Exit, Pursued by a Bee is driven by a Southern-belle heroine-astronaut, involves a Palaeolithic mongrel called Kur, Glastonbury Festival chaos, steamy sex in space, a mean-momma loose-cannon journalist and an out-of-control general who'd fix anything by nuking it. They are all involved in the attempt to overcome time-quake calamities created when alien artefacts depart from Earth, oblivious to the chaos they leave behind.

REVIEW

I don't read what passes for science fiction these days - just because you set a story on another planet or in the future, it's not science fiction unless it contains a solid base of hard science. And Nelder delivers. Not just the science, but a fascinating story, complex with likable characters and of course, his trademark original thinking and clear, pristine writing.

Exit was so good I finished it in an afternoon. Lugged it to the doctor's office even, so I could keep reading it, in the car coming and going, read it in the waiting room, read it in those little rooms they put you in before uttering the lie that "The doctor will be right with you."

When it comes to hard science, he knows his stuff. When it comes to writing, he REALLY knows his stuff! Kallandra is a wonderful role model for women, though I don't suppose he thought of her that way. I didn't until I had to write this review. The novel is so entertaining that brain cells only kick in when you step aside from the book and start analyzing it.

And you will keep thinking about it, long after you finished. It's a keeper, a "can't put it down" story. Exit is a well-balanced, well-written, fast-paced adrenalin rush for both you and the characters. I'm not about to give out any spoilers here, but I will say that Time is one of my fascinations and reading Exit, Nelder made me think about our notions of time and space, of life in spacecrafts.

Exit is a powerful and entertaining gem of a story with humor, blended in a perfect balance with adrenalin, love with sex in an all 'round fascinating, original story.

Reviewed by: M. Kenyon Charboneaux, Editor of Eros et Thanatos; author of Cri du Couer, Blood Kiss, 8 City Tales

EXCERPT

Either her vision blurred, or the top of the tower developed fuzziness. Maybe it had become bored with its sharp lines after eight hundred years. Her legs became blurry too, as if the footpath couldn't wait for her and decided to slither downhill and make its own way home. Staggering, Kallandra put her hand on a large boulder to prevent herself falling; a temporary respite as the rock vibrated. The tiny pink flowers of a miniature thyme plant clung to the top of the boulder. The dark green petite leaves trembled, exposing a timorous millipede that scuttled across the top.

"Go for it, beastie. Escape while you can."

In spite of a deep rumbling, she heard Derek call from lower down the hill.

"Look out, Kal! The tower."

Fighting the hill's attempt to send her sprawling, she watched in horror as the old stone tower demolished itself from the top down. Eight centuries after proud masons on wooden scaffolds shared broad smiles and raised mugs of celebratory cider, the tower was disintegrating in front of her. But the stones didn't rest where they fell. Kallandra's chest tightened with fear as the trembling hill encouraged the dismantling tower to hurtle down towards her.

"Run, Kal" shouted Derek, but the difference between a spaceship designer and her survival skills was the use of her brain. So she scrambled laterally towards brambles that had sheltered in the lee of exposed bedrock, making a natural wall. She threw herself into the prickly Blackthorn just as a small avalanche of limestone blocks rumbled down the path she'd vacated. Sore from the scratches but intact, she crawled through the scrub and over the shaking hillside, zig-zagging until she met up with Derek and Blake behind a field wall near the base.