Crossover [Paperback]

Cassandra Kresnov -- or April Cassidy, as she'd like to be known, on
Callay -- is a high-grade replicant, a GI super-soldier of the League.
Well, ex-League now, or so she devoutly hopes. Ordinary GI's --
artificial humans, with enhanced strength and reflexes -- aren't all
that smart, it turns out. Cassandra is an experiment -- what if we
make a GI who's really *human*, as best we can, and see what
happens.....

What happens is, Cassandra wants out....

This is an absorbing exploration of what it means to be human, as seen
through the eyes of a defecting super-soldier, who's really, really
sick of war, and just wants to settle down, get a job, get a *life*
-- and have sex. *Lots* of sex. Cassandra "liked sex when she was
happy, and sex when she was sad, and, most particularly, sex when she
was uptight or frustrated."

What she gets, instead, is disassembly by agents of the FIA, a last
minute rescue by the CSA, a bogged-down court-case and a political
hardball-match. With Sandy as the football. The impasse is broken when
Dark Star, her old League outfit, raids Callay to assassinate their
President. By chance, Sandy is nearby, and saves the President's life.
Which is, after all, a time-tested way to make an ally....

Influences: well, the Federation vs. League is pretty clearly
Cherryh's Union vs. Alliance, though a shorter-span conflict and less
subtly done. The political setup is quite deft, really, particularly
for a first novel -- in fact, this is an amazingly accomplished first
novel -- a first-rate novel, period. Sandy herself -- well, ol' Bob's
FRIDAY certainly comes to mind.

Shepherd is a fine storyteller, and I got misty-eyed more than once
over the hard row Cassandra K. has to hoe. Highly recommended. First
of a trilogy, and I'll be reading on. This one, thankfully, is nicely
self-contained. PYR is to be commended for bringing this 1999-2001
Australian novel to US readers.

PYR is to be faulted for failing to wield an editor's blue pencil on
Crossover. At 457 pp., it would have benefitted from cutting by (say)
100 pages, and would have been a tighter and better book. You'll have
to do the cutting, mentally, yourself. Sigh.

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman

This was a great book! The other reviews cover the plot well and point out the stylistic flaws well. I don't want to get as detailed. If you've read Heinlein's Friday then I think you'll appreciate this book. Our main character is cool, she's indestructible, she's clever, witty and likes to engage in a lot of sexual activity (read *ultimate male fantasy*). I found the sexual proclivity, prowess and talent of this android a little heavy handed but hey, it's science fiction and male authored. She's a little too perfect. There is nothing about her that really sets up the debate about her existence unless it is her very perfection but that wouldn't apply to all GIs as it does in the novel. The previous review mentioned the errors and stylistic flaws in the first chapter and I would concur. It made me a little nervous as I bought the book based on Amazon reviews. It turned out alright though. Slog through the first chapter, read it and know that the author is trying to set the scene, describe his heroine, and familiarize the reader with the city.

The techno babble distanced one from the story a bit; I didn't get enough explanation to really make it clear. Some of the detail and description was gratuitous and superfluous but at times, really adding to the story.
I like that some questions were left unanswered. It wasn't a neatly packaged story. It left room for thought.

Overall I enjoyed the book, was eager to return to it and would recommend it to any sci-fi lover. I loved the multi-ethnic cast! I loved that the commanders and sympathetic characters were female! Good show, Mr. Shepard!

I think the bold print on the back of the book says it best:

MEET CASSANDRA KRESNOV. SOLDIER. LOVER. FIGHTER. PASSIONATE. COMPLETELY ARTIFICIAL.

There's a lot to like in Joel Shepherd's debut novel. I'd say it's a cross between the television shows Alias and the new Battlestar Galactica, but that would be simplifying it a bit, despite the similar elements. This book is a political, science fictional thriller with a close examination on what truly makes a person human. And there's plenty of intricate setting detail, as well as a multi-ethnic cast that should intrigue anyone reading.

One of the most appealing aspects to this book, for me personally, was the characterization of Cassandra Kresnov, Vanessa Rice, and the human relationships that played out, especially between these two women. Shepherd has a knack for capturing the human spirit--there are pages when the naturalness of the dialogue just bleeds off the page. Shepherd also has a knack for humor and creating individual character voices.

Cassandra is certainly sympathetic. Despite the fact she's synthetically made, and the most dangerous GI ever built (a hunter-killer model), this is a woman who is seeking what it means to live a normal life and to enjoy life's many pleasures. And even when her past catches up with her, and she's forced back into a role that she was created for, Cassandra remains the strongest and most sympathetic character in the book. Her story is definitely the most fascinating, her emotions the ones that grabbed me the most. In fact, I personally wish this book had been written solely from her point of view. But that would've been incredibly difficult due to the scope of the story and the fact that there are some scenes where her point of view wouldn't be reliable.

There's also some interesting science fictional world-building to this. Example: Vanessa is a woman who alternates between a heterosexual cycle and a homosexual cycle every five years. That one detail is wonderfully intriguing and telling about the future in which these characters live. I also liked how, despite the advanced technology of this planet, that there are still "holdovers," like paperback books. I don't care about the logic of this, because Shepherd sets up political systems where, according to one ideology, history and culture is welcomed and not shunned in the face of increasingly advanced technology.

I did have some stylistic issues with this, some of them being indicative of a debut writer: there's lots of telling, lots of info-dumping (though I really don't know how on earth you can convey so much info by showing, because that'd make the book twice as long), an excessive use of pronouns instead of names and an excessive use of fragments, the latter which I normally like but had a problem with here. Also, in the first chapter, we get the things that workshop-powers-that-be say writers should never do: open a story with someone waking up, and describing that individual via use of a mirror. Oops? Clearly, these aren't hard and fast rules, cause after all, plenty of writers do this and they, like Shepherd, are published. But the first chapter was a bit slow, and while it sets up the world and a nice contrast for what Cassandra is trying to do with her life, there could've been more exciting ways to start the piece. Oh well. Once you get past the first chapter, the book moves at a good pace, and I'll note that chapter two is not for the squeamish. :)

So despite my stylistic issues, the book was a fun, easy read. Something I can definitely recommend to people (if you like fast-paced, complex politics and technologies with a human core for stories, you'll like this), and I look forward to reading the next book. This is a promising start to what could be a really fun series. And I think that now that Shepherd has his world and characters under his belt, we're going to see some interesting stuff in the second book.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 29 reviews  4.1 out of 5 stars