Derelict for trade: a great new Solar Queen adventure

YA author Smith joins the prolific Norton in writing his popular adventure sf series. In Kanddroyd space, the crew of the trading ship Solar Queen find an abandoned ship with only two cats aboard. When they file for salvage rights, the crew becomes embroiled in a hijacking ring. Recommended for sf collections.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This continuation of Norton's long-lived Solar Queen saga is noticeably superior to the last, Redline the Stars (1993). Free trader ship Solar Queen comes out of hyperspace dangerously short of fuel and saves herself by encountering a derelict starship that it then tows to a three-species space habitat, where the derelict promptly makes the Solar Queen crew the target of legal, financial, and outright homicidal chicanery. It will surprise no one to learn that the good guys and gals win, but it may surprise even old, faithful fans how thoroughly the series in particular and Norton's universe in general have been updated. It is almost unbelievable that this series was in its heyday 30 years ago. On the other hand, in many aspects of sf and fantasy that modern readers have come to take for granted, Norton was 30 years ahead of her time. Read and enjoy. Roland Green