Hammered (Mass Market Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Drugs, gangs and Internet warfare run rampant in Bear's ambitious debut novel, an SF thriller set in 2062. Jenny Casey, a former Canadian special forces warrior who's half-machine as the result of an accident years earlier, is living in Hartford, Conn., when a scientist working in need of the perfect subject for a high-stakes virtual-reality project puts Casey in his sights. Casey becomes a pawn in a furious battle waged in the corridors of the Internet, on the streets of battered cities and in the complex wirings of her half-manmade nervous system. As she approaches her 50th birthday, Casey manages to maintain a good sense of humor, a trait unfortunately lacking in the rest of the cast, which includes an old flame, a gangster named Razorface and a female ex-con who befriends the heroine. Bear's often jagged prose ("We disembark in Brazil, which has the distinction of being one of several countries I've been shot at in. Shot down over, even") suits the frequent, at times confusing narrative jumps between the virtual and real worlds. Though readers may have difficulties following this sometimes chaotic story, advance praise from such SF pros as Mike Resnick, Richard Morgan and Peter Watts should ensure a strong start.
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Review

"Drugs, gangs and internet warfare run rampant ... [an] ambitious debut novel."—Publishers Weekly



From the Paperback edition. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Spectra (December 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553587501
• ISBN-13: 978-0553587500
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #209,771 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Maybe my standards are too high, August 18, 2005

By	C. Glover (Langhorne, PA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Let me start by saying I am a big fan of women sci-fi writers and women as take charge heroes. I am also over 50 and love it when the characters are mature. But it took forever to get into this book. It was very slow and even boring at times, which is weird because there were so many things going on. I had a hard time focusing on who the characters were and what their relationships were to each other...many of them have more than one alias and AI personalities in virtual games. The flashbacks and recalls of 35 years make it even more confusing as they are in no particular order. It took too long for the story to come together. When I reached the end of the book and realized it was the first of a series I was angry as I was ready for a conclusion and felt that I had been tricked. Hammered is like those manga novels my daughter reads that stop with a shocking clifthanger that is resolved in the next volume which also stops with a shocking clifthanger. I was even upset about the name of the book, we did not even get to the bottom of the drug "Hammer" mystery in part one of this novel.

I like the hero, Jenny, and I will read the next book just to see what happens to her. Plus, I love sci-fi exploration and first contact stories and I hope this is where Bear is going with this saga now that they are capable of long distance space flight and FTL communication. I am not as enamored with the other characters or their motives, maybe the second book will develop the people and the politics better.

Better than Hammered, I recommend Primary Inversion by Catherine Asaro. The hero is a 50ish woman who made the choice at 20 to accept into her body cyborg-like enhancements and become a pilot/warrior. Throughout her life (and the series)she struggles with the impact of that decision. I thought of Jenny as another variation on Primary Inversion's Soz.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, well-written story, October 30, 2005

By	K. A. Mayer "she who lives in fantasy worlds" (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This was the story of a former soldier, embedded with older tech implants, who agrees to upgrades to end her constant pain, only to find the doctor pressing her to upgrade has ulterior motives.

What worked for me: the storyline was interesting, and I liked the characters. The author's writing style is comfortable, unpretentious and direct. The science and story presented are plausible and the plot elements were well-constructed. I didn't find myself dying to get back to the book, but neither was it a struggle to get through, thus I gave it 3 stars: I liked it, didn't love it.

What didn't work for me: I dislike stories written in present tense, and I dislike leaping from first person to third person narrators. This book had both, so it constantly pushed my buttons. At about the half-way point, two of the characters began speaking French to each other, and my French is too rusty to have made it all out. I believe this was a strategic mistake on the part of the author. It's like forming a special clique of readers who get all of the story, and everyone else is left out.

Still, I'd recommend this book to SF fans, and I'll be buying the sequel.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Promising New Author, July 6, 2005

By	Margaret P. "mhp2027" (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews

I adore discovering a new author and reading their first book. These first books are inventive, carefully written, and unique. Mrs. Bear's first book is all of that and more, and I'm delighted to see that she has more coming.

"Hammered" is a pure Science Fiction novel that takes place in Canada & USA, a few decades in the future. Probably the most important changes between now and then is a general "I don't care" attitude -- the ideals of freedom, liberty, and charity have all pretty much disappeared. Big business moved into the void and now control governmental functions with a rather "benign neglect" attitude -- they won't help anyone, but won't go out of their way to hurt anyone, either. Everyone complains, but they don't care enough to actually do anything.

The plotline is fragmented and thus difficult to describe. The back cover takes the easy way out of describing one of the 5 or 6 plotlines and claiming that is the focus of the book. It isn't. That plotline follows a middle aged, retired soldier. Early in her military career, she lost limbs and vital organs in an explosion, and had them replaced with cybernetic parts. She has adapted better than most to these cybernetic parts, which is to say that she keeps her drug adictions to a minimum. Her boyfriend is a tough gang leader with sharp metalic teeth. Another plotline follows a middle aged researcher who was in jail for decades for mysterious reasons. Another plotline follows a terminally ill single dad and his two teenaged daughters.

About the first third of "Hammered" is devoted to introducing these and other characters. At this point, nothing has really happened yet, and the separate point-of-view plotlines don't appear to have anything in common. Looking back at the book, all I can really say is that "Hammered" mainly explores this future world. Be warned, "Hammered" is not a stand alone book! The plotlines do not draw to a conclusion at the end of the novel, do not even climax, but rather are still building. The sequel is being published, so no worries there.

There are many readers out there who enjoy this writing style -- multiple viewpoints & multiple books -- and to you I warmly recommend "Hammered" as perhaps a 5-star book. For myself and others who abhor this style, this is an enjoyable peek into an inventive futuristic world.