Crossover: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (Paperback)

by Joel Shepherd (Author)
Key Phrases: presidential quarters, jacked herself, sensor plug, Dark Star, April Cassidy, Captain Kresnov (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Set in the far future, Australian author Shepherd's energetic debut introduces Cassandra Kresnov, an experimental killer android-with-a-heart who has defected from her League Dark Star special ops assignment. Graced with a yen for human art almost as insatiable as her libido, Kresnov first tries to melt anonymously into Tanusha, the sybaritic capital of Callay, a planet of the League's galactic archenemy, the Federation. But Cassandra can't leave her martial past behind when she's caught up in a heroic struggle to protect the Callayan president from assassination by Federal forces. Shepherd's intriguing heroine and strong female characters bode well for this projected series. Lacing Cassandra's search for identity and acceptance with plenty of hand-to-hand combat and racy sexual exploits, Shepherd also convincingly presents vividly realized ethical dilemmas: what happens to soldiers when the war is over? can a culture that opposes the artificial manufacture of life accept its creations? Shephard grapples with some genuinely thought-provoking questions on the nature of humanity. (Aug.)
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Review
"...rich world...somewhere androids are still dreaming of electric sheep, and authors wonder what it means to be human." -- Contra-Costa Times, San Francisco

"An awesomely zesty adventure set amongst a nicely realized multiethnic future. A blast to read." -- Tobias S. Buckell, author of Crystal Rain

"First class … a great heroine." -- Peter McNamara

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 467 pages
• Publisher: Pyr (August 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591024439
• ISBN-13: 978-1591024439
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #588,602 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helen O'Loy meets Starship Troopers, January 27, 2008

By	Peter D. Tillman (Taos, NM USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Cassandra Kresnov -- or April Cassidy, as she'd like to be known, on
Callay -- is a high-grade replicant, a GI super-soldier of the League.
Well, ex-League now, or so she devoutly hopes. Ordinary GI's --
artificial humans, with enhanced strength and reflexes -- aren't all
that smart, it turns out. Cassandra is an experiment -- what if we
make a GI who's really *human*, as best we can, and see what
happens.....

What happens is, Cassandra wants out....

This is an absorbing exploration of what it means to be human, as seen
through the eyes of a defecting super-soldier, who's really, really
sick of war, and just wants to settle down, get a job, get a *life*
-- and have sex. *Lots* of sex. Cassandra "liked sex when she was
happy, and sex when she was sad, and, most particularly, sex when she
was uptight or frustrated."

What she gets, instead, is disassembly by agents of the FIA, a last
minute rescue by the CSA, a bogged-down court-case and a political
hardball-match. With Sandy as the football. The impasse is broken when
Dark Star, her old League outfit, raids Callay to assassinate their
President. By chance, Sandy is nearby, and saves the President's life.
Which is, after all, a time-tested way to make an ally....

Influences: well, the Federation vs. League is pretty clearly
Cherryh's Union vs. Alliance, though a shorter-span conflict and less
subtly done. The political setup is quite deft, really, particularly
for a first novel -- in fact, this is an amazingly accomplished first
novel -- a first-rate novel, period. Sandy herself -- well, ol' Bob's
FRIDAY certainly comes to mind.

Shepherd is a fine storyteller, and I got misty-eyed more than once
over the hard row Cassandra K. has to hoe. Highly recommended. First
of a trilogy, and I'll be reading on. This one, thankfully, is nicely
self-contained. PYR is to be commended for bringing this 1999-2001
Australian novel to US readers.

PYR is to be faulted for failing to wield an editor's blue pencil on
Crossover. At 457 pp., it would have benefitted from cutting by (say)
100 pages, and would have been a tighter and better book. You'll have
to do the cutting, mentally, yourself. Sigh.

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Impressive first novel, December 6, 2006

By	C. R. Eads (St. Paul, MN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This was a great book! The other reviews cover the plot well and point out the stylistic flaws well. I don't want to get as detailed. If you've read Heinlein's Friday then I think you'll appreciate this book. Our main character is cool, she's indestructible, she's clever, witty and likes to engage in a lot of sexual activity (read *ultimate male fantasy*). I found the sexual proclivity, prowess and talent of this android a little heavy handed but hey, it's science fiction and male authored. She's a little too perfect. There is nothing about her that really sets up the debate about her existence unless it is her very perfection but that wouldn't apply to all GIs as it does in the novel. The previous review mentioned the errors and stylistic flaws in the first chapter and I would concur. It made me a little nervous as I bought the book based on Amazon reviews. It turned out alright though. Slog through the first chapter, read it and know that the author is trying to set the scene, describe his heroine, and familiarize the reader with the city.

The techno babble distanced one from the story a bit; I didn't get enough explanation to really make it clear. Some of the detail and description was gratuitous and superfluous but at times, really adding to the story.
I like that some questions were left unanswered. It wasn't a neatly packaged story. It left room for thought.

Overall I enjoyed the book, was eager to return to it and would recommend it to any sci-fi lover. I loved the multi-ethnic cast! I loved that the commanders and sympathetic characters were female! Good show, Mr. Shepard!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good novel, February 16, 2007

By	James A. Parker "rekrapmij" (Austin, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I liked this as an introductory novel. After reading it I thought it must be the second novel in the series. Turns out it isn't. All the memories and background in this one were just that, not references to a novel I missed. It was action-packed and had some interesting viewpoints. One was referenced by some of the other reviewers: Cassandra's sexuality. Unlike the other reviewers, however, I did not find it offensive or a natural result of the male fantasy of a male author. I instead thought it helped highlight Cassandra's fundamental difference from the humans among whom she lives and thereby highlighted the tension of her existence. Sex for its own sake can be distracting, but sex as a difference between humans and GIs supports the plot. Perhaps our own comments about it show that the author picked a good way to show how different the novel's GIs are. One thing about it did annoy me: the frequent use of sentence fragments. This may sound like a small quibble, but it occurs so frequently in the book that I often had to re-read paragraphs to understand what was being said. Textbooks can require slow reading and re-reading, but action novels should be moving forward.