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Shadow Unit #8

Shadow Unit 8

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     The FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit hunts humanity's worst nightmares. But there are nightmares humanity doesn't dream are real. The BAU sends those cases down the hall. Welcome to Shadow Unit.
     The Shadow Unit series was created by award-winning authors Emma Bull and Elizabeth Bear.

Contains
The Unicorn Evils by Emma Bull and Elizabeth Bear
Basilisk Hunt by Emma Bull and Holly Black
and more.

Nook

First published August 4, 2011

3 people are currently reading
165 people want to read

About the author

Emma Bull

83 books690 followers
Emma Bull is a science fiction and fantasy author whose best-known novel is War for the Oaks, one of the pioneering works of urban fantasy. She has participated in Terri Windling's Borderland shared universe, which is the setting of her 1994 novel Finder. She sang in the rock-funk band Cats Laughing, and both sang and played guitar in the folk duo The Flash Girls while living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Her 1991 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel Bone Dance was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards. Bull wrote a screenplay for War for the Oaks, which was made into an 11-minute mini-film designed to look like a film trailer. She made a cameo appearance as the Queen of the Seelie Court, and her husband, Will Shetterly, directed. Bull and Shetterly created the shared universe of Liavek, for which they have both written stories. There are five Liavek collections extant.

She was a member of the writing group The Scribblies, which included Will Shetterly as well as Pamela Dean, Kara Dalkey, Nate Bucklin, Patricia Wrede and Steven Brust. With Steven Brust, Bull wrote Freedom and Necessity (1997), an epistolary novel with subtle fantasy elements set during the 19th century United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Chartist movement.

Bull graduated from Beloit College in 1976. Bull and Shetterly live in Arizona.

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5 stars
109 (43%)
4 stars
98 (39%)
3 stars
35 (14%)
2 stars
4 (1%)
1 star
2 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 13 of 14 reviews
Profile Image for Mir.
4,974 reviews5,331 followers
September 8, 2014
I'm reading this on line so I'm not sure if Sarah Monette's "On Faith" isn't in this ebook or just isn't listed in the blurb, but it was good. I've been wanting more backstory and I think Monette's choice to present two different related stories alternating, without the present-day storyline, worked really well. "On Faith" switches between the 1960s investigation into McCain and Reyes' and Todd's investigation in the 1990s. But it did prolong the tension of not knowing what's going to happen with Hafs! On to "Unicorns..."

"Unicorns Evils" quite good despite a couple elements that I tend to not like: gratuitously high body count and far-fetched motivation on the killer's part. However, one aspect of the resolution...
Profile Image for B.D. Aguayo.
Author 11 books4 followers
October 3, 2024
Estos son los primeros dos episodios de la tercera temporada de Shadow Unit. Para mi gusto es el punto más bajo al que llega la serie en cuanto a depresión y pérdida de la posible diversión que los otros libros tenían. Lo bueno es que las cosas mejoran en el siguiente libro.
Nota: Aunque la tercera temporada comienza con un cuento corto al que llamaron "On Faith" de Sarah Monette, el libro no lo incluye.
Profile Image for Mark.
73 reviews
June 19, 2019
I don't know if this deserves 4 or not. I just know that it sent me to the net over and over again and I learned so much from the book/web that it gets 4 for my education.
Profile Image for Morv.
267 reviews
April 30, 2016
Shadow Unit, if the X-Files were to meet Criminal Minds and CSI, along with original and new ideas.
By now we have gotten to know these characters from the past 7 books, we know who they hang around with, we know their family life, we know their hobbies and yet there is still a lot we don't know about them.
Case in point would be Hafidha, in the last book she bolted and it was unclear to everyone, including the reader, as to why she would run away.
Until you remembered that Hafidha, like Chazz, is a gamma - which is basically a way of saying she is a person who can do amazing things and dangerous things, she can use the power for good, and she did; or for evil because the 'bug' in there heads get off on that kind of thing.
You know Hafidha is a gamma, but unlike Chazz there is no reason to be weary of her, in fact her background brings her to being almost normal, a normal life, training in the police and yet this was something that came out of the blue.

It's interesting here because it's clear the anomaly is different, although stressers make certain people crack, this means it's going to be harder on the team.

By the end of the book the team are down by two field agents, with one turning in their gun and another taken off the job for good.

Let's just say the feels I got from this book were a lot worse than what I got from Chazz's solo book. Will new characters come in to replace old? Will there be a new gamma coming in? How will the team cope?

This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Ryan.
1,200 reviews19 followers
June 18, 2012
Its tough to "review" without being completely generic or without a plot review that misses all the stuff that makes it worth reviewing - by it, I mean the series. The plot throws some horrible things at the characters - or throws the characters at horrible situations, and then sits back to see how they react. I most enjoy the sketches in between the cases, where Chaz cooks and Lau spends time at the firing range, Brady is confused about himself, Duke remembers a different life, Faulkner finds peace with her god and her family.
Profile Image for James Ellis.
536 reviews9 followers
January 17, 2015
3.5 stars for the Unicorn case / 2.5 stars for the Hafidha situation.

While I am still enjoying the series (particularly the more standalone stories), I'm getting a little tired of the overuse of the Agent in Trouble cliche (typically kidnapped or going rogue/Darkside). I understand that the tv-episode motif makes it more likely, but it still strains my WSOD how often this is happening to these characters in unprovoked situations (ie where the agents don't bring themselves to the attention of the villain in the course of tracking him for a case). Personal pet peeve.
Profile Image for K.S. Trenten.
Author 13 books52 followers
September 29, 2025
This was the most gut-wrenching book yet in the series, making me stop and weep; a heartbreaking hunter intertwined with another heartbreaking hunt; tangling with toxic thorns around a community. Promises were broken, heroes were tested beyond their limits, and more than one relationship didn’t survive. By and large, the team was magnificent, even as they walked (or crawled) wounded. Each step showed how strong they were. I don’t know how they’re going to get through what lies ahead, but I want to see what they do.
Profile Image for Ron.
4,064 reviews11 followers
September 17, 2012
Shadow Unit 8 picks up where 7 left off with the search for Hafidha interrupted by another case. Semi-wrapped up by the end of volume. Lau and Brady solve one on their own with minimal violence. Will get the next volume soon.
Profile Image for Rowan.
67 reviews6 followers
November 6, 2011
This got much darker in this volume of Shadow Unit. Can't say I'm happy about how things are going. It doesn't fit with the inferences I have made about the anomaly. Onward.
Profile Image for ~Anita~.
389 reviews
May 19, 2015
I don't like one of the gang being in the psych ward. It's one of my long term goals in life to stay out of the psych ward.
Profile Image for Lasciel.
290 reviews3 followers
May 28, 2015
This series doesn't pull punches when it comes to emotional content. the drama just feel sso real. I wish they would stop drawing out the story though, I'm burning through money :)
Profile Image for Lotta.
1,048 reviews19 followers
August 8, 2015
Good, as always. Characters evolve, we learn more about the anomaly. The team solve cases.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 14 reviews

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