Shadow Memories (The Singularity Conspiracy) (Volume 1) by Erik, Nicholas (2014) Paperback

The Singularity Conspiracy #1

by Nicholas Erik

Quiet town. Until now. Cassie Atwood and Kurt Desmond are small time private investigators, catching wayward husbands, stray dogs and other boring cases around the sleepy oceanside slum of Seaside Heights. Until one day, a client comes in, offering them forty grand. All they've got to do is find a local cave, snap a few pictures of the ancient art on the wall. Easy. But the pair soon find themselves embroiled in a 10,000 year old mystery. And they might just discover that we're not alone.

Genres: Amazon

Paperback

First published April 30, 2014

Reviews

[Nicky · Rating 1 out of 5]

Received to review via Netgalley

Shadow Memories isn’t a chore to read, because it has very short chapters and constant action. Unfortunately, it has very short chapters and constant action… so it’s hard to connect to the characters, and the plot comes across as very confused. Some major stuff is just skimmed right past, while an undue amount of time is spent on a guy who thinks his wife is cheating on him.

It takes too long to get to the conspiracy/alien stuff — at least in any detail — and the main POV character is just infuriating in his complaints about sleeping on the couch like his partner owes him sex just because he exists and hasn’t actively done anything annoying that day.

So, not for me. It’s pacey enough though. Some people might enjoy it.

Originally posted here.

[Viking Jam · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://koeur.wordpress.com/2014/09/10...

Publisher: Tinderboxed Press
Publishing Date: September 2014
ISBN: 9781940708331
Genre: SciFi
Rating: 4.5/5

Publisher Description: Kurt Desmond and Cassie Atwood are private investigators in the ramshackle town of Seaside Heights. It isn’t quite the California pictured on the brochures, but the pair manage to eek out a living chasing down stray dogs, errant husbands and other small game. Life is peaceful, if boring – until a strange man comes to town, asking the pair if they can track down an ancient cave drawing. With an offer of forty grand dangling in front of them, Kurt and Cassie take the job.

Review: That cover art is just awful. Some kind of 35mm moiré’ nightmare.

This novel was a really fun read. Full of acerbic wit, comedic sarcasm and engaging characters. Kurt has this funny take on life that is constantly at the forefront of every scene. His glib internalizations ride shotgun to his outer expressions. This novel had great movement and an engaging story-line.

This work was a mystery/thriller until aliens were introduced. Cassie, Kurt’s live in GF is a tough gal with a lot of secrets, including banging rich millionaires. She is one of the guardians, a group working for the aliens and against the machinations of “The Singularity”. The ending is really just the beginning of this story and I can’t wait for the continuance.

A short read for sure, but turn the pages slowly so you can savor it.

[Alan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'll be honest I never finished this book. I got to around the hundred page mark before I realised had been had.
This book is obviously a well thought out outline of a great book. That somebody stole from the author and posted before he could go and flesh out the story. It's the only explanation I can accept.
This is a story in which really important plot points seem to occur and be gone within seconds.
For example, there is an easily found cave full of drawings, symbols and writing in multiple languages. But somebody living in the town for years didn't even know about it. Really, that would be a world famous with people studying the contents non stop to find answers to what it all means. Or the meeting with an Alien in which the narrator seems to just accept it and carry on like it's a daily occurrence. Everything is skimmed over like the writer is starting with a million dollars and loses a dollar for every minute it takes him to write. I have got some great books on my Kindle for 99p. This wasn't one of them.

[Daniel]

I was trying to read this in good faith but by two pages in, here's what I got: he's been exiled to the couch for two weeks but doesn't know why and apparently never asks (who can understand women is what he says), opening the freezer for a minute is too expensive, they were paid to find a dog - when the owner doesn't want to pay they make him pay and keep the dog but can't afford it, and they're completely broke and so the lady throws an iPod across the room and breaks it, this guaranteeing they need to spend more money to replace it.

The levels of stupid in just these two pages is something I can't deal with. I don't often pan a book without getting a ways into it but this is not worth the effort.

[Ruth · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book doesn't read like sci-fi at all. It's more like Transformers. Loser/jerk mc with the maturity level of a middle school kid whining about how he can't get laid. Oh, and there's some conspiracy of some sort thrown in there, but this first book barely scratched the surface of it and what of it there was, was extremely poorly explained. It just ended up being alternately boring, confusing, annoying, and then boring again.

[Elayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

So there were these bounty hunters slash PIs - only what they hunted and retrieved generally weren't worth very much - starting with a fish eating dog - who was rejected by its owner once returned...

And then one of these bounty hunters was an ex-thief which meant that he had a skill worth money to several people. But technically he had reformed and so only took (semi?) legal jobs when flat broke.
Which he was. So he took the job. Strange though it was.

A nice clean style of writing. Short chapters written from the ex-con's viewpoint. The atmosphere comes through clearly with nice expressions.