Book Review: StarHawks: Virgo by Vennessa Robertson

Genre(s): Science Fiction / Military Sci-Fi

Book Synopsis:

In the future state where mankind has left FirstEarth for a system of terraformed planets, everything is linked to the interplanetary Ultranet. A skilled hacker can tip the balance of power – whoever controls the hacker controls the planetary systems. Virgo is the shadow that even the intelligence community fears and those skills may be up for grabs.

Alanwe Treskae and her Hawks must get to the mysterious Virgo before the hacker is compromised, thereby revealing secrets of her deceased brothers-in-arms, active operations, and the information the Noble Liberation rebels are struggling to protect.

With so many lives in the balance, Alanwe must enter the core worlds to identify Virgo before it is too late, ensuring the safety of those she must protect, for both duty and love.

Review:

This is one of those reviews that isn’t easy for me to write, so I’ll start off with this: I did like the first book in this series and the storyline is, for the most part, a good one. But with this second book, it was increasingly difficult to ignore some of the flaws enough to really enjoy the story.

I like Alanwe’s character. She’s fierce, passionate, and bold, all fantastic traits to have in a military commander. She has a short temper sometimes and can be incredibly stubborn, but it makes her feel real and human.

Her partner, Alric Griffin (“Griff”) is a tech guy who was introduced in the first book. He’s the support Alanwe needs to keep going, but he’s also not afraid to push back when she isn’t making the right choices. He plays a much bigger role in this book, and he’s probably my favorite out of all the side characters.

We get to see more of the villains in StarHawks: Virgo too. Two of them are council members with agendas of their own, and one is Sonja Moreau, a ruthless killer who works for one of the councilmen. None of them should be taken lightly, and all of them are dangerous in their own right. They destroy more lives than they uplift—despite the council’s promises. They’re worthy adversaries for Alanwe.

The Illegal Knowledge Network, a group of loosely-allied hackers, also comes into play. Their skills are integral to subverting the power the council has over the people. But convincing them to work with a group like Noble Liberation is a daunting task, one that Alanwe has to complete in order to gain the upper hand.

The story is pretty good. I liked the main character and her second-in-command/lover, Alric Griffin. But my issue with this book is in the editing.

There were some problems in the first book (repetition and head hopping), but for the most part, I could overlook them. But in this second book? It almost felt like the author was rushing to publish and skipped some necessary revision passes. While the head hopping was mostly gone, the repetition was much more prevalent, the story was less cohesive, and there were a number of times it slipped from third-person to second (which is one of my big pet peeves as a reader.) I liked the story enough to finish the book, but it wasn’t an easy read.

There’s a good story here, and if you can overlook some of the issues I mentioned, maybe check it out.

Author’s Amazon Page: Vennessa Robertson