Felt like 5 books cramped into one. And the author lost interest in his own story about halfway through ( )

476 ( )

Exciting, Fascinating, really well done. Hope we get to read what happens next. While his Dire Earth series was fun, this was even better than those. I really liked Melni especially. And as a Mindcrime fan, Peter's choice of key phrase for his transition moment amused me greatly. The similarities and differences between worlds were really well done, it had me believing every step of the way. When all the right small things feel so plausible, it makes it easy to buy in and get lost in the larger craziness. Very satisfying story. ( )

I received an ARC for free from the the publisher, Random House Publishing Group - Del Rey Spectra, in exchange for a review through NetGalley.com.

This was a bit of a hard read for me. Usually I am not into the science part of Sci-Fi, and books that tend to deal with space, or traveling between worlds by starship, etc, just do not interest me. However, the synopsis above captured my attention, as I do like stories dealing with parallel/alternate/mirrored earths. I know, weird, right?

That all being said, I will admit that I was a bit let-down, and yet, not surprised with this story. The start was very good, opening with our main character Peter, finishing a mission for the IA. We find out what he does for a living, and the basics of how it works, why there are time frames to a mission. From there how he gets called back immediately for a new mission. This is where it got too "starshippy" for me, though I found it interesting in how he arrived to the "mirror world".

The adventure continues with Peter working to achieve his mission goals, and his interaction with one of the natives from this world, an actual spy that has similar goals to Peter's. Most of the book is the mission over a period of time ... I think it was like a week in Earth time. The ending was a nice twist to what I was expecting, though I wonder how would Hough write a second book to this one (not saying he plans to do so, but didn't have much interest if it continued from where it left off).

I have good and bad things about the book. I will admit to skimming through many pages at a time through most of the middle of the story. It just felt over detail-oriented and needless to me, and I would jump ahead to the next section of action, or dialogue. I could understand there being a difficulty in writing about a mirror world and working out how the similarities are there, yet different, not only in language, but technology. Hough did a good job with the science of how they talk a very nearly English as good as our planet (I don't want to give out spoilers). The book art was good - the character shown was the mental image I had of Peter. World description was done well, as noted maybe too much detail at times. For both being a spy/assassin types, I felt they were too trusting with each other, but then, one was a novice, and the other on a strange new world, so doing what they felt they needed to do would make sense I guess. ( )

Peter Caswell, cybernetically-enhanced secret agent and assassin, works for a clandestine organization. He does not remember the jobs assigned to him by his handler, Monique, because his memories of each assignment are erased once completed. His latest assignment requires him to go undercover on a space mission to investigate a derelict spaceship presumed lost for decades but which has recently appeared in the solar system. When they arrive, the crew discovers all aboard have been murdered, apparently by a remaining crew member named Alice, who has abandoned the ship in a small space craft. Caswell is ordered to kill the current crew members and to follow Alice on a trajectory navigated by Monique. Once he travels through a wormhole, he learns of his new mission from a pre-programmed message from Monique. Alice previously traveled through the wormhole to a Earth-like planet in another galaxy where English is also spoken. This planet's technology is similar to Earth; however, a 1950s Earth. Using knowledge of future technology, Alice has set herself up like a God enhancing this planet's applied science. His assignment is to assassinate Alice and try to "put the technology back in the box."

However, Caswell is curious about why this planet looks so similar to Earth where English is spoken. Answers to these questions could get him killed.

This Jason Bourne meets Buck Rogers science fiction novel was a fun read. Although science fiction since it occurs primarily on a foreign world, it is essentially a thriller-suspense story, which includes a indigenous agent named Melni whom Caswell meets on this parallel world. ( )