Crossover

By Joel Shepherd

A young woman is on the run, and on her own. She needs to find work and a place to live... she needs to feel like an ordinary human being. But she is no ordinary human being - and when she saves the life of Katia Neiland, President of tanusha, the secret services discover just how special, just how lethal, she is. Who can she trust? Vanessa Rice, special forces, who wants to be her friend? the President? the Judiciary? Whoever it is she's better decide soon. those she left behind want her back. the League's Dark Star is a ruthless organisation, and some people in the Federation wouldn't mind handing her over - or causing war... Will she ever find safety? Can she ever stop running?

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Dec 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9780730493259

Joel Shepherd

Joel Shepherd lives in Adelaide. His first novel was Crossover.

Reviews for Crossover

[lithicbee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book takes place a few hundred years into our future, where the known universe has split into two factions: The League and the Federation. The League is into no-limits science, such as the creation of artificial soldiers known as GIs (General Issues), whereas the Federation sticks to traditional, historic values. However, the lines are blurred when an experimental GI defects from the League to the Federation. This book is heavy on the politics of both League vs. Federation and the in-fighting within the Federation, specifically on the planet that protagonist Cassandra Kresnov flees to. The slow parts of the book, for me, were the descriptions of the sprawling city of Tanusha. Interesting but over-long. The action was excellent, with running gun battles and super-heroic feats thanks to Kresnov's artificial body. Kresnov is a likeable, honorable character, as are most of the people she meets. Overall, I enjoyed the book. It didn't blow me away, but it was a good read generally.

[bezoar44 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A super-powerful artificial soldier flees from the human society that created her and tries to hide with a new civilian identity on an enemy planet. However, she ends up getting caught in the middle of double- and triple-crosses involving security forces from both civilizations. Although a number of reviews have described the book as full of sex, it isn't; indeed, what little sex takes place during the plot happens during discreet fade-outs. Instead, the heart of the story is a melodrama that plays out on the interior emotional landscapes of several characters. To the extent that the book has a conceptual focus, it's on the nature of self in society -- not the philosophical question of what it means to be human, but the political question of what it means for a society to grant or deny equal rights to a being who is so fantastically physically superior but so emotionally similar to an ordinary human. I found the action sequences bland and jargon-laden. I don't care about guns, or explosions, or objects smashing together at high speed, and tended to lose focus in these sections. I liked several of the characters well enough that I'll go ahead and try the second book in this series.

[skraft001 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Started off as a good read, but actually abandoned about 1/2 way through which is unusual for me. Retrospectively, believe the interest waned as it became more military in nature.