Taylor's Ark is the story of Dr. Shona Taylor, who works for a giant corporation trying to solve the mysterious epidemics striking several colonies. She has some special helpers: an Abyssinian cat, some mice, rabbits and a dog genetically altered to create vaccines.

In my mind, the biggest problem with this menagerie is that she does not use their abilities in this particular novel. The dog creates no vaccines, and the mice, which are supposed to be highly susceptible to disease, never catch anything. The one time they do any good is when she's doing routine physicals for some asteroid miners, and the animals help to attract them in, as none of them can afford pets.

The Corporation is headed by some very ruthless men, and one orders a subordinate to ensure that Dr. Taylor joins the Corporation, despite her pregnancy and a new law coming up that will keep pregnant women and minor children from leaving the planet Mars, where she lives. This is done by causing her to miscarry. It's quite the heartless scenario.

Overall, the story is a fair medical mystery science fiction novel. Yes, all that. I've read much better science fiction, however. I think I spent quite a bit of time waiting for one of the animals to be of more use than just a pet, however, and found that rather annoying. I may have to check out the later books in the series to see how they eventually get used.