Sibyl is having a difficult day. For one, her operation as a deep-cover operative in a youth cult nearly gets blown; for another, certain members of an alien species living as immigrants on Earth keep trying to kill her on sight. Plus, that serial killer case where the victims are all teenage drug addicts with their livers removed is going NOWHERE, and her addiction to fine cigars is increasingly eating into her bank account. Still, it could be worse: though her husband vanished on an expedition to a mysterious planet years ago, Sibyl’s been doing a decent job of raising their daughter as a single mom. Things look like they might work out…at least, they do until Sibyl gets a break in the case that MIGHT involve would-be world tyrants and evil alien mind-eating monsters and a drug high that lets her hear her husband pleading for help…and suddenly this no-nonsense single mom is going to have to put all her skills to work if she doesn’t want to end up dead…or worse.
Ok, so, fine, this isn’t going to make anyone’s list as a piece of fine literature. The prose is curt and functional and gets you to where you wanna go, but it lacks, really, anything approaching subtlety or poetry. Still, reading that summary…is subtlety what you’re looking for? Isn’t a punch-in-the gut writing style pretty standard for a lot of Sci-Fi…and detective novels, for that matter? Also, consider that this was written in 1966…how many protagonists can you think of from that period (or even AFTER) who were all: 1) Ladies 2) Single Moms 3) Quite happy to explore her sexuality, thank you (look, her husband’s been gone for YEARS, allright?) 4) VERY capable in a fist fight 5) Quite aware of herself and her needs…and her flaws (she falls in love with bad people A LOT but, having acknowledged the problem, manages to not let it control her…quite). I can’t think of a lot, and I read TONS.
I liked Sibyl: she was a lot of fun to hang around and seems like, if you pardon the pun, one bad mamma. You might like her too. Me like books.
Me Like Books 