Starfire is an otherworld military science fiction filled with… dinosaurs! Actually, a more accurate term for the cold-blooded fighting force would be the Saurn.

Rathe, a Saurn on the low end of the military and caste totem pole fights his way to a decent standing in a light infantry force. On a mission to retrieve a group of engineers, his world is tossed upside down when one of the engineers stumbles into an old technological ruin and is transformed into a cybernetic messenger. His mission now changes. He is to protect Karey Or  (the name of the engineer turned cybernetic) and lead her to Thode (an ancient military institution) where her download will be complete. Then she will become the key to Starfire.

Only Rathe can make the choice to use Starfire and save his people from the invading Herians or destroy Karey Or and save all the people of his world… at a price. Which will he choose?

It took a couple chapters for me to immerse myself into Starfire, but once I did, I was blown away. Stuart Stockton does an excellent job getting the reader inside the skin of his dinosaur heroes. I could see the volcanoes in the distant, taste the Seethe juice, feel the cold as a cold-blooded reptile would.

But not only was the world building great, I found myself thinking about the characters. I couldn’t decide whether Karey Or should be destroyed to save the many or if Starfire should be fired to save the Saurn. I struggled when some of the characters died and when one betrayed the others. I found myself relating to Struth as he works out his newfound faith in VorTolKo.

Starfire left me thinking long after I finished the book and in eager anticipation of the next in the series.

For more about Starfire or Stuart Stockton, head to Stuart’s site at www.ritersbloc.com

*I received a free copy of this book from Marcher Lord Press in order to review.