Breakaway: Bookgasm Finds a Lot to Love

Over at the Bookgasm website, Ryun Patterson reviews Joel Shepherd’s just-released Breakaway, where he calls it, ” a step up from its already good predecessor.” This is high praise when you consider that the prior book, Crossover, was listed in Bookgasm’s 5 Best SF&F Books of 2006. So, a step up from best of the year? We’ll take that! Just as we like to hear this bit, which calls out what I feel is so great about Joel’s Cassandra Kresnov series:

“Ever-mindful that books with leaping cyber-chicks on the cover are expected to have leaping cyber-chicks within, Shepherd kicks the action up a notch from Crossover, providing more than enough lethal grooviness to satisfy action junkies. This series is not just popcorn, though; amid the shooting and kicking is a really interesting story about trust and friendship and the aftermath of betrayal… The non-action bits just might be good enough that Shepherd could have left out the hot synthetic hunter-killer operatives altogether and set the series on a rural Nova Scotia sheep farm, but would I have read it? Probably not. So buy Breakaway for the hot action, but read it for the characters.”

Oh, and the subtle Blazing Saddles reference made me laugh, though as another tale of a law enforcement officer who meets prejudice and ignorance with uber-competence and good humor, it’s an apropos comparison.