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Hostile Takeover Don’t read this if you might read the book – D.E. Wray – Tokyo
Ms. Shwartz’ “Hostile Takeover” suffers from many of the flaws pointed out in the other reviews. The most astute of the reviews (by Jonathan A. Turner) points out what makes it an unsatisfying read (that most of the story is not explicit where it should be); I can add to this that where Shwartz does hint at the analyses main character CC Williams does there are several hints that Shwartz does not really understand either how analysts function vis-a-vis everyday activities or what tools they use to do their work.
I can add that (as M.D. Womack pointed out), the writing is difficult to follow at times, with flashbacks longer than the action at present inserted into the middle of several episodes. Shwartz also continually needlessly reminds readers of events they had read just a score of pages before and relies overmuch on a particular form of inappropriate metaphor. My guess as I scrambled through the pages that “Hostile Takeover” was edited down in a rush from a much longer manuscript.
The only thing I found interesting about the book was that it is not actually science fiction at all: it’s a romance-mystery that happens to be set in the kind of milieu usually associated with science fiction: imagine a Harlequin romance written in noir style set on one of the soundstages used for Star Trek, and you’ve pretty much got the flavor of the novel.
That being the only interesting thing about the novel, I couldn’t imagine recommending this to anyone except an academic interested in genre conventions.
I *LIKE* this book!
I like reading books about people making or handling huge sums of money. (Ugly Americans by Ben Mezrich comes to mind.) I like books in which the protagonist wins against bad odds. Shwartz has created an interesting world in which one must move deftly through social/business situations in which missing the slightest nuance of speech, look, or body language can screw up one’s permanent record, and it doesn’t take much to lose big and have one’s body sold for parts. The extrapolation of today’s corporate culture saddled with today’s liberal, politically-correct speech censorship carried to its extreme make an interesting venue in which to live and work. I did find this similar to Heinlein with a touch of EE Doc Smith’s space opera. Schwartz made one short reference to CC’s thought patterns which reminded me of both Horatio Hornblower pacing the ship’s deck for hours and Van Gulik’s Judge Dee angrily pacing the room while forming a plan of action: “… she’d always tried to imagine tricky situations and how she’d deal with them.”
I hope Schwartz brings CC back to show what the aliens have been teaching her since she and Marc went off with them.
: Caroline Cassandra Williams is on the fast track and determined to stay there. A financial analyst in one of the mega-global corporates she’s stayed one step ahead of her enemies to keep from losing her place as a valued salaryman — and two steps in front of those colleagues who would grind her down in a nanosecond to reach the next rung of economic freedom. Even though she’s clawed her way out of the insulae, where working poor are warehoused, she keeps herself grimly focused with nightmares of losing her job. Or being frozen into a shipsicle and shipped to the Outer Rim as an expendable drudge. Or — worst case –going bankrupt and dying slowly as the authorities harvest her limbs and other body parts.
When the multiplanetary company she works for sends CC to audit Vesta Colony to learn why assets keep hemorrhaging away, she knows this is her big chance to make the Ultimate Career Move. Assuming she gets the facts and pins the crooked trades and any other crimes she finds on someone or a bunch of someones she can turn in with a clear conscience, she can go home first class, collect her fiancé and a fat bonus, then march down the aisle in a perfectly event-planned wedding into a prosperous-ever-after twin career track. She’s already even planned vacations with their children-to-come at the theme parks on Easter Island, the cofferdams surrounding Disney World, and the Gobi Dinosaur Pavilions. If CC succeeds, she’s set for the rest of her life.
But Vesta turns out to be unlike anything CC has ever seen, and the deeper she delves, the more twisted things get until her life — not to mention her career — hangs in the balance. As plots expose more plots, CC finds herself confronting not just possible insider trading and fraud, but attempted murder. Who’s at fault? She’s got a colony of suspects, including old friends, old rivals and a dashing EarthServ pilot who knows a whole lot more about CC and her worlds than he’s letting on and shows signs of being able to shake them — and her will-power — any time he wants.
Someone among the analysts, traders, EarthServ, and retired diplomats CC meets is hatching a deadly merger with the potential not just to crash the Solar System’s economy, but wipe out humankind. Will CC find out in time — or will the takeover she fears turn not just hostile, but deadly?
Hostile Takeover
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