The Vastalimi Gambit

By Steve Perry

ISBN# 9780425256633

Author’s Website:  http://www.soulofacarp.com/sperry/

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Sammy

*Beware of Spoilers*

Synopsis:

At the close of the twenty-fourth century, a series of revolutions has caused the galaxy to descend into chaos. With the Galactic Union Army stretched thin, mercenary units have arisen for those who have the need—and the means—to hire them. 

Kay, the alien member of the Cutter Force Initiative, has returned to her brutal home world of Vast on a mission of mercy. Before she joined the merc team, she was a great healer. And now her skills are sorely needed. Hundreds of Vastalimi—including her blood-kin—are dying mysteriously.

But is the plague a work of nature? Or is it a bioengineered virus, purposefully unleashed? Kay and Doc Wink will have to find out the hard way.

With the Cutter Force light-years away, the two find the odds against them—and on a planet like Vast, where violence abounds and life is cheap, they may be facing a foe they can’t defeat.

Review:

Steve Perry is an awesome writer and I have read many of his stories (all 5stars) so I’m really sad to say that this story was such a disappointment, it felt and read like someone else wrote it. The quote on page one grabbed me in, it’s one of my favorites:

 “If you look long enough into the Void, the Void begins to look back through you. -Friedrich Nietzsche 

This doesn’t even connect to the story for me. Then the prologue pulled me in more, first part of chapter 1 even more, then it jumped to something else and I got a bit confused, still interesting but it wasn’t smoothly done. This whole book felt like reading two different stories and appeared not to have much in common other than the characters all worked together at some point. I have read books that do this and somehow have a connection that finished it off in a perfectly fit together puzzle. Not here. There were things that would sound really interesting, but would go nowhere.

The mystery part of this story was sooooooo slow that I got a bit bored with it. No progress made and then at the end of the story it was just there, no build up. Very odd.

Much of the  dialog was dull or trying to be funny. The buddy jokes got old and kept coming. Things were not clear throughout the story. It was so upsetting because the premise of this book could have been awesome, if only the author would have stuck to one story. The medical mystery should have had its own story without jumping back and forth to the part which again had nothing to do with what I considered the main part of the story.

Sometimes when reading a story it will go back and forth perhaps every other chapter not this one it would jump in the middle of a chapter. I’d have to go and reread because I thought I had missed something important.

The ending seriously???? The two main characters have sex and then Wink wonders if he can get another member to have sex for a threesome, because he had already had sex with her at some earlier date, it felt like it was thrown in as an after thought to add some sex.

With all that said the writing in some parts was done very well.  Would I recommend this book? Not really. I know it’s the first book in a series, so  much of the negative things, could just be the curse of the 1st book in a new series. Perhaps some, but definitely not all of the issues.

Since this is an author that I have loved in the past I will probably read one more book in this series, just to see and hope it grabs me throughout the  whole story.