the alien. The ending was interesting to me with a little unexpected twist.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.