Breakaway by Joel Shepherd - review

Breakaway
Joel Shepherd
Science Fiction
2007/ppb
****  (4 out of six stars)
Cover - Good cover - Cassandra is up on a roof (looks like) shooting away....only she's supposed to be blonde.  


In this sequel to Crossover, Cassandra Kresnov has been accepted by many people of the planet.  And then again, there are many that hate her because of her potential - not for anything she's done, but for what she COULD do.  She has a job with the Swat team of the city, she has an apartment and the president likes to talk to her - or is she using her?  And she is an icon for the computer geeks of the city.  Only she keeps finding herself bound by restrictions and again, under fire by mysterious factions.

A lot happens in Breakaway.  There's a coup attempt on the presidency, attempts to silence Cassandra by arresting her (only she won't be arrested this time, nope, they're not  going to take her alive!) and now instead of hunting her, The League is trying to make advances to her.   Cassandra ends up having to go into hiding at one point and there are some action scenes....only they were kind of lost in a slew of words.  I found myself enjoying about every two out of five pages.  This isn't a fun way for me to read.

Joel Shepherd is a good writer.  He's good at dialogue, differing speech patters of people from various walks of life, good at plotting and action sequences.  He also over did it this time on the political explanations; the information about the building of the airports, the airstreams, the traffic light systems, just about ANYTHING you could explain, he explained in depth.  There would be something happening, whether it's a conversation, or a walk into a building, or the use of some firearms and the action (or conversation) would be sidelined by many, many words explaining everything from the way the body armour fit to the way the hovercars would slide in and out of traffic, to the architecture of the buildings, to the reason why there were factions against the president, FOR the president, who liked the color green, etc.  

I almost did not finish the book.  There was all this lovely banter between the swat team and Cassandra, between her  and her best friend, and it would be delayed for numerous EXPLANATIONS.  Two pages of good reading, then about three pages of political .... s.t.u.f.f.  A few more pages of interesting, compelling reading and then some heavy duty discussions about politics, computers, the white collar crime, the reasoning or all the possible intrigues going on.  It was too much.  It seemed to exceed the amount of informational writing of the previous book, by a long shot. I don't think I'll be investing in the third book of this trilogy, and doubt that I'll be on the lookout for other books by Shepherd.  There's no doubt that this man can write - he proves it, when he interrupts his educational, wordy essays for some actual story.  Oh. Boy.  I was disappointed by this book.  On the other hand, I'll bet my father would love this book - he very much loves Science, and is into text book reading - so this would probably be a very fun mix of information vs. fiction for him.

Again - I don't want to leave the impression that Shepherd can't write.  He has a real talent for dialogue, world building and plots with twists. It's just that, he could have cut out about half of all the explanations and it still might have given almost too much.  There was so much unnecessary (to me) infodumps that I would have stopped reading it if he had less talent with the action, dialogue or characterization.  The only reason I kept reading is because he is so talented with the rest of it.  However, it's not enough for me to go out buy other books by him.  I'll be passing these on to my dad, who will probably enjoy the hell out of them.

Crossover by Joel Shepherd - review

Crossover
Joel Shepherd
Science Fiction
2006/ppb


***** (5 out of 6) 


cover - Science Fiction cover - hover cars, tall trippy buildings and - it appears that a person is either floating in the air or flying.  Might be jumping down, but it looks like he/she is floating.  I like the feel of the cover - futuristic.


Crossover has a pretty interesting premise for a novel.  An android (or artificial person) has been created by The League for use in a war between The League and The Federation.  Cassandra Kresnov is this android, and she is of very high intelligence (being essentially a computer, or rather a programmed being) and interestingly has many human features.  Because she's been given a complete human system (organs, digestive system, etc) over the years she has developed an adroid sense of humanity, concience, ethics, etc. Something the creators didn't quite expect - completely, anyway.  Of course, Shepherd has written in Cassandra, every man's (most men, anyway) fantasy of the perfect woman - strong sex drive, no inhibitions, no strings sex availability because she loves to have sex SO much that she's happy to have it with many different partners and really has NO expectations....it's her favorite hobby.  Everyone should have a hobby, right?  Of course, with all the mentions and references to her legendary sex drives, it isn't something that poor Cassandra gets to indulge in very much.  So there really isn't as many sex scenes as I expected when reading about her NEEDS. 

Long story short, she escapes or defects from The League because of a difference in morality/ethics and ends up on this planet that at first seems completely perfect.  Only something she should have figured out (especially with her computer like brain and analytical talents).  A lot goes on in this first novel.  Cassandra is hunted by a ruthless group that almost destroys her, is rescued by the swat team of the planet, ends up being "detained" with almost no rights until the president is attacked and she has opportunity to save her...  It WAS too good to be true, that this very beautifully planned out city would be beautiful on the inside and outside.

Crossover was action packed.  It was also Philosiphy packed, and Politically Intrigue-packed, and full of long infodumps in the form of long convoluted thought processes of Cassandra or in the form of dialogues between all kinds of characters.

The dialogue was good - although it tended to be a bit long winded at times, but the characters were very interesting and there was plenty to keep my interested, with all the plots, subplots and sci-fi gadgets.  Enjoyable book.  Much more goes on than I've even hinted at here, this is a meaty book with many, many words.  Political words.  Science words.  Philosophy words.  Bigoted words (you know, where one group of people doesn't quite trust another group - because of color, race, gender, political slant or human vs android) - a not so subtle treatment of prejudice between the pages.  

Bottom line - enjoyed the book a lot - enough to continue on to the sequel (which I accidently bought before the first book). If you're into the political intrigue as well as computer and science fiction, with a dab of police/military action mixed in, then this is the perfect book.

It's Monday and we're all getting sick....ugh

Being sick is not fun. It's worse when you feel sick, but you're not as sick as your husband and the husband is making all those moaning and groaning noises every time you come into the room - as if he feels the need to prove to you that he is in pain and doesn't feel good. Why is it that women are always accused of being Drama Queens when men are so very dramatic? especially when sick? At least being sick on a three day weekend means possibly missing less work.

Yesterday, before realizing that I was coming down with a cold the grandkids and I put on some music. I started dancing this weird super dramatic dance - you know (no offense meant if you're the type to dance like this for real...) the type of dancing that you see aging hippies do at music festivals? waving the hands around in mystical movements....Only I was doing with a Vogue-ish attitude, and even though I could feel this in my back and legs, I was going for it anyway because the kids were laughing and I was having a lot of fun.... Every move I made, the kids copied. Even the dog took part. Not willingly, but we made him dance too. We did this for 30 minutes. The dog only had to dance for three minutes.

Then my granddaughter and I slept on our couch because Granpa was sick...and we thought we would let him have the bed (he was coughing and making all that noise anyway, haha)

This morning when I woke up....oh..my..god!

So much pain! Dancing might have been a mistake
But it was fun while it lasted. ;)

And here we are coming up on another Monday. Time just flies by. Time now for It's Monday What Are You Reading? Hosted by Sheila of Book Journey, this is our time to discuss what we've been reading.
At the beginning of this year I decided to keep a list of books - not only a list of books that I finished reading, but the books I started reading also. Problem is, I start books faster than I can keep up....I've listed SOME of the books I've started and I actually a little bit embarrassed at the sheer amount that I've listed - especially when I compare them to the books I've finished reading. Factor in the few books that I can't remember, or the books where I've only read the first two pages, and it's even worse.
So far I've finished reading seven books for 2012. I've started more than 17. Not a good percentage. Can you tell that I've easily bored/frustrated/distracted?

And now I've gone and added two more books to my TBR pile/mound/MOUNTAIN.

I've been short of spending money - but even so, it's tough to stay completely away from the bookstore. I put in some extra hours at the library. After I was finished, I found myself in the parking lot of Barnes & Nobel. I have NO idea how I got there (coughdrovecough). Once there, however, I browsed the scifi section. I found a promising looking novel called The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi - thank goodness I actually bought something new that is the first in a series. Then I came across the first book from a series that I had mistakenly bought the second book. Crossover by Joel Shepherd has a main character who is a cyborg. hmmmm.
Now - Keeping in mind that I have 17 books that I've started (well, actually more than 17) I'm going to try like hell to concentrate on only two books this week. It's seriously very hard for me {remember I suffer from B.A.D.D., an apparently widely spread faux disorder} but I'm going to try.

The two books I'm going to try to focus on are Another Kind of Dead by Kelly Meding and SharpShooter by Marianne DeLacourt (aka Marianne DePierres of Nylon Angel fame)

Coming up? Any one of the books listed on my Books Read page - there's a section just for books I've started for this year...though I'm pretty sure there's a few that I haven't listed. ;)
There's plenty there to keep me busy for a while - I should make THAT one of my non-challenges that I'm challenging myself with. A read from your non-finished books list....except that I'm against wasting time on books that aren't working for you. Maybe a give a book a second chance before giving up on it challenge. Title too long though.

What are y'all up to?
Know what I'm missing though? A little bit of Stacia Kane's Downsider series. It's been a long time. Hope one is coming out soon