Shattered Minds

Pros: diverse cast, interesting plot

Cons: minimal world-building

Carina is a zeal addict, living her life plugged into her dreams where she slowly kills virtual people. When a former co-worker uploads coded packets of information into her brain that will help take down her previous employer, she's not sure she's capable of sobering up and not becoming a monster in the real world.

This book is set in the same world as the author's previous novel, False Hearts. While some characters overlap, Shattered Minds works perfectly on its own.

Carina's a fascinating character. Having information tied to her memories was a clever idea, and allowed for some great development. I was surprised by how much I liked her considering she had very little emotion, had constant urges to kill, and spent the first part of the book heavily addicted. But then, I also enjoyed seeing the world from Roz's point of view, and she's a pretty terrible person. Her scenes didn't make me relate to her at all, but sometime's its nice to read about bad guys who are truly evil.

The cast is pretty diverse with one character a native american trans man, which isn't something you read often. Dax was probably my favourite character, considerate, competent, cool under pressure.

I had mixed feelings about the romantic elements of the book. I liked the pairing, and the text makes it clear that the two find each other attractive. But given Carina's inability to feel anything other than pleasure at the thought of killing, I didn't really get the gut feeling that she was even capable of any kind of intimate relationship. I appreciated that things moved slowly, but there was one scene that felt like it happened too early and so didn't give the emotional satisfaction that it should have. At this point they knew each other better but still didn't have the emotional connection such a scene requires. Oddly enough, had the author waited a bit, there was a place where I think that would have fit better.

While I felt the author knew how this world worked, there were times when it would have helped to understand more of what makes Pacifica tick. Towards the end of the book there's a throwaway comment about the potential consequences of taking down Sudice, of how society could unravel because the company's tied into so many things. This would have been good to bring up earlier. In fact, the comment states that the group has discussed this issue, though the reader never sees any of these discussions. It's a failure of world-building because as a readier I didn't realize the full import of the company they want to bring down and that the Trust's actions might not be as black and white as they're being portrayed. Knowing what Sudice does, and how the world would be impacted would have added more depth and complexity to the characters, and the show how difficult the decision they're making really is.

The book is paced well so there's a good mix of action and down time. The mystery of what Roz is doing and how the Trust can take her down is quite entertaining, and there are a good number of twists to keep things interesting.

On the whole I enjoyed the book.