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Firstborn Saga #2
Mind Breach
A Mind Divided Cannot Stand
Tom Mandel is either a villain or a saint, depending on who you ask. He’s already died once in the fight for Unity. He’ll do it again if needed, but he’d rather it didn’t come to that. In the battle to come, however, he might not have much of a choice.
A mysterious imprint, grafted onto the mind of Division Agent Mika Frost, holds the key to stopping Tom Mandel and his terrorist cell, Castle. Survival means uncovering the secret hidden inside her own mind, before it’s too late. If she fails, Unity will fall. She won’t let that happen.
Unity sold a piece of its soul to survive the Dissolution. To survive what comes next, they'll have to sell the rest.
Tom Mandel is either a villain or a saint, depending on who you ask. He’s already died once in the fight for Unity. He’ll do it again if needed, but he’d rather it didn’t come to that. In the battle to come, however, he might not have much of a choice.
A mysterious imprint, grafted onto the mind of Division Agent Mika Frost, holds the key to stopping Tom Mandel and his terrorist cell, Castle. Survival means uncovering the secret hidden inside her own mind, before it’s too late. If she fails, Unity will fall. She won’t let that happen.
Unity sold a piece of its soul to survive the Dissolution. To survive what comes next, they'll have to sell the rest.
- GenresScience Fiction
450 pages, ebook
Published November 15, 2017
2 people are currently reading
19 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Vicino
13 books64 followersAnthony Vicino is the Amazon best-selling author of The Firstborn Saga (Time Heist and Mind Breach). His stories have been read by millions of fans the world over, having appeared in the hallowed halls of The Future Chronicles, the Hugo Award winning pages of SFSignal, and the locally-famous OneLazyRobot.com.
Anthony is a humble world-slinger just trying to keep his writing hand warm in the frozen tundra of Minneapolis, MN. When he isn’t shivering and/or sitting in front of a computer screen contemplating all the different ways his character might escape the asylum with nothing but a fork, a shoelace, and a whole lot of chutzpah, Anthony is probably in the mountains climbing a rock.
Vicino writes the sort of whizz, bang, boom science fiction that features characters getting themselves into (and then out of) death-defying scenarios with an over-abundance of snark and questionable decision making.
If that sounds like you’re cup of kombucha, then join the Lazy Robot Army mailing list (anthonyvicino.com/newsletter) and receive a FREE ebook.
In addition to fiction, Anthony writes book reviews, interviews some of the coolest SFF authors around, and gives general writing advice over at OneLazyRobot.com. Also, he’s a Top Writer at Medium in the categories of Productivity, Creativity, Psychology, and Inspiration.
JOIN THE LAZY ROBOT ARMY! The Lazy Robots are a slew of rabid fans spread across the globe. Join our ranks:
Join the mailing list (and receive a FREE ebook):
anthonyvicino.com/newsletter
Like Anthony on Facebook: facebook.com/advicino
Learn all about the books: AnthonyVicino.com
Anthony is a humble world-slinger just trying to keep his writing hand warm in the frozen tundra of Minneapolis, MN. When he isn’t shivering and/or sitting in front of a computer screen contemplating all the different ways his character might escape the asylum with nothing but a fork, a shoelace, and a whole lot of chutzpah, Anthony is probably in the mountains climbing a rock.
Vicino writes the sort of whizz, bang, boom science fiction that features characters getting themselves into (and then out of) death-defying scenarios with an over-abundance of snark and questionable decision making.
If that sounds like you’re cup of kombucha, then join the Lazy Robot Army mailing list (anthonyvicino.com/newsletter) and receive a FREE ebook.
In addition to fiction, Anthony writes book reviews, interviews some of the coolest SFF authors around, and gives general writing advice over at OneLazyRobot.com. Also, he’s a Top Writer at Medium in the categories of Productivity, Creativity, Psychology, and Inspiration.
JOIN THE LAZY ROBOT ARMY! The Lazy Robots are a slew of rabid fans spread across the globe. Join our ranks:
Join the mailing list (and receive a FREE ebook):
anthonyvicino.com/newsletter
Like Anthony on Facebook: facebook.com/advicino
Learn all about the books: AnthonyVicino.com
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 9, 2017
Nanobots, a stream of consciousness, hive mentality, high tech manipulation and the ability to be “re-born” after death. The battle lines for supremacy have been drawn, but are blurred and gray as technology melds with humanity and a caste system has evolved in all of its ugly glory. The closer you live to the surface, the more powerful you are. For those buried in the depths of the earth, they have become the forgotten, the banished.
One agent may hold the key to stopping Tom Mandel and his “terrorists.” Mika Frost died in a massive explosion, but her essence was sent into a world of bits and bytes, waiting to be retrieved and implanted in another body. She isn’t the first to “come back,” it wasn’t even her first time to die, but this time, something has changed, this time she has a deeply hidden agenda, an order that will come as if from her own mind, she will hold the key to destroying the Castle, and she must fight with everything she has to prevent that from happening. But how does she outwit the technology implanted in everyone’s minds and bodies? Who can she trust when each entity is monitored and the AI world is growing exponentially?
How does one know who the real enemy is? Does a grating personality or a ruthless demeanor make a person evil or is that just a façade to hide deep rooted truths? It may come down one final moment, one of pure human instinct, the human need for retribution, or perhaps perceived betrayals…but how does the human element triumph over the black and white world of technology when no one’s minds are private?
Enter the world of Anthony Vicino once again as he takes us deeper into his world of science fiction, where man and machine become integrated, while man becomes the pawn of the machine he created and the mind is no longer a unique and private place to go, where deaths can be manipulated to re-birth a more perfect specimen or destroy the greatest threats.
MIND BREACH is a fascinating, if dark journey into a world in crisis, one that threatens to remove all individuality by any means. Good versus evil? Yes, but this time set in an action-packed world unlike anything you have ever known. Razor sharp tension and an atmosphere of conflicted loyalties make this non-stop visit into a bleak future an incredible continuation of the Firstborn Saga.
I am voluntarily reviewing this complimentary ARC edition!
Series: Firstborn Saga - Book 2
Publisher: One Lazy Robot; 1 edition (November 15, 2017)
Publication Date: November 15, 2017
Genre: Science Fiction | Fantasy
Print Length: 362 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
For Reviews & More: http://tometender.blogspot.com
One agent may hold the key to stopping Tom Mandel and his “terrorists.” Mika Frost died in a massive explosion, but her essence was sent into a world of bits and bytes, waiting to be retrieved and implanted in another body. She isn’t the first to “come back,” it wasn’t even her first time to die, but this time, something has changed, this time she has a deeply hidden agenda, an order that will come as if from her own mind, she will hold the key to destroying the Castle, and she must fight with everything she has to prevent that from happening. But how does she outwit the technology implanted in everyone’s minds and bodies? Who can she trust when each entity is monitored and the AI world is growing exponentially?
How does one know who the real enemy is? Does a grating personality or a ruthless demeanor make a person evil or is that just a façade to hide deep rooted truths? It may come down one final moment, one of pure human instinct, the human need for retribution, or perhaps perceived betrayals…but how does the human element triumph over the black and white world of technology when no one’s minds are private?
Enter the world of Anthony Vicino once again as he takes us deeper into his world of science fiction, where man and machine become integrated, while man becomes the pawn of the machine he created and the mind is no longer a unique and private place to go, where deaths can be manipulated to re-birth a more perfect specimen or destroy the greatest threats.
MIND BREACH is a fascinating, if dark journey into a world in crisis, one that threatens to remove all individuality by any means. Good versus evil? Yes, but this time set in an action-packed world unlike anything you have ever known. Razor sharp tension and an atmosphere of conflicted loyalties make this non-stop visit into a bleak future an incredible continuation of the Firstborn Saga.
I am voluntarily reviewing this complimentary ARC edition!
Series: Firstborn Saga - Book 2
Publisher: One Lazy Robot; 1 edition (November 15, 2017)
Publication Date: November 15, 2017
Genre: Science Fiction | Fantasy
Print Length: 362 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
For Reviews & More: http://tometender.blogspot.com
November 16, 2017
Anthony is one of my favorite indie authors so I was very excited to get an ARC of this book. I’m torn on this review, I still love the style of the authors writing, though even that has changed in this book. I don’t mind the world, it’s interesting and is well expanded from the last book. The characters, ehhhh, I didn’t enjoy the multiple POV’s, I didn’t feel or care enough in the beginning to want to follow or hear everyone’s voice and found myself lost too often because of it. I found the story a bit too fractured at times and honestly got bored waiting for it all to come together. I think I desperately need a refresher from the first book.
Bottom line, Anthony is a brilliant author and I tend to love or hate his books. This is the first time I’m just underwhelmed. I’m going to go back and read Time Heist and then immediately read this and if I feel it should be done I will change my review. So right now I would say don’t go into this book without reading the first book and remembering what happened.
Bottom line, Anthony is a brilliant author and I tend to love or hate his books. This is the first time I’m just underwhelmed. I’m going to go back and read Time Heist and then immediately read this and if I feel it should be done I will change my review. So right now I would say don’t go into this book without reading the first book and remembering what happened.
November 16, 2017
*I received an Advance Reader Copy from the author in exchange for an honest review*
Mind Breach is the book I never thought I would get my hands on. At least for a while. Its author, in a move worthy of some of his characters, disappeared out of the digital world for the best part of a year, not long after a conversation where he told me he had a 120,000 word draft of the book almost ready to go. He resurfaced with the story of how the book nearly broke him a couple of months ago. I’ll open the review on a good note: it was truly worth the wait.
Let’s get one bugbear out of the way: it’s been so long since I read the first book that this one could really have done with a ‘What’s Gone Before’ section. Yes, I managed to jumpstart my brain without one, and I guess it shows that I enjoyed its prequel Time Heist enough that I was paying attention to the detail and characters, but it was rather like taking a refresher test of exams I took years ago and trying to jump straight to an A grade again. (Be kind next time, Anthony...give me a revision class in Unity 101!)
Two years ago, I opened my review of Time Heist by saying it was a clever book. Mind Breach excels it, but in a very different way. To start with, it’s an even pacier read. The chapters feel shorter (even though I don’t think they actually are) and the action simply sails effortlessly through one scene after another. The pace is always spot on, with no one moment dwelled in for too long even during the reflective sections.
To deepen everything, the ideas about what it means to choose sides in a confusing world that punctuated Time Heist between its almost relentless actions scenes go further here, with a number of engaging parallels being drawn between a now even larger set of characters. Hard to explain this without spoilers, but lets just say that there are certain one liners later in the book that strike these chords brilliantly, without stating the obvious to the reader. They’re just subtle hints to the reader, and then they’re gone again, pulling them back into the action.
Anthony Vicino’s writing style has improved. The sort of hyperbole in Time Heist which led to my comment about the author having never met a simile he didn’t like comes back at the start of this book, and then by the middle is dispensed with in a favour of a more certain, less exaggerated and yet more emotional narrative. But while in the action, there’s a chase scene in the middle that will rival anything you could go see on a cinema screen, and held my attention even more than Time Heist’s finest moments.
This is a book that seemed to be playing for the emotional core in a way that Time Heist lacked, and for a while I was torn between a four and a five star review because I wasn’t sure if it really succeeded in doing that for me. Many characters felt like real enough people and yet simultaneously pawns in a chess game I was supposed to care about more - the narrative still held my interest more than the people for a good 2/3 of the book. One character, Queen, seemed to exist just to irritate me. Another one, Joker, although very different from his Batman/Suicide Squad namesake, left me with a somewhat inescapable mental picture of him despite the differences. (The Castle characters do function on a certain level of understandably nuts, after all.) The characters who were supposed to be the most torn between sides, namely Mika Frost and Daniel Brandt, seemed conflicted and yet too resolute.
And then came the slight of hand that tipped this into five start territory. I can’t spoil it by going into much detail, but lets just say that one big development towards the 85% mark that I thought was going to leave me with a seriously sour taste in my mouth was then developed and pulled off in a way that made me give Mind Breach the benefit of the doubt. The book ends with the characters central to this twist still with unresolved issues that smack of threequel baiting, but it’s the best kind there is.
Oh yeah, and around the same time, there’s a superb bit of dialogue-backstory from one character which will linger in my memory for a long time. No spoilers, but I’m nicknaming it Anthony’s Haruki Murakami moment…anyone who’s read The Wind Up Bird Chronicle will know which part I mean when they get to it…spectacularly grim but this time with an SFF twist to go with the horror.
During my reading, I highlighted enough one-liners and loaded paragraphs to make me want to spend at least another couple of hours ransacking this book for themes. In a world where the truth in politics and the debates about social inequality are all the more important, it strikes a very deep chord and yet is never preachy or overtly political. It has its own brand of subtlety buried under a sea of relentless action that in a movie would perhaps take the focus, yet the book gives way to the heart beneath it.
Okay, let’s really blow the smoke then. I’ll dare say it: I read Neuromancer earlier this year and felt surprisingly uninspired by it. Reading Mind Breach made me finally work out why: it played for the emotional and political core and for me missed on both counts, no matter how well written it was or how it defined a genre at the time. Mind Breach succeeds for me where Neuromancer failed. If cyberpunk is sleepy rather than dead, then this is a book that I hope will wake it and its fans up.
Mind Breach is the book I never thought I would get my hands on. At least for a while. Its author, in a move worthy of some of his characters, disappeared out of the digital world for the best part of a year, not long after a conversation where he told me he had a 120,000 word draft of the book almost ready to go. He resurfaced with the story of how the book nearly broke him a couple of months ago. I’ll open the review on a good note: it was truly worth the wait.
Let’s get one bugbear out of the way: it’s been so long since I read the first book that this one could really have done with a ‘What’s Gone Before’ section. Yes, I managed to jumpstart my brain without one, and I guess it shows that I enjoyed its prequel Time Heist enough that I was paying attention to the detail and characters, but it was rather like taking a refresher test of exams I took years ago and trying to jump straight to an A grade again. (Be kind next time, Anthony...give me a revision class in Unity 101!)
Two years ago, I opened my review of Time Heist by saying it was a clever book. Mind Breach excels it, but in a very different way. To start with, it’s an even pacier read. The chapters feel shorter (even though I don’t think they actually are) and the action simply sails effortlessly through one scene after another. The pace is always spot on, with no one moment dwelled in for too long even during the reflective sections.
To deepen everything, the ideas about what it means to choose sides in a confusing world that punctuated Time Heist between its almost relentless actions scenes go further here, with a number of engaging parallels being drawn between a now even larger set of characters. Hard to explain this without spoilers, but lets just say that there are certain one liners later in the book that strike these chords brilliantly, without stating the obvious to the reader. They’re just subtle hints to the reader, and then they’re gone again, pulling them back into the action.
Anthony Vicino’s writing style has improved. The sort of hyperbole in Time Heist which led to my comment about the author having never met a simile he didn’t like comes back at the start of this book, and then by the middle is dispensed with in a favour of a more certain, less exaggerated and yet more emotional narrative. But while in the action, there’s a chase scene in the middle that will rival anything you could go see on a cinema screen, and held my attention even more than Time Heist’s finest moments.
This is a book that seemed to be playing for the emotional core in a way that Time Heist lacked, and for a while I was torn between a four and a five star review because I wasn’t sure if it really succeeded in doing that for me. Many characters felt like real enough people and yet simultaneously pawns in a chess game I was supposed to care about more - the narrative still held my interest more than the people for a good 2/3 of the book. One character, Queen, seemed to exist just to irritate me. Another one, Joker, although very different from his Batman/Suicide Squad namesake, left me with a somewhat inescapable mental picture of him despite the differences. (The Castle characters do function on a certain level of understandably nuts, after all.) The characters who were supposed to be the most torn between sides, namely Mika Frost and Daniel Brandt, seemed conflicted and yet too resolute.
And then came the slight of hand that tipped this into five start territory. I can’t spoil it by going into much detail, but lets just say that one big development towards the 85% mark that I thought was going to leave me with a seriously sour taste in my mouth was then developed and pulled off in a way that made me give Mind Breach the benefit of the doubt. The book ends with the characters central to this twist still with unresolved issues that smack of threequel baiting, but it’s the best kind there is.
Oh yeah, and around the same time, there’s a superb bit of dialogue-backstory from one character which will linger in my memory for a long time. No spoilers, but I’m nicknaming it Anthony’s Haruki Murakami moment…anyone who’s read The Wind Up Bird Chronicle will know which part I mean when they get to it…spectacularly grim but this time with an SFF twist to go with the horror.
During my reading, I highlighted enough one-liners and loaded paragraphs to make me want to spend at least another couple of hours ransacking this book for themes. In a world where the truth in politics and the debates about social inequality are all the more important, it strikes a very deep chord and yet is never preachy or overtly political. It has its own brand of subtlety buried under a sea of relentless action that in a movie would perhaps take the focus, yet the book gives way to the heart beneath it.
Okay, let’s really blow the smoke then. I’ll dare say it: I read Neuromancer earlier this year and felt surprisingly uninspired by it. Reading Mind Breach made me finally work out why: it played for the emotional and political core and for me missed on both counts, no matter how well written it was or how it defined a genre at the time. Mind Breach succeeds for me where Neuromancer failed. If cyberpunk is sleepy rather than dead, then this is a book that I hope will wake it and its fans up.
December 2, 2017
Mind Breach is the sequel to Vicino’s Time Heist, and if you read Heist, you know just how captivating and exceptional this story was.
A world set in the future, in which humanity has gotten so out of control that it has been limited by life trackers, each human implanted with a device that gives you a certain amount of time to live, literally, and time is now currency. When it hits zero, you die. Everyone is connected to a kind of Internet called ‘The Stream’ but of such a different quality, it is like comparing dial up to broadband. They connect through a small implant called a nanocomp. The world itself is incredibly reminiscent of Bladerunner, with its futuristic city, a wealthy elitist section, and a grimy underworld for those that have failed and are barely hanging on.
At the end of Time Heist, Tom’s world had been shattered. Raines is dead, Diana is an imprint on someone else’s mind, and is possibly alive, and Malcolm is not the enemy. We also learn that there is a constant war going on between Adam and Eve, sentient AIs that developed in the Stream. Adam came first, who developed Eve later.
They in turn, created the Intuits.
The complexity of the world building in this story is unbelievable, Vicino has created this totally stunning, and fascinating place where the Tech is transcendent and spectacular, and the Character work is just so skilful, so exceptionally well written, that you will become completely engaged with each of these people.
In Mind Breach, the war has escalated, and Unity has split into Adams camp, led by Brandt and Eve’s camp, led by Castle. The Castle agents are these amazing set of Intuits who have been ramped up over the top of the normal Intuit, Queen who has the ability to manipulate people psychologically, but is a total mess herself. Cedar who is a ‘Ghost’, able to use her abilities to disappear through manipulating people’s senses and nanocomp’s, but, at the same time, all she wants is to be able to disappear. Then there is one of the best characters in the book, Deuce. Deuce is this walking mountain, part cyborg, but with a broken nanocomp, and able to pull the arms off of a bear like a child might a fly, but with a heart like a 3yr old girl. Deuce also seems to have the ability to be able to understand everyone better than they do themselves. Remember the Green Mile by Stephen King, John Coffey, only not spelt the same, this is what Deuce reminded me of, only bigger.
Lou returns, and is only more dangerous than ever, his character is utterly magnificent in the sequel, so slick if you dipped him in the ocean he would be an unprecedented ecological disaster, but at the same time so lethal a wrong look and you are dead before you have realised what has happened.
The other outstanding character is Mika, an agent of Brandt’s, but who has been left with an imprint of Diana on her mind, so is slowly losing her mind as Diana’s imprint takes over. The psychological unravelling, Mika’s own personal demons, as well as her struggle with the war and where she fits in is a truly powerful component in this story. This section of the story alone makes it worth reading, let alone all the rest.
Mind Breach was a lot more defined as far as characters went than Time Heist, with multiple storylines leading you through this breathtaking Bladerunner style world. This did not detract at all from the story though, as each of these Character’s stories interweaves with the others, allowing for the story to unfold before you, each section filling in a little bit more as we uncover more of the war for Unity.
One of the really outstanding things about this book is the writing. Vicino is a truly gifted artist when it comes to writing. This is an easy book to read, as the writing and the word play are just so elegant, with such beautiful language and prose, each of the sentences weaving into the next to tell the tale of what is ultimately a war of good vs evil for the hearts and souls of those that live in Unity. Vicino’s writing will leave you utterly spellbound as you move through the story. He is easily one of the best writers I have read.
This is a truly exceptional book, and is a stunning successor to Time Heist. The series is outstanding, and is just for anyone who is after an exceptional read. Make sure you don’t miss this and Time Heist and Part 3 – Soul State when it is released in 2018.
A world set in the future, in which humanity has gotten so out of control that it has been limited by life trackers, each human implanted with a device that gives you a certain amount of time to live, literally, and time is now currency. When it hits zero, you die. Everyone is connected to a kind of Internet called ‘The Stream’ but of such a different quality, it is like comparing dial up to broadband. They connect through a small implant called a nanocomp. The world itself is incredibly reminiscent of Bladerunner, with its futuristic city, a wealthy elitist section, and a grimy underworld for those that have failed and are barely hanging on.
At the end of Time Heist, Tom’s world had been shattered. Raines is dead, Diana is an imprint on someone else’s mind, and is possibly alive, and Malcolm is not the enemy. We also learn that there is a constant war going on between Adam and Eve, sentient AIs that developed in the Stream. Adam came first, who developed Eve later.
They in turn, created the Intuits.
The complexity of the world building in this story is unbelievable, Vicino has created this totally stunning, and fascinating place where the Tech is transcendent and spectacular, and the Character work is just so skilful, so exceptionally well written, that you will become completely engaged with each of these people.
In Mind Breach, the war has escalated, and Unity has split into Adams camp, led by Brandt and Eve’s camp, led by Castle. The Castle agents are these amazing set of Intuits who have been ramped up over the top of the normal Intuit, Queen who has the ability to manipulate people psychologically, but is a total mess herself. Cedar who is a ‘Ghost’, able to use her abilities to disappear through manipulating people’s senses and nanocomp’s, but, at the same time, all she wants is to be able to disappear. Then there is one of the best characters in the book, Deuce. Deuce is this walking mountain, part cyborg, but with a broken nanocomp, and able to pull the arms off of a bear like a child might a fly, but with a heart like a 3yr old girl. Deuce also seems to have the ability to be able to understand everyone better than they do themselves. Remember the Green Mile by Stephen King, John Coffey, only not spelt the same, this is what Deuce reminded me of, only bigger.
Lou returns, and is only more dangerous than ever, his character is utterly magnificent in the sequel, so slick if you dipped him in the ocean he would be an unprecedented ecological disaster, but at the same time so lethal a wrong look and you are dead before you have realised what has happened.
The other outstanding character is Mika, an agent of Brandt’s, but who has been left with an imprint of Diana on her mind, so is slowly losing her mind as Diana’s imprint takes over. The psychological unravelling, Mika’s own personal demons, as well as her struggle with the war and where she fits in is a truly powerful component in this story. This section of the story alone makes it worth reading, let alone all the rest.
Mind Breach was a lot more defined as far as characters went than Time Heist, with multiple storylines leading you through this breathtaking Bladerunner style world. This did not detract at all from the story though, as each of these Character’s stories interweaves with the others, allowing for the story to unfold before you, each section filling in a little bit more as we uncover more of the war for Unity.
One of the really outstanding things about this book is the writing. Vicino is a truly gifted artist when it comes to writing. This is an easy book to read, as the writing and the word play are just so elegant, with such beautiful language and prose, each of the sentences weaving into the next to tell the tale of what is ultimately a war of good vs evil for the hearts and souls of those that live in Unity. Vicino’s writing will leave you utterly spellbound as you move through the story. He is easily one of the best writers I have read.
This is a truly exceptional book, and is a stunning successor to Time Heist. The series is outstanding, and is just for anyone who is after an exceptional read. Make sure you don’t miss this and Time Heist and Part 3 – Soul State when it is released in 2018.
December 19, 2017
Enjoyable read. I like the setting of this world, with it's cyberpunky despots and casual electronic reincarnations. I also like the prose. It's become leaner (yeah for the restrained use of really fun metaphors!) than the first installment. I do think I need to re-read the first one, however. I kept grasping to remember who people were. This may have been exacerbated by the sheer number of viewpoint characters (not to mention two viewpoints within the same person). It's a challenge for a writer to make everyone's voice unique and at times, the voices blurred, and I forgot who I was following. Despite that, I did care for these people (or their somewhat blended personality gestalt). The diverse relationships were largely tragic, and the writing does hit you in the feels. Perhaps someone, anyone, will get their heart's desire in the next installment? Looking forward to the larger scale story hinted at by the end of the novel.
July 23, 2018
A devastatingly great read!
A lot going on here, and I’ll be honest, it took me several chapters to jog my memory (it had been about 6 months since I read the first in the series, Time Heist). Had some trouble remembering the sides, the characters, and the setting. Once I got through that confusion, the book really flew.
The character work was outstanding. Even though there were a lot of characters, and many of them new, I found it quite easy to identify and sympathize with various points of view. A testament to the author’s work.
One of my favorite reads of the year.
Oh, and the author provided me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review. That did NOT influence what I wrote about the book.
I am eager for the next installment, and will drop whatever other book I’m reading to pick it up when it comes out. I’m hoping it will have wide distribution (i.e., not just Amazon).
A lot going on here, and I’ll be honest, it took me several chapters to jog my memory (it had been about 6 months since I read the first in the series, Time Heist). Had some trouble remembering the sides, the characters, and the setting. Once I got through that confusion, the book really flew.
The character work was outstanding. Even though there were a lot of characters, and many of them new, I found it quite easy to identify and sympathize with various points of view. A testament to the author’s work.
One of my favorite reads of the year.
Oh, and the author provided me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review. That did NOT influence what I wrote about the book.
I am eager for the next installment, and will drop whatever other book I’m reading to pick it up when it comes out. I’m hoping it will have wide distribution (i.e., not just Amazon).
February 3, 2018
An all around excellent book. Definitely different from the first book. I think I liked the first book a little better. We lose some of the detective driven, redemption seeking, visceral feel that Time Heist gave us. In this book we have an all out war with multiple view points, betrayal, treachery and then, like in the first book, a twist you don't see coming which makes the book about so much more. There's still plenty of action with more of a puzzle, because you think you know what the goal is, now it's just a matter of seeing how all these people come together to make that happen. Then you realize that what you thought you knew is just a fraction of what's happening in this book. Can't wait to read the next one!
September 21, 2018
Mind Breach followed on smoothly from Time Heist with similar fast-paced action in this complicated futuristic world, where advanced technology has limited people's life spans to save scarce resources.
There were numerous interweaving plots to follow as our characters struggled to help their friends and fight to free their world from its oppressors. Throughout this journey the dialogue was often witty and engaging, accompanied at times by strong emotional scenes as the plots came together in powerful conclusions.
Vicino seems to effortlessly bring his imaginative cyber-tech world to life and I am now eagerly looking forward to his next sequel !
There were numerous interweaving plots to follow as our characters struggled to help their friends and fight to free their world from its oppressors. Throughout this journey the dialogue was often witty and engaging, accompanied at times by strong emotional scenes as the plots came together in powerful conclusions.
Vicino seems to effortlessly bring his imaginative cyber-tech world to life and I am now eagerly looking forward to his next sequel !
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews