I'm unaware of any other
authors who are doing what S. L. Huang has done with her Cas Russell
series, but I'd love to read them if they're out there, because she
leaves you wanting more. Null Set is definitely a middle book, bridging
between Zero Sum Game and the next book, with a cliffhanger ending that
for once I do not mind. I also don't mind that I can't think of other
books to compare this to—only movies. If you like superhero movies,
Chinese martial arts movies, and movies like The Matrix and The Fifth
Element, you'll definitely be into this dark, gritty futuristic thriller
and its gifted and violent anti-heroine. If you can imagine superheroes
on steroids, if you dig movies like John Wick and Fast and Furious,
that's when you enter S. L. Huang territory.
Read
Zero Sum Game first; it takes a while to remember how the first book
made you sympathize with Cas; she's an antihero because she's not very
likeable, but you root for her anyway, like her friends do. You get
little character studies in the action between the action, but you are
dropped full tilt into the current situation. Cas can calculate angles
so quickly that she can shoot, sprint, jump and punch her way out of
most dangerous situations. She and her pals are on the track of and on
the run from the evil future corporation that messes around with
people's heads, commits the occasional assassination trying to make the
world a better place—their way. Hunters and hunted at the same time,
perfect action movie plot.
It's
really a gift to be able to put a movie on the page like this, to have
just enough depth amidst heart-pounding suspense, enough detail but not
drown the reader, enough rush for picky readers to not notice any
discrepancies. Huang has taken her film and stunt experience and made it
work in novel form. Most attempts at writing for adrenaline junkies
fail; these books succeed. I am half "give me the next book now" and
half "cliffhanger? Never said this before, but ok, maybe in 6 months to a
year my heart can take it."
Highly recommended for action fans and adrenaline junkies.
(I received an advanced electronic copy for review, thanks to Netgalley and the publisher.)
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