Author: Nina Croft
Title: Break Out (Blood Hunter series book #1)
Genre: Science fiction / paranormal romance
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
ISBN: 9781937044046
The Romance Author's Verdict: 3/5 Stars
Blurb:
Irreverent. Irresponsible. Insatiable. Who says immortals can't have any fun?
The year is 3048, Earth is no longer habitable, and man has fled to the stars where they’ve discovered the secret of immortality—Meridian. Unfortunately, the radioactive mineral is exorbitantly expensive and only available to a select few. A new class comprised of the super rich and immortal soon evolves. The Collective, as they’re called, rule the universe.
Two-thousand-year-old Ricardo Sanchez, vampire and rogue pilot of the space cruiser, El Cazador, can’t resist two things: gorgeous women and impossible jobs. When beautiful Skylar Rossaria approaches him to break a prisoner out of the Collective’s maximum security prison on Trakis One, Rico jumps at the chance. Being hunted by the Collective has never been so dangerous–or so fun.
I wanted this book to be fantastic. I wanted it to blow me away. The cover is to die for. Plus someone took two of my favorite genres and mushed them together. Vampires in space? Come on, how could that not be brilliant? This book had raving 5 star reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. When I finished reading the last page, I wondered what on earth all those people could have been taking to think Break Out deserved a five star review.
Okay, maybe that sounds a bit harsh, maybe I just set my expectations too high when I saw this book compared to the likes of Sherrilyn Kenyon's League series or Ann Aguirre's Grimspace, both of which I love. I'm sorry to say, Break Out doesn't quite live up to either of those titles.
Rico is a vampire, but he's about as cliche as vampires come. Skylar is meant to be a tough warrior-type woman, but to me it felt like she was all talk and no action. The sci-fi aspect felt flimsy at best and there wasn't enough depth with either character to get me involved in the story. I felt like both character's point of view were interchangeable, there wasn't a real 'voice' to differentiate one from the other, leaving them both seeming a bit cardboard.
I think part of the issue in terms of that was because the writing style was very narrative. There was a lot of telling, not showing going on, more than I can ever remember reading in a published book before. If I had of been judging this as a competition entry, or critiquing it, I would have been highlighting passages worth of telling and suggesting the author refine their skill when it came to that particular craft.
However, all that being said, I want to give Ms. Croft the benefit of doubt, because she has books published with Harlequin's Nocturne line. Maybe she was just having a bad day at the office when she wrote this book. So I am going to have a look over her books and pick something else to read.
Its not the worst thing I've ever read, its just lacking depth. If you want a story about vampires in space and don't get your exceptions too high like I did, if you're after a light romp (because the sex scenes were pretty good, I'll give Ms Croft that) then Break Out is an easy afternoon's read.
Showing posts with label science-fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science-fiction. Show all posts
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Review (Theirs Not to Reason Why) A Soldier's Duty
Author: Jean Johnson
Title: Theirs Not To Reason Why: A Soldier's Duty
Genre: Science Fiction (military based)
Publisher: ACE Science Fiction (Imprint of Penguin Books)
ISBN: 978-0-441-02063-8
The Romance Author's Verdict: 3/5 stars.
Blurb:
...What if you could see the future? What if you foresaw that, three hundred years from your time, your entire galaxy would be destroyed in an overwhelming invasion? What would you do to stop it, when it would all happen long after you were dead and gone?
These are the questions that Ia must face, and the obstacles she must overcome. Spurred by her teenaged visions of an apocalyptic future, the young heavyworlder woman seeks to set up a series of events, a domino-chain of actions and repercussions that will hopefully stop the coming invaders long after her time has passed. But in order to do so, she must enter the military and engage in a four-front war: an old, barely contained enemy whose twin goals of galactic conquest and lunch terrify all sane sentients; an ancient foe whose technology vastly outstrips anything the Alliance can fling at it; a fanatic, xenophobic religious movement on her homeworld which Ia dares not stop; and her ongoing battle against Time itself.
If Ia fails, the stars and planets of the Milky Way will cease to exist, and so will the countless lives that depend on them. But the odds of her winning the ultimate battle are very, very small, when even the slightest, most innocent-seeming misstep could domino down through time in the wrong way, and doom untold septillions of sentients to a dark and terrifying fall. Bound by the ice of her duty, burned by the fires of her conscience, driven by what she foresees, Ia must become the herald of death herself:
The soldier known as Bloody Mary.
For people who like hard-core military sci-fi, this book will be something they'll love. For me personally, I felt like the focus on military and world building detracted from what could have been a really great story.
The first half of the book was a hard slog, I literally skipped three pages of a conversation about military leadership, four pages that talked about guns and nothing else, another four or five pages on military vehicles, a few pages on different worlds, and a whole bunch of pages where a scene which could have been suspenseful and pithy was dragged out for too long. I tried to stick with it, forcing myself to get through the character's training, to when she got her first posting, expecting the story would become more interesting and easier to read... except it didn't.
I think what let this story down was the female protagonist, Ia. I expected that her character might get a "life lesson" somewhere along the way, but it never came. Everything that got thrown her way, she could see into the future and find ways of handling it. Her character was meant to be only 18 when she joined the military, but right from the start, she acted like a 30 or 40 year old. Okay, I understand she had the weight of the future on her shoulders and had to grow up fast to take on the universe, but people, all people, have self doubt. Even Superman doubted his own abilities to succeed at times. Ia's unflinching self assurance made her character a bit too unbelievable and hard to connect with. Some of her "tough" moments where she "proved" herself to her fellow soldiers felt forced. I can't ever remember reading a book where the character development made me like the character less as the story went on. A disappointment, because the idea behind the story is fantastic. Execution could have been better.
Like I said, people who enjoy hard-core military sci-fi will probably love this. I wanted more angst from the characters to make it believable.
Title: Theirs Not To Reason Why: A Soldier's Duty
Genre: Science Fiction (military based)
Publisher: ACE Science Fiction (Imprint of Penguin Books)
ISBN: 978-0-441-02063-8
The Romance Author's Verdict: 3/5 stars.
Blurb:
...What if you could see the future? What if you foresaw that, three hundred years from your time, your entire galaxy would be destroyed in an overwhelming invasion? What would you do to stop it, when it would all happen long after you were dead and gone?
These are the questions that Ia must face, and the obstacles she must overcome. Spurred by her teenaged visions of an apocalyptic future, the young heavyworlder woman seeks to set up a series of events, a domino-chain of actions and repercussions that will hopefully stop the coming invaders long after her time has passed. But in order to do so, she must enter the military and engage in a four-front war: an old, barely contained enemy whose twin goals of galactic conquest and lunch terrify all sane sentients; an ancient foe whose technology vastly outstrips anything the Alliance can fling at it; a fanatic, xenophobic religious movement on her homeworld which Ia dares not stop; and her ongoing battle against Time itself.
If Ia fails, the stars and planets of the Milky Way will cease to exist, and so will the countless lives that depend on them. But the odds of her winning the ultimate battle are very, very small, when even the slightest, most innocent-seeming misstep could domino down through time in the wrong way, and doom untold septillions of sentients to a dark and terrifying fall. Bound by the ice of her duty, burned by the fires of her conscience, driven by what she foresees, Ia must become the herald of death herself:
The soldier known as Bloody Mary.
For people who like hard-core military sci-fi, this book will be something they'll love. For me personally, I felt like the focus on military and world building detracted from what could have been a really great story.
The first half of the book was a hard slog, I literally skipped three pages of a conversation about military leadership, four pages that talked about guns and nothing else, another four or five pages on military vehicles, a few pages on different worlds, and a whole bunch of pages where a scene which could have been suspenseful and pithy was dragged out for too long. I tried to stick with it, forcing myself to get through the character's training, to when she got her first posting, expecting the story would become more interesting and easier to read... except it didn't.
I think what let this story down was the female protagonist, Ia. I expected that her character might get a "life lesson" somewhere along the way, but it never came. Everything that got thrown her way, she could see into the future and find ways of handling it. Her character was meant to be only 18 when she joined the military, but right from the start, she acted like a 30 or 40 year old. Okay, I understand she had the weight of the future on her shoulders and had to grow up fast to take on the universe, but people, all people, have self doubt. Even Superman doubted his own abilities to succeed at times. Ia's unflinching self assurance made her character a bit too unbelievable and hard to connect with. Some of her "tough" moments where she "proved" herself to her fellow soldiers felt forced. I can't ever remember reading a book where the character development made me like the character less as the story went on. A disappointment, because the idea behind the story is fantastic. Execution could have been better.
Like I said, people who enjoy hard-core military sci-fi will probably love this. I wanted more angst from the characters to make it believable.
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