30 in 2010 Review #3: The Colony Fleet by Susan R. Matthews
On first read I loved this book, especially through the protagonist Chelbie's stay on the ship Deecee. The story is about a young woman denied her rightful place as an engineer and forced to a life of supposed drudgery as a mech by the inadvertent betrayal of her lover. Along the way she makes some discoveries that end up with her leaving the Deecee to be part of the crew on a scoutship that's headed to the fleet's first colony goal, with her former (and still resented) lover. After they land, the scoutship crew divides along Engineer/Mech lines to the point where it jeopardizes the security of the future colony and Chelbie has to take drastic measures to make sure new data about the planet reaches the fleet. The characters are sometimes a little cartoonish in their attitudes, but overall I thought it was a good plot that happily strays from traditional good planet/bad planet stories, since this planet is colonizable but with a lot more work than anticipated. Perhaps on second reading the problems with Chelbie's lover will loom larger since I read this in one gulp, but for now I'll stick to 4 1/2 stars.