My Blurb: When Grif Vindh and his crew pull into the Tylaris system to celebrate after pulling off an impossible heist, all hands begin dreaming of what they’ll do next. But the one thing nobody expected was that they’d have to go back and do it all over again. And worse: this time, the mark knows they’re coming.
My Review: If you told me that Mike Resnick was going to adapt The Sting, and set it in space, this is the book I’d expect him to deliver. Quite simply, it’s one of the best indie books I’ve ever read – and I’ve read hundreds. The only blight on the entire experience was the odd choices for title and cover art. Once you’ve read the book, the title makes perfect sense, as it’s a reference to a running gag in the story, but it sets entirely the wrong tone for what the story is actually about, which is probably causing a lot of potential readers to skip on past it. And the cover art, while professional looking, fails to convey the frenetic drama of the grown up action adventure that lies inside. (IMO, Resnick’s covers offer much better examples of how this kind of story should be packaged.)
But ignoring the issues of packaging, if you like cocky heroes, witty banter, a fast moving plot, and enough twists to braid a yak, then your reading list is incomplete until you’ve put this one on it.
Have you joined the critics list on iDreamBooks? That website is like a Rotten Tomatoes site for books.
Good question, Efrain. The short answer is, “No. I haven’t joined the list.” The longer answer is that I don’t think it would be fair to judge an entire book from the very limited focus of my IOD reviews. A normal book review would be an assessment of the entire book, whereas I’m only examining the immersive qualities of the first few dozen pages. I fear it would be like writing movie reviews based on the trailer.