Her clean and effective writing style helped me inhale the book in two days, and even though I became interested enough in the historical figure on whom the main character is based to order a copy of her biography from the library, I remain puzzled as to why the author felt the need to tell this story through a fictionalized version of a well-known person rather than simply a fictional person. One thing I appreciate about SF writers is their willingness to invent basically everything but the essential human motivations at the core of the story.