Title: Running Black
Author: Patrick Todoroff
Series: Eshu International
Ratings
Score: 4/10
Chart Entry Point: 35
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: Unlikely
Review
The story started promisingly. I liked chapter one quite a lot. But it turns out that it's not representative of the rest of the story. In fact, It's more of a prologue. Which is unfortunate.
While I liked the story, and the idea of clones - if not the names of the first three - I found that the narrative was extremely difficult to read. And I'm not really sure why, if I'm honest. There is one thing that contributed I'll discuss in a moment, but other than that... I don't know. Maybe it was too jargon-y or something. I just found myself not actually understanding what was going on quite often.
The one thing I COULD put a finger on was the random Spanish. Multiple-language narrative is one of the things I hate most in books. So that really didn't help. I just don't see the point in having random Spanish words in the middle of a sentence. It's not quite as bad in the dialogue - but given that I don't understand Spanish, it means I don't actually know what they are saying then!
A couple of little positives - I quite liked the idea that Britain is a leading technology country - and that flopsy, mopsy & cottontail haven't entirely disappeared from culture by 2059. More importantly I liked most of the characters - particularly Gibson, who I felt had a really good storyline. I also liked the character from chapter one, who keeps thinking of his family.
But I'm going to keep this a fairly short review - because I don't know really know what it is that went wrong. I enjoyed the story, but found it really quite difficult to read. Unfortunately, I'm not going to read the next one.
More Information
Main Protagonist(s): Several Male
Main Antagonist(s): Male
Genre: Near Future Sci-fi
Brief Synopsis:
It's 2059 and the North Korean mercenary Tam Song heads up Eshu International: a private security team that will take any job for the right price, no questions asked. Based in the Belfast Metro Zone, they're the best black contract outfit on the planet.
Stable nano-technology: the melding of man and machine on a microscopic level. It's a break-through worth billions no one's been able to achieve. Until now. The Dawson Hull Conglomerate has finally developed a viable Nanotech Neural Network; an interface system that exponentially increases a person's cyber-capabilities. They're days away from unveiling the prototype to the world.
And Eshu International just got hired to steal it.
-Amazon
ISBN: 978-0578070711
Website:
Amazon Link: UK | US
Pages: 262
Published:Nov 2010
Publisher: Indie
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