Book Review - Havoc by R. J. Pineiro
Category Book Reviews
Throw together spies, nationalistic plans for world domination, as well as a large dose of nanotech, and you have R. J. Pineiro's book Havoc. I enjoyed the story itself, but the writer almost appears to be trying *too* hard to be clever...
Tom Grant is an ex-CIA agent who got hung out to dry on an operation in Singapore. Rather than fight back, he retires to a central American beach to live out his life in solitude. Unfortunately for him, he is being recruited to help the agency solve a break-in at USN, a nanotech firm (government-owned) that has military hardware that others would kill for. Grant's old boss was thought to be dead, but indications are that he really went rogue and helped lead the break-in. Grant is teamed up with an attractive agent to track down the stolen gear, find the rogue agent, and also determine who's behind all of this. CyberWerke is the leading competitor of USN, and its leader has a shadowy past and definite plans to put Germany in the position of world leader. Using nanotech, he's able to stage a near-coup of the German legislature and position himself as the new leader of the country. The only thing that can stop him is Grant's team or the stolen nanotech device that's escaped into the wild, thrown off its artificial intelligence constraints, and deems the entire human race as a threat to its existence.
There's a lot going on here, and I really did enjoy the plotline. The futuristic nanotech devices allow the author to get the characters into quite a few unusual situations, and the cyberintelligence of the escaped device was rather cool. Perhaps not realistic, but cool... The only problem I had with the novel was the author's style of writing. The Grant character is supposed to be a "cool" agent, and everyone is a "cat". And I don't think I've ever read a story where the author had so many nicknames for his bodyparts and intimate activities... "sharing bodily fluids", "long-dormant one-eyed monster", "third leg", "old mustard road without K-Y", "hide the salami", etc, etc, etc. And we're not even up to page 25 yet. It was OK in moderation, but it got annoying pretty quickly. Had I not enjoyed the storyline as much as I did, I'd likely have been much more harsh in my assessment. But he really does need to just relax and let the story and characters work...
Worth reading for some mind-candy entertainment, but it's too bad that style hindered the substance...
If you liked this review and found it helpful, please click on the Amazon book link in the review and click the Yes (Was This Review Helpful To You?) button at the bottom of my review. Thanks!
Throw together spies, nationalistic plans for world domination, as well as a large dose of nanotech, and you have R. J. Pineiro's book Havoc. I enjoyed the story itself, but the writer almost appears to be trying *too* hard to be clever...
Tom Grant is an ex-CIA agent who got hung out to dry on an operation in Singapore. Rather than fight back, he retires to a central American beach to live out his life in solitude. Unfortunately for him, he is being recruited to help the agency solve a break-in at USN, a nanotech firm (government-owned) that has military hardware that others would kill for. Grant's old boss was thought to be dead, but indications are that he really went rogue and helped lead the break-in. Grant is teamed up with an attractive agent to track down the stolen gear, find the rogue agent, and also determine who's behind all of this. CyberWerke is the leading competitor of USN, and its leader has a shadowy past and definite plans to put Germany in the position of world leader. Using nanotech, he's able to stage a near-coup of the German legislature and position himself as the new leader of the country. The only thing that can stop him is Grant's team or the stolen nanotech device that's escaped into the wild, thrown off its artificial intelligence constraints, and deems the entire human race as a threat to its existence.
There's a lot going on here, and I really did enjoy the plotline. The futuristic nanotech devices allow the author to get the characters into quite a few unusual situations, and the cyberintelligence of the escaped device was rather cool. Perhaps not realistic, but cool... The only problem I had with the novel was the author's style of writing. The Grant character is supposed to be a "cool" agent, and everyone is a "cat". And I don't think I've ever read a story where the author had so many nicknames for his bodyparts and intimate activities... "sharing bodily fluids", "long-dormant one-eyed monster", "third leg", "old mustard road without K-Y", "hide the salami", etc, etc, etc. And we're not even up to page 25 yet. It was OK in moderation, but it got annoying pretty quickly. Had I not enjoyed the storyline as much as I did, I'd likely have been much more harsh in my assessment. But he really does need to just relax and let the story and characters work...
Worth reading for some mind-candy entertainment, but it's too bad that style hindered the substance...
If you liked this review and found it helpful, please click on the Amazon book link in the review and click the Yes (Was This Review Helpful To You?) button at the bottom of my review. Thanks!
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