Review: Ordell’s Constellation by J.C. Cole

This short book is kind of aiming at pulp, but kind of misses, which is unfortunate.

Future humans are setting up experimental societies of synthetics, robots that are indistinguishable from humans and can reproduce (Pretty much replicants, except they’re supposed to reproduce) on colonized worlds.

One of the synthetics has superpowers only seen in true born humans and leads a revolt.

That’s…pretty much it. This book doesn’t have a lot of space and it spends most of it traveling between the colonized worlds, bizarrely called Constellations, with a visit to the ravaged Earth.

And a lot of revolting and a lot of killing and Clarkean technology. I found it a bit wanting…I think maybe the voice was too modern?

If you’re in the mood for a light hearted romp, it might work better for you than it did for me, and I’ve certainly read worse, but it did little for me. Sorry, Cole.

Check this one out if you like neopulp and don’t want to think too hard.

Review: Minute Men: Execute & Run

I’m a big fan of superheroes. Minute Men is a more grounded superhero tale, with perhaps a little more science.  The Minute Men are Zoya, Christian, Daniel and Max Jacquez (Jaxx). Experimented on, they have powers for…about 60 seconds at a time. Zoya is a martial artist with strength and agility, Daniel runs fast, Jaxx is a genius for 60 seconds before he goes back to being…not the sharpest…and Christian has eye beams. All of them get them from nanotech they were told would fix their various disabilities.

But instead they were given military grade nanotech by a bad guy with a twist.

The one minute limit keeps this from being fairly standard superhero fare. They get one minute, then it’s a while before they can go again, and if they push it too much they crash hard.

Which means they have to plan. Fortunately, they have SethNet, a hive mind of networked video gamers (yes, literally) and Jaime Valentine, who worked on the experiments and is now their driver and overwatch.

If you like superheroes, check it out. It probably should be a comic book, but works well enough in prose.

(I’d love the comic book, though).

I received copies of these books for review and award consideration purposes.