Missing Remnants in Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie

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Sep 08, 2017 Carole P. Roman rated it it was amazing

Love everything about this book. Love the story, the characters. Amy Hamilton writes in such a way that you feel like you know the characters and they have been a part of your life since...forever. Track, a disaffected cop is taken off his duties and he is not happy about it. Recently widowed, he is not happy with all this time on his hands and with people dropping dead literary at his feet, he knows something nefarious is going on. He must rely on his friends, a collection of human and robots t ...more

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Jan 05, 2018 Dale Lehman rated it it was amazing

Shelves: f-sf

Scattered throughout the void, a collection of stations provide services to travelers and host meetings between wealthy executives who wish to avoid scrutiny of their business dealings. Si-Cross Four is one such station, but it's hardly the place to be. "We were halfway between bigger and better places," Detective Trackneathan comments. "Bigger to the left, and better to the right!" Track, as everyone calls him, is basically a good cop with a bad mouth. His attitude gets him into trouble time an Scattered throughout the void, a collection of stations provide services to travelers and host meetings between wealthy executives who wish to avoid scrutiny of their business dealings. Si-Cross Four is one such station, but it's hardly the place to be. "We were halfway between bigger and better places," Detective Trackneathan comments. "Bigger to the left, and better to the right!" Track, as everyone calls him, is basically a good cop with a bad mouth. His attitude gets him into trouble time and again, and now he's been suspended for simply doing his job: in self-defense, he's shattered a criminal's jaw, and Authority Four, the local security team, has to pony up for a mechanical replacement. They don't like that.

Prosthetics are a way of life on Si-Cross Four. Following a biological disaster (referred to as an "outbreak") some years back, many of its denizens now have mechanical limbs, and thanks to a shortage of funds and materials, many of those limbs are balky. Track's own knee gives him incessant problems, so he knows what it's like. Survivors of the original outbreak, gray-skinned and often missing more than one limb, are stigmatized as "Remnants." Everyone is terrified of a new outbreak, so when a woman drops dead at Track's door, that's the first thing they think of. But Track isn't so sure. Funny things have been going on lately. Remnants are vanishing, he's being followed, his apartment is being broken into, investigations have been shut down, and he's bombarded by strange messages that could only have been sent by his dead husband--messages that nobody else sees or hears. Are the decontamination drugs Track is required to take messing with his perception? Is he loosing his mind? Or is something sinister truly afoot? Suspension isn't going to stop him from getting to the bottom of it. The truth turns out to be far more twisted than he could ever have imagined.

"Missing Remnants" was written for and is available on Radish (https://www.radishfiction.com), a mobile app that allows downloads to Android and iOS devices. It is not currently available through any other venue. Cooper wrote a couple of previous works that did not find publication, and this one is technically not published yet. She plans to revise and edit it further and either publish it through a traditional publisher or, failing that, go the indie route.

In reviewing it, I'm therefore treating it as an advance review copy (ARC) in which editing is not complete. From that standpoint, I can't find much at all to pick on. The story is solid, the characters are well-drawn, and the pacing is about perfect. It's a page-turner for sure. If anything is wrong, it might only be that the world of Si-Cross Four isn't explored in quite enough detail. This is a short novel, around 47,000 words, partly because of the requirements imposed on authors by Radish. There is room for a lot more. And yet, I hardly noticed this omission while reading. It was only afterward that I started wondering about the nature of these outbreaks, the place of Si-Cross Four in the larger conglomeration of stations, and similar questions. So I don't feel it's worth dinging the work much on that account. I'd rate both story and writing on the high side of 4.5 stars, which means a 5 for all intents and purposes. With editing and maybe a bit of expansion, the final product could well be a 5. Great job!
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May 03, 2018 Angel marked it as to-read

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