A RACE OF SLAVES... Born in a laboratory for war or pleasure, they live as property, unable to fight those that oppress them . . . all, except one. A SINGLE CLONE REFUSES TO SUBMIT... One clone is no longer willing to live in slavery and has declared war on those that would subjugate her. Hunted by the most powerful men in existence and a threat to the social order, if she wants her freedom she must fight her way through bounty hunters, war machines, and the deadliest enemy of all: her own kind . . .
Victor Methos is the Edgar Award nominated bestselling author of over forty novels. He has been a criminal and civil rights lawyer in the Mountain West, conducting over 100 trials, and produces two books a year with his dog Fraiser by his side.
My first mistake was caring for the characters that are not the main character and then not caring for the main character. Given that the book follows three sets of characters and it is not until everyone else is dead, do you realize who exactly was the main character. My second mistake was reading this on the kindle, where the text was double spaced and each chapter started with half of a blank page (which had the side effect of making it difficult to know that we've switched characters, again). My third mistake was doing temperature conversions in my head. I probably misinterpreted the phrase, but one sentence reads like "the temperature jumped to over 300 kelvin". Gasp, 300 kelvin?! Yeah, that's about 80F, which doesn't sound nearly as impressive. Anyway, the book was an easy read, or else the lack of care would have lead me to do something else.
I like Mentos because of all the action. You don’t need to wait very long for something to happen. It’s like you jump from one action scene to another. Also si-fi takes me out of the real world for awhile.
The story was good, and I enjoyed the author's style, however, I did not enjoy the story being told in the first person from multiple characters. At times I felt it made it unnecessarily repetitive and confusing.
It’s a cliché I know, but to write this review caused me a lot of brain searching and even more cups of coffee until I finally came up with something that I felt were my accurate views on this read, and also did the book justice; the problem with this book, for me, was not that I didn't like it I just didn’t like all of it.
Written from at least 5 different points of view, this book is, for the main, very well written. The multiple perspectives add depth to the storyline but also cause a few problems too. As the action gains momentum it feels as if the Author loses their grip on the point of view from which they are writing and the result of this is that they have a tendency to backtrack over many of the scenes previously covered. The characters are written according to the point of view they are presenting, and their background and personality are adapted to suit this; unfortunately the reader never gains any grasp on the motivation behind any of these characters, but this could be an intentional move on the part of the Author, and hopefully all will be revealed in future instalments of the series. The reader is made, in some way, to care for the characters which is a good thing, but in doing this I found that I really couldn’t bring myself to have any connection with the main protagonist who remains hidden from view until almost the end of the novel.
With a compelling writing style the Author created a whole universe for the reader to immerse themselves in, but it was also this writing style that prevented me from absorbing it completely. Too many of the sentences started the same way and, after some time this not only became very monotonous but made me feel the Author had lost their way, or in the most extreme cases, was just CTRL- C portions of their work and editing a few lines here and there.
If you are looking for a gripping sci-fi read with lots of action and a story that will keep you page turning until the end, then this book is for you. If you’re looking for a book that is linear in its telling and non-repetitive; this may not be the book you’re looking for. I would recommend this book purely because it is a good read, just don’t expect wonderful character development and you won’t be disappointed.
So this book is a multiple-POV book. I think there were 5 total. It was mostly well done. At the beginning, each POV was a good chunk and then they started getting shorter. I enjoyed the multiple perspectives, but there were a few issues with it as well. Towards the end, when there was more action, the author felt the need to re-hash many of the scenes from differing POVs. I understand the desire, because you miss out on a lot of perspective when you see a scene from only one POV, but it got a little distracting because we basically went through the action sequences as follows:
A to G from POV1 C-H from POV2 A-E from POV3 D to G from POV4.
So it was hard to get traction on what happened after that big scene.
Still though, the personalities were well developed. I enjoyed the action. I enjoyed hearing a little about the motivations of the characters, but if there had been only two POVs or the POVs had been done a little differently, I think we could have learned a lot more about the motivations in several cases. There was one point in particular where a character did a 180. We heard a single line about why, but we never got to hear that from that person's POV. I would have liked to see that. Still, enjoyable.
At the end of the story, I really liked what I read.
The first Point of View switch was very jarring. The second was annoying because it was to a third-character, but by then I figured out the "chapter groupings" announce the character whose POV is at the top. I likely would have found this out faster in a paperbook and been happier about the POV switches. Then there are several POV switches where they scene is played from different standpoints - something I would accept if the POV provided some real differences in how the characters interpret the scene. As it is, somethings the reported dialogue is slightly different - not good enough to read 2 pages a second time. Oh, and the POV switch really doesn't go into the driving character choices, the characters basically sound and act fairly similar - though it does give you a feel of what each character knows when.
Yet, somehow, at the end book, I really like it. Can't really tell you why, but I did.
I can't post a rating for this book because I both loved and hated it at the same time. I felt that there was a lot that could have made it so much more better than it was but there were quite a few flaws that prevented me from being able to delve in and immerse myself in the world that the author did so well to create. You can tell that they put a lot of thought in it but the over all execution of dialog or the repetition from multiple views of the same scene or conversation wasn't needed but its cool that they thought to add the extra detail. The author could have added it a different way without interrupting so often just to back track to something they already touched on three or four times already.
I downloaded this ebook for free during an Amazon promotional period.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book until the story began to repeat itself almost word for word at the 60%, 75% and 86% points in the kindle edition. I do appreciate changes in the point of view in a story. But having to re-read the exact same moment (sometimes verbatim) over and over again really detracted from the flow of an otherwise compelling story. This was the sole difference between my giving this story three stars instead of four.
This book had such great promise. The author had a whole universe created that could have been completely absorbing. However, the writing style stopped all immersion for me. Almost every sentence started with "I.." And when the POV started to change this got unbearable. I am sad I wont finish thus book, since the plot seemed great. If it was edited someday and had more advanced writing, Id pick ut up for sure v
I admit I was a little frusted at how short this first installment was (I wanted more). Given the short length however, I did find it well written, fast paced and exciting. Victor Methos has demonstrated and ability to engage the reading audience very quickly and thoroughly.
This book was AMAZING. I was hooked from the first moment that I started reading it. I loved the different character viewpoints and how they all seamlessly intertwined to add to the overall story. There were a few spelling errors, but not enough to ruin my overall enjoyment of the book. I can't wait to read the next installment in this series!
Lots of action. Karma and Ava best characters to me. I would have rated the book higher, but couldn't when the author wrote from each character's point of view on the same event. The problem was when he worded it almost the same from each it became extremely boring and a waste of time. This is a series but I will not continue to read it.
Hmmm, well. I liked parts of it for sure, and the writing style I enjoyed. My problem came when we switched points of view and he copied and pasted the previous scene, switching minor parts. I had to reread several scenes several time. Obnoxious. Decide whose point of view you need that scene in and do it. A little overlap I can do but this was excessive!
This started strong, although a bit more gore than I expected. (But the eyes getting poked out is about my threshold for gore lol) Then when a major action piece began, we had to re read it from 4 different points of view. Why? It didn't add anything. It was annoying. Will I read more of the story? Probably. It was an interesting world and I like Ava.
Great book but way to short. I am really hoping there is going to be another book to finish this one off. I realize short stories are meant to be just that - short but I really wanted to continue reading and was disappointed when there was nothing left to read.
Blade Runner theme of clones "vs." humans with a few twists. Only a few grammar mistakes, which is not typical of the usual multitude of grammar mistakes in amazon free ebooks. Nothing too monumental, but nice light escapist read.
This demands more stories to further the world. Gritty scifi with great action, a gripping story and enough social commentary to keep the reader feeling like they're getting some meaning in the midst of the crazy good fun.
Was well written with a lot of action. Good and different story line with good characters. However there were quiet a few times that the story repeated itself from a different point of view. And that got old pretty quick. Will I be looking for more by V. Methos? I do believe i will.
Interesting premise. Unlike some of the other reviewers, I did enjoy the multiple POV of the different characters. It's an interesting way to present the story as you don't really know who the most important characters are until the end of the story.
A multiple first person hard core SF tale. Clones and humans and ships and swords. Very readable, and the action flows,,but somehow not as good as I thought it should be.