Terry Persun

Great idea, poor execution. There was a ton of potential for this to be an amazing dystopian novel, but I feel that the author failed on so many levels.
The story was almost unbelievable and too many pieces of information were just skimmed over. By the end of it, I still wasn't sure of what was going on. The novel is supposed to involve the matter of choice, but I feel like this was just thrown in at the end and wasn't really explored at all. The characters, the vast majority of them that all seemed to run together, they were so little developed, understood so little of what was going on both within and outside of Newcity that the fact that they could have destroyed part of it seems completely unbelievable. How were they to know if they wouldn't complete screw up millions of lives in order to get rid of a few and rescue one? There was just too much that needed to be explained that just wasn't and I was left having no idea of how the society both in and out of Newcity
worked. The people were ghosts and the ghosts were probably the most imaginative, interesting, and notable characters. There was just so much that could have been explored and better developed. The story moved at a running pace with the characters seemingly running like chickens with their heads cut off, not allowing anyone, even the reader, to understand what was going on. Too much was skimmed over and I felt forced to reread unclear passages just to try to figure out what was going on. Too much was disjointed and left me wanting more.
The poor editing was also a major issue for me. For a relatively short novel (I tend to gravitate towards 500 page novels, but just can't resist a dystopian novel!), the mass amount of grammatical mistakes is unforgiveable and there were so many instances where words were missing or the wrong word was used instead. Better editing would have also picked up all the holes in the story and made this into a more believable and entertaining novel.
In the end, I feel this novel could have used more and better editing, the story could have probably been comprised of more than just running and being captured to make a better story, the setting could have been elaborated on much more, and less characters probably would have made the novel just as good. The novel left me wanting for more and I feel disappointed in what could have been a truly amazing novel.… (plus d'informations)

OK. I'm reading an ARC, from 2012 - my fault for not reading it earlier. I _hope_ that most of what I'm going to talk about has been fixed in the final. But this is awful. There's almost an interesting story...or two...or three here. But the writing is...clunky, is all I can say - dialog and descriptions are awkward and often have irrelevant bits added, and worse, the characters are puppets. They do whatever is necessary for the plot in _this_ scene, without apparently remembering things they've done and said and demonstrated in other scenes. There's one extended set of scenes - Dr. Scientist has hired Mr. Know-it-all (they have names, the names didn't stick with me) who is a kind of investigator. At their first meeting, Mr. Know-it-all is awkward and diffident, and Dr. Scientist lords it over him. Mr. Know-it-all goes home and discusses events and Dr. Scientist's motivations with his wife...for pages. He concludes that possibly Dr. Scientist is the bad guy (based on...apparently because he was rude? Not clear). Second meeting - Mr. Know-it-all is rude and dismissive to Dr. Scientist, who takes it meekly - possibly just out of surprise. Third meeting, Dr. Scientist is rude and bossy again; Mr. Know-it-all is utterly surprised and taken aback, he apparently has no idea he started (or continued) a game of one-upmanship. He also begins suspecting Dr. Scientist of being the bad guy, all over again. After pages of analysis of motivations, he seems to switch his opinion of reasons almost randomly. Which is appropriate, because various characters (including both Dr. Scientist and Mr. Know-it-all) seem to behave almost randomly - if there's a plan behind the scenes, we-the-readers don't ever get let in on it. The final scene, with two robots with three personalities between them, is not particularly more confusing than the rest of it. And the solution is an utter deus ex machina. If they closed the time loop, what happened to the people who were killed? Are they now not killed, or if they were what killed them? Ghahh. I took a long time (not seven years, but several weeks) to read this, mostly because I could only stand a chapter at a time. The ideas about robots gaining more personality were interesting - but the book goes into huge detail on the theory and structure behind this, all of which is made up (as far as I know, anyway! Neurogrids?). The how became more important than the what or why. Same with the time machine. And the whole thing with the psychic detective('s assistant) kind of went pfft in the middle of the book. All three concepts have been written about very well; I got glimmers of neat idea here, but the writing was poor enough to obscure them. Again, this was an ARC, but the problems were much much vaster than the usual typos and minor errors I see in ARCs.… (plus d'informations)

This detective novel takes place in a very new and different area, inside the human soul, or spirit.

Dan Johnston is not your average private investigator. He is a shaman, which means that he can enter the spirit world very easily. While there, he can, for instance, find a missing person, or convince a cheating spouse to stop cheating. It's not fulfilling work, but it pays the bills.

The NSA learns that some members of Congress are on the receiving end of some unusual political intimidation. An important bill is coming up for a committee vote, with billions of dollars at stake. The messages are received in their dreams, delivered by their spirit totems. Dan is asked to do what he can to stop it, before the vote.

Dan's grown son, Jason (their relationship is strained), and a shaman-in-training, gets involved. What they do in the spirit world has a noticeable effect on the Internet. A couple of assassination attempts convince Dan and Jason that they are on the right track. Marian, Dan's ex-wife (and Jason's mother) is kidnapped to make sure that Dan and Jason back off, permanently.

Focus shifts to a high-tech company in Arizona. Dan is able to find the source, in the spirit world, but nicely asking Mr. Big to stop what he is doing will not work. A more permanent solution is needed (like with guns and bullets). Are Dan and Jason able to start re-building their relationship? Do they even survive?

This one is very good. It works as a regular detective story, and the look inside the siprit world is quite interesting. Yes, it is well worth reading.… (plus d'informations)

A prize from the LibraryThing early reviewer's program, one I'm ridiculously late in reviewing. It's just that I don't feel like I have much to say.

After the ship they're piloting over a newly colonized planet explodes, Brandon and Palmer find out they're part of a broader conspiracy to take over the planet. Along with the native colonists, and with the dubious assistance of a mysterious alien race aliens, they decide to fight back.

This is a story I feel like I should have loved: space opera with an element of mystery, a genuinely interesting alien race (telepaths who appear deceptively, disturbingly human--a psychological Uncanny Valley), a love subplot that isn't strained and includes a well-rounded female character. The problems surrounding a struggling space colony, especially one on a planet already inhabited by an intelligent species, have a lot of potential. But in the end, I could never really get into it. The politics were perplexing and overlooked in favor of lots of action, interspersed by occasional dialogue scenes that never seemed to clear anything up. Sometimes I caught myself skimming for pages on end. I perked up whenever the aliens appeared, but their plotline also didn't feel very strong. I can't even recall how it concluded.

I finally wrote up this halfhearted summary for fear that if I delayed them any longer, I'd forget the plot of the book entirely. It would probably benefit from a rereading, and I might do that now that I have an ereader (reading on a computer screen may have encouraged me to skim, but I've written thousands of words reviewing other ebooks read on a computer before now). But I guess "it just didn't grip me" is a review, too.

This review is cross-posted from Story Addict.… (plus d'informations)