Review: Simply Amazing Soace Adventure with Intelligence Characters
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 26, 2012
Lallo's done it again!  This books is as good as Bypass Gemini if not better, which is the first book in the series.  Lex is back to the courier business and also back together with his girlfriend Michelle, who is an investigative journalist.  Lex helped her break the exclusive on the Gemini story in the last book, which made her famous, so now they are like ships in the night, passing only once in a while on the same course.THE PLOT:  While Lex is in his apartment waiting for one of those rare times Michelle sees him, a homeless man rings a chime at his apartment. Lex tells him to go away.  The next thing that Lex knows, the door bell rings, he thinks it's Michelle, and so he opens the door, but it's the homeless man and a furry black and white animal called a funk. The funk looks at Lex and tells him to give the homeless man 4000 credits.  "Ma" says Lex.  He is right, it is Ma the AI that Karter created, from the mad scientist's lab, but in the body for a funk ( half fox/ half skunk, but exceptionally cute}. Lex gives the man the credits and pushes him out the door. Ma explains to Lex that she needs his help, that Karter has been kidnapped by terrorists, who want him to make them weapons of mass destruction, which is Karter's specialty.  If they don't find Karter before he completes the weapons, all humanity could be dead.  Lex is stunned, but believes Ma, and cancels everything he's doing, Michelle breezes in, and says she can't stay, she has a flight to catch, sees Ma, and says " ooooh! Isn't she cute!" and picks up the funk, petting it behind the ears. " I didn't know you had a dog Lex." "I don't. It belongs to a friend." Michelle leaves the apartment quickly, and the rest of the book revolves are saving Karter and the rest of humanity.  It involves: Shopping at SaveMart, freeing war criminals, buying spaceships, contacting criminals, lots of explosions, space battles, torture, huge explosions in cities, a huge amount of gun battles, knife fights, face changing through chemistry that is extremely painful, disguises, alter-egos, military hardware, a berzerk android, lots of prototype hardware, a hell ride through a city being attacked by terrorists, an unnamed benefactor, smashing spaceships, a manifesto, a manufacturing facility, weapons of mass destruction, decompressing rooms so there is no air - just space, transporting things - who knows where, hand to hand combat, blasting people into space, healing peoples wounds, apologies accepted, apologies denied. And there was so much more than this.  Joesph Lallo books are like taking a thillride within a thrillride within a thrillride.  This isn't an E-ticket ride.  This is a Z-ticket ride.  I know E-ticket was the most they had at Disneyland.  But if they had a ride that was a Z-ticket ride, the warnings alone, would have been so long, only a few teenagers would have been able to go on the darned ride at all, you'd have to be over 18 and sign your life away with blood, before you could go on the ride, not many people would do that, so instead, read this book, it is better then any ride anyway.  The plot is so twisty, it is twistier than really tight yarn, twistier than a poodle with a perm, twistier than lava tubes in Hawaii. The plot gets an A+ in my book. It is extraordinary, but typical of Joseph Lallo who makes it look easy, how he does it, I have no idea, but I'm glad he does, and he's left room for a sequel. This makes me very happy, because I love Ma especially, and Lex too. Karter and the rest and a dim second. Though the more of Michelle I see, the more I like her.THE CHARACTERIZATION: This is where Joseph Lallo shines. His characterization is unbelievable. He can take a character from nothing and build them into the most in-depth character you've ever read. For example, in the this book, there is a character they call Garotte, though that is not his name. It turns he has a million names all over the galaxy.  Offically he is a war criminal, his specialty is destabilizing societies. He's good at it.  Very good at it. He's been doing it for a very long time. Lallo makes all his flaws and his crimes, and all his capabilities, and his disguises, seem so real, that you'd swear that he could be someone's uncle. He's not only fleshed out and fully three dimensional, he seems completely real - as in real like real. That takes a lot of talent, yet again Mr. Lallo makes it look easy, he does it for every single character in the book, with very few exception, like guards.  There are just too many guards to give this treatment to, so he doesn't. But what he does do is give their 12 seconds of fame when their time to read is happening. So they get a few emotions, foibles and attributes, even if they die 2 seconds later.  Lallo is an artist with characterization.  He gets at least one star for just this.  Ma is another one who is a breakthrough in characterization that I have to bring up. Now that she is operating in a funk, which she calls "wetware", she is learning all about what it is like to a biological being. At some points, she can't tell if her wants and needs are coming from logic, or are biologically induced. An example is when she gets the feeling that she would like to wrap herself around Lex's shoulders. She could find no logic to that, so she asked him if she could do it, and he said "yes," so she climbed up, and then convinced herself that it for Lex's stress relief.  It was rather humorous. An AI, with a need that originated from the funk (which liked to ride on shoulders) was explained away as stess relief for Lex. It merely comforted Ma to be close to Lex by being on his shoulders, the other funk that Karter had used to do it all the time to him and seemed very happy about it.  I guess you call that reality postponement, but in an AI? What do you call it then? Anyway, Ma was invaluable to the mission, even though she was small and fuzzy and cute.  She still learned a lot about humans and their interactions that she never would have at Big Sigma, Karter's planet, where she lived in the computers. Lallo's imagination of what an AI would go through once it was free to roam around in wetware is simply impressive. The depths of his thinking is amazing. It boogles the mind to think that some day this could all happen just like he writes.THE PACE: Can you say FTL? Yes, I mean Faster Than Light, because that is the pace of this book, it never stops.  It never lets up.  It nevers slows down.  It only gets faster.  At the beginning, Ma leaves Lex rather innocent because she knows that his stress levels will skyrocket if he knows too much of her plan.  He goes along with her. And then when the first incident happens, and Lex is now implicated in a major crime. Now we are at FTL, and it never slows down after that. You're really hooked from page one, when Ma shows up and tells Lex that Karter has been kidnapped by terrorists and the galaxy could be destroyed if they don't rescue him. From the first book, we know what Karter is capable of, and that he is a sociopath, so it is a fatally dangerous combination. That gets your attention right away. Karter could cooperate with the terrorists if he wanted to and rid the galaxy of all the people living in it if he was feeling grumpy at the time, or if he wanted to try out some new contraption of his.  Either way everybody in the galaxy would be dead.  That would be very bad. They had to rescue him not only from the terrorists but from himself as well and take him back to Big Sigmas where he really couldn't hurt anybody, just work om his inventions. Now you know why the book goes by FTL because the risk is so great and Karter's know-how is even greater. That he could pull it off in no time if he had the right parts, is the greatest risk, so the time is counting down.  Tick, tick, tick, while they get the right people and weapons to go after him. To say that I was breathless is an understatement.THE ENDING: The Ending was so amazing, at first you think it's one way, then you think it's another, then finally it's all over!  How Lallo does it I don't know, it was the perfect ending to the book. Between the space crashes, people being blown out space hatches, battles in space stations, battles in space, Karter sabotaging things, terrorists are everywhere, and the WMDs are ready to launch. What's a girl to do? Read the book, of course. That's the only thing you can do to get all the excitement that Lallo put together in this adventure/thriller. This will be the fastest read you've ever had. I guarantee.  You'll be breathless by the end.  And as I said before, there's room for a sequel, and I hope there is one soon, because these characters are fantastic.  I want Ma and Lex back, as well as Michelle. She and Lex need some alone time. Garrote and Silo need to find the unnamed benefactor, and Ma needs to take care of Karter and try to make him into a better human then he is right now.THE UPSHOT: If you like adventure or thriller stories, this is the book for you, even if it is in space. It has the military, war, weapons of mass destruction, terrorists, battles indoors and outdoors, a hellride through a city being attacked by terrorists, stolen weapons, weapons prototypes, war criminals, the new automated "berzerk" soldier, the threat of the destruction of the entire galaxy.  What more could you want from an adventure or a thriller.  I ask you?  This is no James Bond book, this is real excitement, you have every reason to be thrilled down to the tips of your toes with this one. Lallo gives so much in this book that you might even switch genres after reading it.  If you do, might I suggest a few authors, Look at my blog for some examples: [...] for some alternate reading materials so that you can open your mind to new authors, including more of Lallo's work, along with others. This is a thumping good read of the first order, so buy it now, before Joseph becomes famous, and the price skyrockets beyond your budget and mine. Right now it's just $2.99 - a bargain like no other. Go get it. It's one of the best deals in the universe. It's like finding Tolkein, before everyone else did.