Quote:
Originally Posted by CRussel
Next up, a couple of Dana Stabenow short stories, then possibly "Jump Gate Twist" the first two of Mark L. van Name's Jon & Lobo series.
|
Finished a Dana Stabenow story, a werewolf thing she did by request. Yech. She's a good writer, but I really have no time or interest in werewolf stuff. I can't accurately rate it, since it's completely outside my realm.
Finished
Jump Gate Twist, an omnibus of
One Jump Ahead and
Slanted Jack, the first two of the Jon and Lobo stories from Mark L. van Name. Also in the book were a couple of short stories and some connecting text.
I had very mixed feelings about this book. Jon's perpetual angst is OK at first, but gets seriously wearying after a while. And Lobo's sarcasm is also a bit over the top, especially since no context for it is given (until the short story at the very end, which was not previously published, so far as I can tell.)
On the other hand, I liked the characters overall, I thought the interaction was well done and consistent, and the pace of the stories was sufficient to keep me reading all the way through an 800 page omnibus. The premise is a well established (man w/ secret power + "super machine" buddy against the establishment and the bad guys caper stories) SF genre, and the bad guys are all bad, but the good guys are enough of a mixed bag to be believable as characters, and the whole thing
does, in the end, all hang together.
I'll give this a 3.5 out of 5, with a note that I'll very likely buy and read the later stories, especially if I can pick them up in a Webscriptions bundle. Worth my time, but not something I'll pre-order or pay extra for an eARC.