Dixon Sinonyx does his job. He travels from system to system repairing their pillars and keeping their planets up and running. It's a job that puts him in constant danger but it pays well and he feels that the cost is worth it. But he is human and the isolation sometimes gets to him.

When he takes a job at Cadose Colony repairing their data system he takes on a rookie, Athen Dendropile. Athen is a man like himself; he has been augmented and is trying to get someone to teach him the ropes. Dix isn't sure if the man can be trusted but the loneliness has become too much and the chance to interact with another human is too good to pass up.

But all is not what it seems at the Cadose Colony and the men will find themselves in a race against time. Can they save the colony before it's too late?

I had to sit and think about Phoberia for several days before I could write this review. There were several things that I liked, nay loved, about this story. There were also several things that I wasn't too thrilled about. Let me start with the things I didn't like. I didn't like how the story seemed to jump around, I felt like I was missing whole sections of the story at times. Then after thinking about it I 'think' that maybe that was the authors intent, I could be wrong but I had to reread a couple of sections and after that I feel like maybe it was to show how Dix and Athen are so enhanced that they no longer even think along the same pathways that an unenhanced human would. There are a lot of cyber punk elements to this story, an aspect that I like. If you aren't a fan of that hard core, techno jargon laden genre then this is definitely not a story for you. The use of techno terms is at times overly abundant and takes away from the story. The hardware as well as the wetware aspect of the men fascinated me. The hardware was an external shell that hid what was inside. Dix and Athen could have been any race but species was hidden from view by their equipment. The hardware also served the dual purpose of protecting the men from the outside world in more than just a physical sense. Since the majority of their time was spent covered by this hardware, they used their enhanced brains to touch the outside rather than their physical senses. This became ever more readily apparent when they finally shed their suits and explored the more physical side of their developing relationship. The Phoberian aspect of the plotline fascinated me and I had to read over it several times until I thought that I had a complete grasp on the situation. This was a very interesting story and I will be looking for more novels by H.B. Kurtzwilde to see if they compare.

Reviewed by: Hayley