3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Even better than the others, April 28, 2008
It is a crime--a crime, I say!--that the publisher collapsed before giving this book the exposure it deserved. The original trilogy was impressive, but this book managed to top them. Resnick explores questions of identity and individuality, and also examines what it means to be Simply the Best, in a thoroughly engrossing and entertaining story.
If you haven't read the trilogy, skip the rest of this review. There are spoilers.
This is the book of the third clone, Jeff, but it also heavily features the original Jefferson. We also see a lot of Ito, a thoroughly competent bounty hunter who nonetheless looks like a clown when standing next to a Widowmaker--any Widowmaker. The surviving previous clone, who has changed his name to Jason, is present more as a plot device and point of comparison than as a well-developed character.
This is fine, because Resnick is showing us extremes--the gray-haired man and the inexperienced kid, the thinker who's always stacking every odd in his favor and the doer who believes that bounty hunting involves only a few minutes of actual work. Both are extremely good, in extremely different ways. But what happens when a situation requires Jeff's superhuman reflexes *and* Jefferson's cunning?
Some other points are also indirectly explored, such as how the Widowmaker (either of them) really feels about this Ito character who keeps following him around and saying that he serves the Widowmaker.
We can only hope that the rights have reverted to Mr. Resnick, so that he can republish this somewhere else. Until then, if you can't get your hands on a copy, beg your local library to find one through Interlibrary Loan. After Resnick has kept you up all night, you'll be glad you did--and you may even find yourself wishing that, like Ito, you could devote your life to serving the Widowmaker.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The WidowMaker always Delivers, July 22, 2010
If you haven't read the WidowMaker series, stop right now, go get the first 3 books, then come back & read this. If you haven't read any of Resnick's "sci fi" then this is as good a place to start as any. What you might first notice about his universe (i call it the birthright universe after that amazing novel) is that a certain failed tv series and movie (cough Serenity) ripped it off 100%. At least that's my opinion. Mike was doing the "space as the new wild west / outer frontier" a decade or so before Whedon came along.
But I digress. You really want to start with the first three WidowMaker books, there are on Amazon in ebook & DTB form. It tells the story of a legendary "gun for hire" who has himself "cryo frozen" when he contracts a lethal disease for which there is no known cure. He uses his substantial fortune to preserve himself for the day a cure is found. The problem is, the WidowMaker's services are needed time & time again over the centuries and he is cloned... but his clones don't have his memories, but they do have his reflexes.
These 4 books (this is the latest and I hope not the last) tell the often poignant, always exciting tales of the original WidowMaker and the series of clones that are created to carry out missions and jobs for hire. The book is never what you expect and the author keeps you turning the pages. This book, the "gathering of widowmakers" tells the story of what happens when the widowmaker clones become too dangerous for their own good, and only the original WidowMaker can set things straight.
Outstanding sci fi....
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book, plenty of action, nice wrap-up, February 28, 2007
Resnick delivers another great book - we get plenty of backstory, and see what really makes the Widowmaker. No fan of the series should miss this book!
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