Switched
Switched by Diane Burton is a novel set in outer space and is the story of Jessie Wyndom who is abducted by aliens, albeit by mistake.
Jessie’s life is not particularly eventful until she finds herself on board a space craft having been switched with her identical twin who she did not know existed.
Unfortunately changing places back again is not going to be as easy and Jessie finds herself on board the spacecraft indefinitely. Which considering her attraction to the Captain Marcus Viator may not be such a bad thing.
With plots and sabotage on board with people impersonating others it is hard to tell who can be trusted and Jessie is caught up in the middle of it.
Star Trek fans will love the inclusion of Chief Engineering Officer Luqett who having watched too much Earth/Terran television tries his best to talk like Scotty. I am not a Star Trek fan myself but even I found the references amusing. I am sure big fans of the show will spot even more of the references than I did since all I ever watched were the first five of the movies and did not watch the television series at all.
Another plot the abduction which will no doubt be appreciated by those who follow such stories and believe in such things happening on Earth.
Taking cues from real life, television shows and the media Switched expands on theories offers a unique story centred around the romance of Jessie and Marcus. And it is their romance that is central to the story. But from two different worlds with different cultures how can they ever find a place together?
There is also an interesting subplot involving Jessie’s twin Lieutenant Qilana who has taken Jessie’s place on Earth in order to trace her roots and meet her unknown family.
There is just one thing that did irritate me in this book and it is a fault of many books that are set on other planets or in the future. Names! Now I don’t mind names being made up or altered slightly to show the different cultures and languages. But please use names that can be pronounced in English, or give a pronunciation guide at the front of the book. Unusual names can add to the story but sometimes they are too unusual and start to detract as the reader is drawn out of the story in order to try and figure out how to pronounce something. The name which distracted me the most in this novel was Hrvibm. Now I realise this may be a reference to someone who is famous in some sci-fi show but not everyone who reads this book will be overly familiar with each and every show. I am certainly not and have never come across that name before. Unfortunately each time I got to the name I got irritated at not having a clue how to pronounce it and it was really distracting.
By all means use unusual and made up names but please, please give us an idea how to pronounce them if they are this unusual.
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