Published: Feb. 17, 2012
Words: 101,820 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9781927134641

Short description

Hercules is a pilot for Pantheon Consulting undercover in the mines of Hades following a lead on a genetically altering serum. And it also brings him into close contact with Rosalind, a clerk the mine boss has tagged as his. She’s held onto her pride, working to free people Gulden would rather see disappear. Together they flee the mine and Hades determined to help those left behind.

Extended description

Hercules is a pilot for Pantheon Consulting undercover in the mines of Hades following a lead on a genetically altering serum. An accident gives him the opportunity to witness firsthand the miraculous healing properties of the serum, but it also brings him into close contact with Rosalind Bonet, a requisitions clerk the mine boss has tagged as his personal property – a woman Hercules can’t ignore.

Rosalind has been trapped in the endless twilight of the mine for five years, enduring Carmon Gulden’s fists, insults and occasional rape. She’s held onto her pride, working in the shadows to free people Gulden would rather see disappear. Her mission gives her the strength to endure the horrors inflicted on her, but keeping her sister free and safe is her biggest fear.

Bound together against a common enemy, they flee the mine and Hades determined to help those left behind. But can passion born of fledgling trust survive the war to come?

Tags

espionage, mining, hightech

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Reviews

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Review by: Francis Porretto on Nov. 19, 2012 :
As with "Pantheon," "Hades" exhibits both auctorial gifts and unrealized potential. However, the reasons are different.

"Hades's" protagonists Herc/Daniel and Rosalind are appealing in their respective ways. Given that this is fairly obviously an SF/romance after the fashion of Linnea Sinclair, the reader knows right off the starting line that the two are "meant for one another." That does eliminate a potential source of dramatic tension, but given the nature of this sub-genre, I can't see how it could be avoided.

The writing is competent...with exceptions. On the "macro" level, quite a few of the similes and other devices feel tacked-on, as if the author were straining to "write like a writer." In particular, the sex scenes are rather purple and would have been more tasteful if less in-your-face. On the "micro" level, you're still glued to that participial-lead-in pattern, which makes your prose avoidably repetitive. ("Repetition is the enemy of entertainment." -- Me) Also, there are a number of avoidable misspellings and homonym errors.

Where I find the novel least satisfying is in the realm of evocation. You've obviously got a complex backstory in mind for this series. Look at all the things it must cover:
-- The terraforming of Titan, Hades, and no doubt other bits of the Solar System;
-- The emergence of a supra-national, supra-planetary government;
-- The existence of at least one large corporation that can use means normally reserved to a government (i.e., coercive force) to achieve its ends and its clients' ends;
-- Instantaneous communication between places separated by several light-minutes;
-- Technologies that support hover-flight of a fixed-wing aircraft, advanced genetic engineering, swift intrasystem transport sufficiently inexpensive to make it feasible to mine some worlds for the sake of others, and other things.

Now, given that the rule in SF is DON'T EXPLAIN, it would be a serious mistake were any (or all) of those things to receive a complete, detailed exploration in the book. But evocative references to them -- asides about "how it was before" or "how it came to be" embedded in the central narrative or the characters' dialogue -- would have given the story a greater depth than it currently possesses.

And yet...and yet. It's imaginative, generally well plotted and controlled, offers the reader attractive characters and the sort of bittersweet tensions characteristic of SF/romance, and continues a backdrop begun in "Pantheon" that offers considerable appeal and many possibilities. I just can't downrate it...but please, please take the comments above SERIOUSLY!
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

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