I've read all those books... they were only worth it for the pictures, and the Friedman books were a better value, since they had several pages of (black & white) pictures in the middle of the book. The Cherryh novel has a very nice dust jacket with a steamy shot of L&C (or it did when I bought it, I think they may have dropped that since then) but that's about the extent of the romantic interest. Cherryh obviously preferred the "action" moments that most of us fanfic writers skip blithely past <g> -- but even when we do write action, it's more interesting than what's in the book...

PJ
who bought all the books anyway, just on the off-chance it would inspire someone to publish more of them, with better authors...

"You told me you weren't like other men," she said, shaking her head at him when the storm of laughter had passed.
He grinned at her - a goofy, Clark Kent kind of a grin. "I have a gift for understatement."
"You can say that again," she told him.
"I have a...."
"Oh, shut up."

--Stardust, Caroline K