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Past Imperfect #4
No Return
The reappearance of an old enemy has devastating consequences, and this time Janeway can only watch while those she loves bear the burden. But tragedy sometimes brings unexpected gifts, and the best-laid plans of an implacable foe may bring Janeway the greatest gift of all.
233,500 words
233,500 words
860 pages, ebook
First published October 1, 2007
2 people are currently reading
85 people want to read
About the author
Fletcher DeLancey
26 books314 followersFletcher DeLancey spent her early career as a science educator, which was the perfect combination of her two great loves: language and science. These days she combines them while writing science fiction.
She is an Oregon expatriate who left her beloved state when she met a Portuguese woman and had to choose between home and heart. She chose heart. Now she lives with her wife and son in the beautiful sunny Algarve, where she writes full-time, teaches Pilates, tries to learn the local birds and plants, and samples every regional Portuguese dish she can get her hands on. (There are many. It’s going to take a while.)
She is best known for her science fiction/fantasy series, Chronicles of Alsea, now comprised of four novels and a novella. Among them, the Alsea books have won an Independent Publisher's Award (2017 bronze medal), a Golden Crown Literary Society Award, a Rainbow Award, and been shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award.
Fletcher believes that women need far more representation in science fiction and fantasy, and takes great pleasure in writing complex stories with strong, believable women heading up the action. Her day is made every time another reader says, “I didn’t think I liked science fiction, but then I read yours.”
She is an Oregon expatriate who left her beloved state when she met a Portuguese woman and had to choose between home and heart. She chose heart. Now she lives with her wife and son in the beautiful sunny Algarve, where she writes full-time, teaches Pilates, tries to learn the local birds and plants, and samples every regional Portuguese dish she can get her hands on. (There are many. It’s going to take a while.)
She is best known for her science fiction/fantasy series, Chronicles of Alsea, now comprised of four novels and a novella. Among them, the Alsea books have won an Independent Publisher's Award (2017 bronze medal), a Golden Crown Literary Society Award, a Rainbow Award, and been shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award.
Fletcher believes that women need far more representation in science fiction and fantasy, and takes great pleasure in writing complex stories with strong, believable women heading up the action. Her day is made every time another reader says, “I didn’t think I liked science fiction, but then I read yours.”
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 30, 2019
The first time I read the book, I felt exhausted. So much trauma, drama, and despair. That's a bit hard to digest.
The second time, I knew what to expect, and I enjoyed it way much more.
I still felt my heart break at some precise moment. I guess being forewarned doesn't mean I can unfeel those intense emotions.
Sometimes empathy sucks.
Especially when I have weepy eyes and a runny nose for fictional characters but I need to accept reality. And so I confess, I'm a marshmallow
The second time, I knew what to expect, and I enjoyed it way much more.
I still felt my heart break at some precise moment. I guess being forewarned doesn't mean I can unfeel those intense emotions.
Sometimes empathy sucks.
Especially when I have weepy eyes and a runny nose for fictional characters but I need to accept reality. And so I confess, I'm a marshmallow
September 17, 2017
One of my all-time favorite series. I loved how curses turned to blessings, much like in real life. Really great story telling and character development. I will be re-reading this series.
Second time through was just as good as the first. Although it was a slower and more deliberate pace following the Chronicles of Alsea Facebook group buddy read schedule. The story is so rich I continually saw new things that I missed the first time around. I don't know how I forgot that Lynne and Kathryn quoted Shakespeare to each other. (At least I think it was Shakespeare... maybe it was someone else. I'm not an expert in poetry.) I will be reading this again I am certain.
Second time through was just as good as the first. Although it was a slower and more deliberate pace following the Chronicles of Alsea Facebook group buddy read schedule. The story is so rich I continually saw new things that I missed the first time around. I don't know how I forgot that Lynne and Kathryn quoted Shakespeare to each other. (At least I think it was Shakespeare... maybe it was someone else. I'm not an expert in poetry.) I will be reading this again I am certain.
May 20, 2019
Woohoo, what a ride! This installment was rich in every possible way: action, love, angst, drama, friendship, family...
April 4, 2022
20181123: after re-read, moved rating up to 3.75, or 4 stars according to Goodreads.
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My fifth book by this author, fourth in this series.
It’s quite possible my lowish rating is due partially to how I had approached this series. As in, I gobbled up the books as prior one was completed, before taking a breath. And the inherent emotionalism/emotional roller coaster kept building and building until I just couldn’t take it any longer. It’s possible I’d still have rated this around this rating regardless, we’ll never know now.
I was somewhat slightly nervous about starting this specific book because I knew it was deeply connected to, and or was the basis for The Chronicles of Alsea. And I had read the first book in that series already, so I wasn’t certain how much of this would end up being something of a modified reread.
My worries were not meet. This book did in fact visit Alsea. And then left again. And the entirety of the Alsea section was over by the 8% mark in the book. It was also, mostly, massively boring. A lot of the feeling that I’d expect from a DeLancey book didn’t seem to be there for this section. As in, it was bland. The information is just relayed without much else.
Voyager, while attempting to get home, gets caught in another void. With other ships. Gets a certain amount of damage, but the biggest issue was the loss of food. So it looks for food. Arrives at a pre-warp civilization. One that has just two cities on the entire planet. Because they are pre-warp, Janeway and the away team have cosmetic surgery to make them look like Alseans. Two sets of away teams beam down to the planet. They find food. They buy food. They have the food delivered to abandoned warehouses. They beam food up. They begin to depart the system. They stop when they pick up a Borg signal coming from the planet. They hurriedly investigate. Find that it’s about to explode and kill three million people. They rush to help keep the ship from exploding and keep the people from dying. They meet Andira Tal. They deactivate the Borg ship. They have dinner with Tal up on Voyager. She links Janeway and Lynn. Voyager leaves. The end. And everything was conveyed in about that level of emotion and excitement. 8% of the book has now been read.
I had the thought, while reading this book, that there’s a feeling, false or otherwise, that the author had been massaging the Voyager books for a longish while. Bringing them up to a higher quality. As mentioned, I could be wrong about that. I mention, though, because this specific book reads more like the first book the author wrote. I’m phrasing that wrong. I mean, that this specific book reads as if it is the first book the author had ever written. With all the flaws and issues inherent in first books. That or, since an entire series of books was made up based off of the first 8% of the book, more time was spent on those other books, and less on ‘polishing up’ this one.
None of that really mattered in the rating. The rating is deeply connected to emotional roller coasters the author seems to love deeply. Before this book there were just two couples who didn’t go through a particular pattern. A pattern of coming together, having one or both fuck things up, have them split, have them come back together, have them reach the highest levels, and while there have one or the other fuck up again, and have them crash yet again. Repeat. 80,000 times. That’s how these books read. Up, down, plateau, Janeway, while in a state of blissful happiness suddenly becomes weirdly enraged, and boom, explodes. Yet again the relationship is in turmoil. Or, yet again Lynn feels inadequate, and boom. Or, yet again, Revi feels undeserving of love, and destroys her relationship with Seven. The only one who didn’t regularly fuck things up was Seven. Odd, I know.
I had mentioned that there had been just two couples who hadn’t been on this roller coaster before this book. Then ran off and talked about what the ‘roller coaster’ meant. Well, back to the two couples. Harry Kim and his girlfriend, and Tom Paris and his girlfriend B’lanna Torres. Vaguely interesting, that, how the relationship that actually did go through a bunch of up and downs, and emotional turmoil on the television show, Paris and Torres, were ‘flat’ in DeLancey’s books. Well, until this book. And Harry Kim himself also had a bit of emotional roller coaster to ride in the official books – mostly the books set after the return of Voyager to Earth and reuniting with Kim’s girlfriend/spy.
Is there a message here? The two straight couples that have any importance in the series have very limited ‘trouble’ to handle, and the one that Torres and Paris face isn’t internally created (unlike on the show), but externally created. Granted, Kim and his on ship girlfriend have no real scenes in the books. They are just seen, and/or talked about. So, for all the reader knows, they do have issues. But the focus isn’t on them so the reader doesn’t learn of them. Right, the message. Straight couples equal no internal emotional turmoil. Lesbian couples equals massive, and I mean massive, and repetitious horrifying angsty turmoil. Constantly. There’s never a level reached wherein things kind of level off. No, always bitter angry fighting. So, am I supposed to be seeing a message from that? Are lesbian relationships inherently unstable and explosive? By the way, there is, in fact, one male-male relationship mentioned in the series, but they have just one scene (up to now), and neither are ‘important’ characters.
So, yeah, my lower rating for this specific book is based on all of that above. The constant beating against my head that lesbians are unstable, plus . . . um well, for the first time I started skipping passages, pages. I mean, for fuck sake, someone important actually ‘dies’ and I just kind of read it with no emotional impact. Just, get it over with already. Heartless, I know, but this was something like the 26th time in this book where some relationship got into trouble, where someone was at the height of happiness and suddenly tragedy strikes. For fuck sake. There’s only so many times the emotional manipulation can occur before I just grow numb. Seriously, I just became numb. I just couldn’t keep my brain from numbingifying itself to save me.
So, yeah, maybe the low rating is because I read all of these books all at once. But, then again, maybe I would have had a lower rating for this book anyway.
I feel vaguely bad on two levels: this is the first DeLancey book I didn’t rate 5 stars, and remember this is the fifth I’ve read, and everyone else who has ever read this book just absolutely loved it. I was just numbed. (Hehe, so I go look at the ratings. What do I see? “100% of people liked it”. Hmms. 34 rated it 5 stars, 14 rated it 4, and I’m one of the 4 losers who rated this book 3 stars. There are no 2 or 1 star ratings for this book).
January 14 2016
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My fifth book by this author, fourth in this series.
It’s quite possible my lowish rating is due partially to how I had approached this series. As in, I gobbled up the books as prior one was completed, before taking a breath. And the inherent emotionalism/emotional roller coaster kept building and building until I just couldn’t take it any longer. It’s possible I’d still have rated this around this rating regardless, we’ll never know now.
I was somewhat slightly nervous about starting this specific book because I knew it was deeply connected to, and or was the basis for The Chronicles of Alsea. And I had read the first book in that series already, so I wasn’t certain how much of this would end up being something of a modified reread.
My worries were not meet. This book did in fact visit Alsea. And then left again. And the entirety of the Alsea section was over by the 8% mark in the book. It was also, mostly, massively boring. A lot of the feeling that I’d expect from a DeLancey book didn’t seem to be there for this section. As in, it was bland. The information is just relayed without much else.
Voyager, while attempting to get home, gets caught in another void. With other ships. Gets a certain amount of damage, but the biggest issue was the loss of food. So it looks for food. Arrives at a pre-warp civilization. One that has just two cities on the entire planet. Because they are pre-warp, Janeway and the away team have cosmetic surgery to make them look like Alseans. Two sets of away teams beam down to the planet. They find food. They buy food. They have the food delivered to abandoned warehouses. They beam food up. They begin to depart the system. They stop when they pick up a Borg signal coming from the planet. They hurriedly investigate. Find that it’s about to explode and kill three million people. They rush to help keep the ship from exploding and keep the people from dying. They meet Andira Tal. They deactivate the Borg ship. They have dinner with Tal up on Voyager. She links Janeway and Lynn. Voyager leaves. The end. And everything was conveyed in about that level of emotion and excitement. 8% of the book has now been read.
I had the thought, while reading this book, that there’s a feeling, false or otherwise, that the author had been massaging the Voyager books for a longish while. Bringing them up to a higher quality. As mentioned, I could be wrong about that. I mention, though, because this specific book reads more like the first book the author wrote. I’m phrasing that wrong. I mean, that this specific book reads as if it is the first book the author had ever written. With all the flaws and issues inherent in first books. That or, since an entire series of books was made up based off of the first 8% of the book, more time was spent on those other books, and less on ‘polishing up’ this one.
None of that really mattered in the rating. The rating is deeply connected to emotional roller coasters the author seems to love deeply. Before this book there were just two couples who didn’t go through a particular pattern. A pattern of coming together, having one or both fuck things up, have them split, have them come back together, have them reach the highest levels, and while there have one or the other fuck up again, and have them crash yet again. Repeat. 80,000 times. That’s how these books read. Up, down, plateau, Janeway, while in a state of blissful happiness suddenly becomes weirdly enraged, and boom, explodes. Yet again the relationship is in turmoil. Or, yet again Lynn feels inadequate, and boom. Or, yet again, Revi feels undeserving of love, and destroys her relationship with Seven. The only one who didn’t regularly fuck things up was Seven. Odd, I know.
I had mentioned that there had been just two couples who hadn’t been on this roller coaster before this book. Then ran off and talked about what the ‘roller coaster’ meant. Well, back to the two couples. Harry Kim and his girlfriend, and Tom Paris and his girlfriend B’lanna Torres. Vaguely interesting, that, how the relationship that actually did go through a bunch of up and downs, and emotional turmoil on the television show, Paris and Torres, were ‘flat’ in DeLancey’s books. Well, until this book. And Harry Kim himself also had a bit of emotional roller coaster to ride in the official books – mostly the books set after the return of Voyager to Earth and reuniting with Kim’s girlfriend/spy.
Is there a message here? The two straight couples that have any importance in the series have very limited ‘trouble’ to handle, and the one that Torres and Paris face isn’t internally created (unlike on the show), but externally created. Granted, Kim and his on ship girlfriend have no real scenes in the books. They are just seen, and/or talked about. So, for all the reader knows, they do have issues. But the focus isn’t on them so the reader doesn’t learn of them. Right, the message. Straight couples equal no internal emotional turmoil. Lesbian couples equals massive, and I mean massive, and repetitious horrifying angsty turmoil. Constantly. There’s never a level reached wherein things kind of level off. No, always bitter angry fighting. So, am I supposed to be seeing a message from that? Are lesbian relationships inherently unstable and explosive? By the way, there is, in fact, one male-male relationship mentioned in the series, but they have just one scene (up to now), and neither are ‘important’ characters.
So, yeah, my lower rating for this specific book is based on all of that above. The constant beating against my head that lesbians are unstable, plus . . . um well, for the first time I started skipping passages, pages. I mean, for fuck sake, someone important actually ‘dies’ and I just kind of read it with no emotional impact. Just, get it over with already. Heartless, I know, but this was something like the 26th time in this book where some relationship got into trouble, where someone was at the height of happiness and suddenly tragedy strikes. For fuck sake. There’s only so many times the emotional manipulation can occur before I just grow numb. Seriously, I just became numb. I just couldn’t keep my brain from numbingifying itself to save me.
So, yeah, maybe the low rating is because I read all of these books all at once. But, then again, maybe I would have had a lower rating for this book anyway.
I feel vaguely bad on two levels: this is the first DeLancey book I didn’t rate 5 stars, and remember this is the fifth I’ve read, and everyone else who has ever read this book just absolutely loved it. I was just numbed. (Hehe, so I go look at the ratings. What do I see? “100% of people liked it”. Hmms. 34 rated it 5 stars, 14 rated it 4, and I’m one of the 4 losers who rated this book 3 stars. There are no 2 or 1 star ratings for this book).
January 14 2016
July 23, 2017
Epic. Took me 3 days to read. Wow.
April 11, 2024
5 stars. This put me through the fucking wringer! This was the angstiest book in the series and I definitely cried a lot. Janeway and Lynne and Revi and Seven both go through so much and it was all so heavy and emotional. Both couples and all four characters had wonderful development and I feel like the couples ended up stronger in the end. Just fantastic romances. This was action packed, had some great steam, extremely emotional and stressful and I loved every single moment of it. This is without a doubt my favorite book in the series and while I’m excited to get to the last book I also don’t want this series to be over. I love it so much.
May 10, 2013
Wow, what a ride! This book is the best in the series so far. Lots of surprises and action waiting for you.
March 31, 2017
Fantastic series... A real gem.... The series is one of the best in genre IMO
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews