Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Book Review of the Day - Adam-Troy Castro

Wow. All I can say is, "Wow!"

I just finished reading Adam-Troy Castro's second book in the Andrea Cort series - The Third Claw of God. Though the series features a very strong female protagonist, it was a bit of an unusual choice for me, because it was written by a male author. I'm very glad I didn't let that stop me.

First, let me say that I'm aware that my feelings about male authors are likely unfair to them. It just seems like when I read female protagonists written by men, they don't ring as true to me.

Andrea Cort is definitely an exception to that feeling. She is extremely well-written, strong yet sympathetic, and I love the way Castro has let us get to know her throughout these two novels. By the time I started this second book, I felt I knew her well enough to like her. Now, having finished the novel, I feel like I understand and respect her.

The plot itself, is excellent. It's a combination of science fiction and mystery, very true to both genres with lots of world building, specialized, futuristic tech, and suspense that keeps a reader wondering who the antagonists really are until the final ten pages of the book. When you think it's over, it's not. I love it when an author can skillfully pull that off. There's also the perfect amount of, "Oh, I saw that coming," mixed in with plenty of, "Whoa, where did that come from?" to make everything believable in the end.

I am looking forward with great anticipation to the next book in the series.

3 comments:

Mark said...

Looking forward to getting my hands on this one. I really enjoyed the first book. I'm still trying to get my hands on the short story, "Unseen Demons"' that introduced Andrea Cort.

Anonymous said...

You can find that in Troy-Castro's "Vossoff and Nimmitz: Just a Couple of Idiots Reupholstering Space and Time" book or short stories. Amazon and others have copies.

Anonymous said...

Not true, VOSSOFF AND NIMMITZ only includes stories that feature his characters Vossoff and Nimmitz. "Unseen Demons" is, however, in TANGLED STRINGS.