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Hostile Takeover
Caroline Cassandra Williams is on the fast track and determined to stay there. A financial analyst in one of the mega-global corporations, she's stayed one step ahead of her enemies to keep from losing her place as a valued salaryman - and two steps in front of those colleagues who would grind her down in a nanosecond to reach the next rung of economic freedom.
Even though she's clawed her way out of the Insulae, where the working poor are warehoused, she keeps herself grimly focused with nightmares of losing her job. Or being frozen into a shipsicle and shipped to the Outer Rim as an expendable drudge. Or, worst case, going bankrupt and dying slowly as the authorities harvest her limbs and other body parts.
When the multiplanetary company she works for sends CC to audit Vesta Colony to learn why assets keep hemorrhaging away, she knows this is her big chance to make the Ultimate Career Move. Assuming she gets the facts and pins the crooked trades, and any other crimes she finds, on someone - or a bunch of someones - she can turn in with a clear conscience, she can go home first-class, collect her fiance and a fat bonus, then march down the aisle in a perfectly event-planned wedding into a prosperous-ever-after twin career track. She's already even planned vacations with their children-to-come at the theme parks on Easter Island, the cofferdams surrounding Disney World, and the Gobi Dinosaur Pavilions. If CC succeeds, she's set for the rest of her life.
But Vesta turns out to be unlike anything CC has ever seen, and the deeper she delves, the more twisted things get, until her life - not to mention her career - hangs in the balance. As plots unfold into more plots, CC finds herself confronting not just possible insider trading and fraud but attempted murder.
Who's behind it all? She's got a colony of suspects, including old friends, old rivals, and a dashing EarthServ pilot who knows a whole lot more about CC and her worlds than he's letting on.
Even though she's clawed her way out of the Insulae, where the working poor are warehoused, she keeps herself grimly focused with nightmares of losing her job. Or being frozen into a shipsicle and shipped to the Outer Rim as an expendable drudge. Or, worst case, going bankrupt and dying slowly as the authorities harvest her limbs and other body parts.
When the multiplanetary company she works for sends CC to audit Vesta Colony to learn why assets keep hemorrhaging away, she knows this is her big chance to make the Ultimate Career Move. Assuming she gets the facts and pins the crooked trades, and any other crimes she finds, on someone - or a bunch of someones - she can turn in with a clear conscience, she can go home first-class, collect her fiance and a fat bonus, then march down the aisle in a perfectly event-planned wedding into a prosperous-ever-after twin career track. She's already even planned vacations with their children-to-come at the theme parks on Easter Island, the cofferdams surrounding Disney World, and the Gobi Dinosaur Pavilions. If CC succeeds, she's set for the rest of her life.
But Vesta turns out to be unlike anything CC has ever seen, and the deeper she delves, the more twisted things get, until her life - not to mention her career - hangs in the balance. As plots unfold into more plots, CC finds herself confronting not just possible insider trading and fraud but attempted murder.
Who's behind it all? She's got a colony of suspects, including old friends, old rivals, and a dashing EarthServ pilot who knows a whole lot more about CC and her worlds than he's letting on.
357 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2004
2 people are currently reading
34 people want to read
About the author
Susan Shwartz
92 books19 followersWrites with Shariann Lewitt as Gordon Kendall.
She received her B.A. in English from Mount Holyoke College in 1972 and a PhD in English from Harvard University.
She received her B.A. in English from Mount Holyoke College in 1972 and a PhD in English from Harvard University.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 24, 2017
This was nearly a DNF for me. I continued to read it until the end to see whether the action would become more interesting as the story progressed. This was not the case. The writing style is mediocre, I had a hard time visualizing rhe settings. The main character is unlikeable and we are spared none of her musings, ramblings and thoughts. The plot is full of inconsistencies. Most especially, the 'first encounter' with aliens is unrealistic. Why should an alien species which is far more advanced and has mastered faster-than-light travel, choose to trade with the colony of a small asteroid, rather than with the mother planet - which does not even become aware of the existence of the aliens and their presence in the solar system? And so on and so forth. A big disappointment for me.
January 22, 2019
Heaven help me, I liked this one. It died a quick death back in 2004, available in hardcover only, and I found my copy at the bottom bin of the Friends of the Library sale. I enjoyed it because she's an accountant. In space. With lots of accounting in-jokes which I got and enjoyed. True, she's somewhat Too Stupid To Live, but only because she doesn't believe anyone would kill over falsified financial statements. Silly girl. Oh, yes, it's also somewhat sexist, with all the constant rescuing by the handsome hero, but generally just a fun, quick read.
July 13, 2023
Susan Shwartz (b. 1949) co-authored five Star Trek novels and has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards. Hostile Takeover, her most recent stand-alone novel, is structurally flawed but still worth reading. In the near future, corporations have replaced traditional governments. Execs travel in luxury to colonies in the asteroid belt, while steerage-class passengers travel to the belt as “shipcicles” to be thawed out only when their indentured labor is needed. Protagonist C. C. Williams is sent to the Vesta colony to quietly audit its books but soon finds herself the target of an assassination. Most of the action is packed into the last quarter of the plot, and I wish that C.C. had more scenes in which she exercised her forensic talents.
January 4, 2018
This book is just wholly unsatisfying. I DNFed this book at page 100 because, honestly, nothing has happened. While I don’t dislike the main character, I don’t like her either. The side characters are either surly or shifty and not fun to read about. Plus, the cover art is completely inaccurate to the book. The main character is an auditor and basically info dumps how society works for the first 100 pages.
I did appreciate the nod to Star Trek, but this just isn’t a great book. I don’t recommend it.
I did appreciate the nod to Star Trek, but this just isn’t a great book. I don’t recommend it.
June 4, 2020
I don't usually read much science fiction, but this was an exciting and fun book. To make it even better, I was still reading it during the recent launch of an American spacecraft, Dragon Endeavour to the International Space Station.
March 22, 2019
I tarted this book before I realized I had already read it. I couldn't put it down. A good mix of SF and Wall Street financing. Highly recommended.
April 24, 2020
Salarywoman Caroline Cassandra "CC" Williams, sent to the asteroid belt to audit Vesta Colony’s finances, finds herself caught in an interstellar hostile takeover by alien pirates.
August 16, 2020
This book is definitely a product of the early 2000s and it shows its age.
November 29, 2013
I wanted to like this book more, but the future world portrayed by Shwartz pissed me off so much that I had to set it aside repeatedly so I could cool off.
It's actually a typical extrapolation-from-the-present near-future SF world, in which financial-services veteran Shwartz contemplates what would happen if the whole world were dominated by that industry. More than it is now, that is. So much so that people are divided into three classes: the poor, stuffed into crime-ridden crowded "insulae" with only the thinnest thread of hope of escape; the wealthy, insulated from (but not immune to) financial risk; and the middle class, who live in fear of losing a job, falling into debt, and being shipped off to the asteroidal colonies in cryogenic suspension and to indentured servitude (or even involuntary organ donation).
The protagonist, CC, escaped from poverty into the middle class and lives in that fear (waking up multiple a week in sweating, terrified nightmares). The inevitable result of these circumstances, in which even a brilliant and creative analyst like CC could easily wind up on the garbage heap, is that the middle class salarymen behave pretty much like ferrets tied up in a sack. Apparently they are not really paid all that well, making it very hard for them to stay out of debt (and unable to save up for large expenses?), their credit ratings are monitored constantly for imprudent discretionary spending, and their behavior is expected to fall within rigid but unwritten lines at all times. Otherwise they get "downchecked" and if their fiscal and social credit ratings get too low, they'll suddenly become unemployable.
As I said, terrifying and infuriating. Shwartz makes CC's terror and determination very real - as well as her intelligence and serious research addiction (which endeared her to me considerably, of course).
The plot revolves around CC's audit of questionable activities at Vesta Colony, various attempted murders of CC, and eventual discoveries that were great to read but don't add much to the spectrum of SF ideas. It's the setting that does that.
Pay no attention to the cover, by the way. It should've been a representation of CC's 3D data matrix, not a ridiculous intimation of physical combat that didn't happen.
It's actually a typical extrapolation-from-the-present near-future SF world, in which financial-services veteran Shwartz contemplates what would happen if the whole world were dominated by that industry. More than it is now, that is. So much so that people are divided into three classes: the poor, stuffed into crime-ridden crowded "insulae" with only the thinnest thread of hope of escape; the wealthy, insulated from (but not immune to) financial risk; and the middle class, who live in fear of losing a job, falling into debt, and being shipped off to the asteroidal colonies in cryogenic suspension and to indentured servitude (or even involuntary organ donation).
The protagonist, CC, escaped from poverty into the middle class and lives in that fear (waking up multiple a week in sweating, terrified nightmares). The inevitable result of these circumstances, in which even a brilliant and creative analyst like CC could easily wind up on the garbage heap, is that the middle class salarymen behave pretty much like ferrets tied up in a sack. Apparently they are not really paid all that well, making it very hard for them to stay out of debt (and unable to save up for large expenses?), their credit ratings are monitored constantly for imprudent discretionary spending, and their behavior is expected to fall within rigid but unwritten lines at all times. Otherwise they get "downchecked" and if their fiscal and social credit ratings get too low, they'll suddenly become unemployable.
As I said, terrifying and infuriating. Shwartz makes CC's terror and determination very real - as well as her intelligence and serious research addiction (which endeared her to me considerably, of course).
The plot revolves around CC's audit of questionable activities at Vesta Colony, various attempted murders of CC, and eventual discoveries that were great to read but don't add much to the spectrum of SF ideas. It's the setting that does that.
Pay no attention to the cover, by the way. It should've been a representation of CC's 3D data matrix, not a ridiculous intimation of physical combat that didn't happen.
June 13, 2008
Action packed - though, hazrd to get started
April 22, 2015
Wall Street Meets Close Encounters
If you think Wall Street runs things now, wait until you see what they manage to do in the future. A taut mix of corporate chicanery and sci-fi.
If you think Wall Street runs things now, wait until you see what they manage to do in the future. A taut mix of corporate chicanery and sci-fi.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews