Ocean of Fear: A geeky thriller that I could not put down

Author Helen Hanson describes her writing as “thrillers for geeks”

There’s a certain geek factor in all thrillers. Many thriller authors write loving descriptions of cars, guns, bullets, bombs, or bullets. I have read several descriptions by different authors about how a bullet bounces around inside a skull and precisely what it does to a human brain.

But I actually enjoyed the geek factor in Ocean of Fear. Hanson made the geeky-technical aspects integral not only to the plot, but also to one of the main characters. 

What makes a good thriller?

To make a thrill, an author needs to build tension. The readers have to care enough about the characters and believe the situation enough to say “Oh no, don’t do that! You shouldn’t have done that!”

When the tension snaps, the author has to surprise you. It’s not a thrill when you know what’s going to happen

There are a lot of those moments in Ocean of Fear.

Plot points

Like any good thriller, Ocean of Fear begins with a murder. Baxter Cruise (character names are not this author’s strong suit), a grad-school dropout turned email spammer, discovers UC Santa Cruz professor, Dr. Allesandra Bisch, dead in her office. Baxter’s employer, Professor Sydney Mantis, had given Baxter a flash drive and asked him to give it personally to Dr. Bisch, as well as to look after his, Mantis’s dog while he suddenly had to leave town for a few days.

The mystery is not who killed Dr. Bisch — the author introduces the assassin in Chapter 2. The mystery is why, and the tension rises as the main investigator, FBI Special Agent Claudia Seagal, puts the pieces of the puzzle together, and as Baxter gets pulled deeper and deeper into the trap laid for Dr. Mantis. 

Hanson knows how to ramp up a story by taking it in unexpected directions. It turns out that the professors, Bisch and Mantis, were developing robotic submarines for drug dealers to use to smuggle their product into the US. Special Agent Seagal. This is the geek factor: Hanson tells us enough about robotics and remote control to make the story work, so that we understand that this story just could not happen without this technical detail. However, she never gives too much, never bores us with technical factoids that we don’t need. Every word is a plot point.

Engaging and critical backstories

Despite their unfortunate names, the characters have interesting backstories. Hanson is also skilled at not drowning the reader in long information dumps, but revealing details about Claudia’s deceased husband, Baxter’s dead parents, Mantis’s habit of seducing students, even the bad guys’ back stories as they’re needed. Readers begin to feel for the characters, to hope that their plans work out. The sibling rivalry between the two main baddies really rang true.

Two weaknesses

There are only two weaknesses with this story. First, there are the character names. The author shows us in Chapter 1 that “Dr. Bisch” is an intentional joke, but then there are all the animal names: Dr. Mantis, Agent Seagall. I don’t know if this was an intentional gag, but while there are some humorous moments in the book, it’s not overall a comedy. It’s a thriller that takes engaging, believable characters on an exhilarating ride to an explosive and satisfying conclusion.

The other weakness was the cover. It’s professionally done, but maybe a little too clichéd. It gave away too much of the story, instead of making me want to open the book.

But those are minor flaws. In the end, Ocean of Fear is a good, satisfying read from a skilled author.

4 *.

Visit Helen Hanson's website and blog and learn about her books.

Independent novel review: An Unlikely Goddess by Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar

Unlike most independent authors, Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar, known on Twitter as @Moha_Doha, eschews genre writing. Her novels include elements of romance, but they do not follow the conventional girl-meets-boy story.

An Unlikely Goddess is mainstream literature, and you can even look at it as part of the stream of books about the Indian immigrant experience, along with Rohinton Mistry and Michael Ondaatje. 

The story

The novel follows Sita from her birth in India. Her mother, Mythili, and the whole family are bitterly disappointed that her first born child is a girl. “What if he leaves me?” is her first thought after seeing her daughter. Mythili’s sister-in-law, Priya, drops the new-born on the hospital floor.

Sita’s life doesn’t get better after that. Her parents, Mythili and Sundar, never fail to remind Sita of how much she disappoints them throughout her life. This gets worse after Mythili gives birth to a boy, Manoj. 

When Mythili is still a young child, the family emigrates to Florida, of all places, where Sundar gets a perpetually temporary job as a researcher in a university. But Sundar never manages to get a promotion or even a permanent position, so he is never able to afford much of a lifestyle. He and his family can only look enviously at the success and socio-economic climb of other Indian immigrants as they move to large suburban homes and buy expensive cars.

What I liked

Characterization is the main strength of An Unlikely Goddess. Not only do we see the action through Sita’s eyes, Rajakumar’s prose enables us to experience an entire world through Sita — especially her conflicted feelings toward her parents.

The secondary characters are also well-developed, and they grow believably, too. Mythili gradually becomes aware of the subservience she’d been socialized to accept, and begins to develop some independence from her husband. Sundar goes through several stages of anger and resentment, blaming his family for his own career failures, but finally begins to mellow and even accept his daughter’s untraditional desires.

The only weak part is the last love interest, Richard. He’s just too good to be true — but then, after everything that the author has put her main character through, she deserves a really great guy.

Professional style

Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar is a prolific and professional independent author. An Unlikely Goddess is her eighth book, and her bibliography includes novels, story collections, anthologies and non-fiction.

An Unlikely Goddess is well written, well edited and has a professionally designed cover. The author’s style is clean and easy to read. Rajakumar is another independent author who reinforces the point that the commercial publishers have no monopoly on quality.

5*****

Find An Unlikely Goddess on Amazon

Visit her website and blog

Cassidy Jones and the Seventh Attendant: An independent novel review

Before you say it, I know: I am not in the target demographic for this book, or any of Elise Stokes’ Cassidy Jones adventures. Still, I enjoy reading them — despite the strange looks I get from others on the bus when I’m reading the latest installment in paper form.

Elise Stokes hit it big with her first novel, Cassidy Jones and the Secret Formula. After being reviewed by a 13-year-old reader, it was picked up by a middle-grade school as assigned reading. Then it won some awards and Elise Stokes became a prominent author of middle-grade or “young adult” fiction.

She followed up her first book in a year with Cassidy Jones and Vulcan’s Gift, but there was a longer delay for the third book. Now that I’ve read it, I understand why.

The plot

As most of the English reading world knows — at least, most of the “YA” market — Cassidy Jones is a normal teenage girl from Seattle. She’s awkward, lacks confidence and isn’t particularly athletic. Then, in true superhero fashion, she’s accidentally dosed with top-secret “Formula 10X,” being developed in her neighbour’s basement lab, which gives her super-strength, speed, the ability to heal quickly and enhanced senses. With the help of her neighbour’s son, Emery, another 14-year-old whose genius IQ has earned him university degrees already, Cassidy foils nefarious plots, rescues her kidnapped father and fights escaped tigers.

In this installment, the bad guys from the first novel return, searching for Formula 10X — which was destroyed in a fire after Cassidy’s accident. It turns out that the specifications were hidden in 10 separate microchips, scattered around the world. The baddies have recovered nine of them (using murder at least once); the last piece is hidden in an ancient Egyptian headdress on display in a museum in Seattle. Emery, Cassidy’s genius sidekick, learns of a plot to steal the chip, so Cassidy dresses as a mummy to spook the bad guys. This has some funny consequences, such as new rumours about a resurrected mummy running around the streets of Seattle.  

But when one of the thieves turns out to be Emery’s father, the mysterious Gavin Phillips, the plot twists — and so do Cassidy’s emotions.

High quality

The third book is a little darker and more serious than the first two. Cassidy is growing up and dealing with a new level of emotions when it comes to boys. Boys are starting to pay attention to her, as well, in ways that are new to her. 

And there’s a love triangle slowly emerging. I think that Stokes portrayed her character’s reaction to that skillfully and believably: it’s plain to Cassidy, but she deliberately chooses not to think about it. I can believe that in a 15-year-old who’s trying to deal with some pretty extraordinary events in her life.

Stokes also spends more space in this novel describing the stress her character has to deal with from having a secret identity—a second life that she has to hide from her own family.

And as with Stokes’ first two novels, the third shows top-notch writing style, editing and production — and a gorgeous cover designed by David C. Cassidy. A fellow member of Independent Authors International, Stokes is living proof that independent writers produce work that meets and exceeds professional standards.

Less action

There is not as much action in this book as in the first two. Cassidy seems to spend more time stressing over her relationships with her friends, rivals, unwanted suitors and her family than she does fighting bad guys. To me, this made for a more interesting story, but I wonder how Cassidy fans feel?

The other slight weakness I found in this story is that you really have to have read at least the first novel to follow this one. The bad guys from both previous novels combine forces in this one. The text also refers to characters and events from the other novels. I kept having to try to recall the previous books to understand some of the plot points in the third (it’s been over a year since I read them, after all, and I’m not getting younger, either).

But those are minor nits to pick out. This is another excellent novel by one of the best writers in the MG/YA field today. There’s lots of room left in the story-arc, too, so we can all look forward to Cassidy Jones and the Luminous soon.

5*