Review: Espionage Thriller about Remote Viewing.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 8, 2013
Origins is a great kickstart to a fantastic high concept thriller series. The exploration of Remote Viewing as an intelligence tool, played out with two young people gifted with this talent all set against the Cold War political dynamics and secrecy creates great tension and  lots of places this series can go. I'm willing to follow Cassie and Ronnie to see what's next after seeing how Origins started their story. This novel stands on it's own as a paranormal espionage thriller with threads of romance woven throughout, as Cassie and Ronnie have a special bond and a draw to each other through their special abilities and their support of each other in surviving and staying safe throughout the story.I really liked Drouant's facility with both the technical aspects of the story, making it all very plausible and the impact scenes very tense. He also has brought readers strong characters. Cassie and Ronnie are very different, and Cassie seems more in touch with the potential for the power she possesses. They are good together. I really liked the other characters too. Thorne, the agent very invested in delivering the remote viewing tool to the agency, was fascinating, and the author lets us see inside his head to understand why he's driven and why he sees Cassie and Ronnie as he does. I also liked Breed--I always like the journalists!- and Dousant did a solid job of creating real people, not shortcut archetypes.I think some of the reason is his fabulous vocabulary, which he seemed to deploy distinctively for each character. For example, at one point Thorne thinks of a crowded line of offices as a rabbit warren, and that not only is a perfect phrase, but it's also perfectly Thorne. It's little details like that that tell you a writer is on his game, and it made Origins fun to read and a cool start to series worth tracking.