| Title | : | Zero Sum Game (Russells Attic, #1) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780996070010 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | ebook |
| Number of Pages | : | 305 |
| Publication | : | First published March 27, 2014 |
The vector calculus blazing through her head lets her smash through armed men twice her size and dodge every bullet in a gunfight. She can take any job for the right price and shoot anyone who gets in her way.
As far as she knows, she's the only person around with a superpower . . . but then Cas discovers someone with a power even more dangerous than her own. Someone who can reach directly into people's minds and twist their brains into Moebius strips. Someone intent on becoming the world's puppet master.
Someone who's already warped Cas's thoughts once before, with her none the wiser.
Cas should run. Going up against a psychic with a god complex isn't exactly a rational move, and saving the world from a power-hungry telepath isn't her responsibility. But she isn't about to let anyone get away with violating her brain -- and besides, she's got a small arsenal and some deadly mathematics on her side. There's only one problem . . .
She doesn't know which of her thoughts are her own anymore.
Zero Sum Game (Russells Attic, #1) Reviews
-
I slipped down from my loft, brilliant red angles triangulating in the 60% daylight, each step on the ladder calculated exactly for cat-like speed and maximum effectiveness. I opened my laptop, my mind going through the numbers. Five stars for the zero sum I calculated was needed to get this frenetic book to the e-market, a victory for the 99%. Eat your hearts out, vile publishers. Minus one star for my jealousy. Hah! Take that, you bitch. Wait! My calculations told me that Huang spent money on the cover. My jealousy abated, I upped it to five stars again - supporting artists is a good thing.
With lightning speed, algorithms racing across my vision like silver bullets, I recalculated. The MC is unique, I was willing to give five stars for that. A superhero female with mathematic super skills, scarred face, and precious little interest in sex or legal niceties. If her super fast assessment of body counts left her queasy, the statistical variables pointed to somebody having slipped her something. Doing the math pointed to the suspect - another woman, one whose demeanor had been calculated to suggest a helpless bitch. Brilliant! Now, who put her up to it. Nice that the algorithms confirmed what was already suspected - the government!
I felt like I was onto something. So far, it was a five. Though I hadn't reached the end, at this point I had to put it at 50/50 of satisfying me - Huang was smart, I'd give her that - so I recalculated at 60/40. Still a five - if the end didn't satisfy, I'd likely buy the sequel on the statistical probability that the end wasn't the end. If it did satisfy, then still a five.
But wait! My head was pounding. Something was missing. I scanned the numbers. Ah, humor. Equations and triangulations in brightly colored patterns were bouncing across my keyboard. Three! Three for relentlessly dark action with no comic relief. With that realization, a certain ruthless joy took hold of me. You bitch, take that! And another three for sucking me into this damn voice and genre that were not even mine.
The reviewer, having finally given four stars, sighed back into her chair, her own third person Civil War voice settling like a mantle of civility. Ahhh. It would be pleasant to come abreast of her Goodreads history group. She almost felt like having a cup of tea.
ADDENDUM: Having finished the book, I feel impelled to add a bit about the characters. A recent show on NPR's This American Life concluded that sociopaths, especially murderous ones, lack empathy and are irredeemable (though in typical TAL fashion, it left room for doubt). In Zero Sum Game, the protagonist, Cas, is a murderous sociopath while the antagonist uses empathic entrainment, not so much to bend people to her will as to get them to see things her way. The protagonist's motives are to survive, while the antagonist has laudable world peace goals. Will Cas be able to resist the empathic and irresistible onslaught that threatens to redeem her as a person? It is to this author's profound credit that we are rooting for Cas and her even more sociopathic cohort Rio to kill their nemesis, and rid the world of her empathic sweetness. A great mind-fuck that transcends its genre, and leaves lingering questions about good and evil. Well done, Huang. I'm changing this to five stars. -
This book has one of the best opening scenes I've ever read. It's awesome!
So why the 2 stars? Because that's the high point, sadly.
This suffers from typical First Book Problems, like inconsistent narrative, uneven characters, repetitive and frequently obtuse dialogue, and, worst of all, a weak ending. I bought this book years ago and kept putting it down. In the meantime I've read numerous books that were two or three times longer with ease. Just in terms of pure "time spent with the story", it took me less time to read the 900-page Seveneves than it did to get through this book.
Which is a shame, because the idea here is solid. It's just that the execution is lacking. It feels like we're spinning our wheels and backtracking a lot when the main character is investigating the mystery at the core of the story, and there are tons of tedious action scenes which feel like they were included just because Huang thought they were cool. If that floats your boat, fine, but it feels gratuitous to me.
In the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, the first time Starlord, Rocket, Groot and Gamora meet, they engage in a particularly painful game of Keep-Away. They each want different things and those things are at odds with each other. It's a fun action scene. Later in the movie they are being chased by a bunch of goons in spaceships and Gamora almost dies and Peter chooses to sacrifice himself to save her, but it's boring because you know no one is going to actually die. Aside from the initial scene, the action sequences in Zero Sum Game feel like multiple versions of that second GotG scene.
The main character, Cas, is super-mathy and can instantly calculate trajectories and angles and such, which makes her especially dangerous. She knows just how to hit someone so they go flying across the room, she never wastes a bullet, she can do extreme parkour without hurting herself... it's literal applied math.
Sure, we've seen this exact skill dozens of times before. Cyclops demonstrated that he has this skill way back in the 1970s when the X-Men first encountered Murderworld and he took out multiple kill bots with one banked optic blast. It turns up in
Battle Royale. Pretty much every superhero marksman with "eye" or "dead" in their name has this ability. Hawkeye, Bullseye, Deadshot, Deathlok, etc. Is there a "Deadeye"? If so, he probably has it double.
But it's cool to see it used, especially from an author who apparently has a degree in math. I just wish it were employed more engagingly. There's enough "been there done that" to the skillset that I suspect she hasn't read those other versions of characters with this ability.
Anyway, super-calculator Cas comes up against a psychic. And HERE is where it really should have gotten interesting: turns out the evil plot the psychic and her organization are engaging in is good for all mankind. Which makes the protagonist and her group of ne'er-do-wells the bad guys. How cool is that?
Not very, turns out.
They don't agonize much over this, which really should be the meat of the story. This is the heart of the conflict, after all. They spend time wondering whether or not they're doing the right thing by opposing Pythica, and they worry that this super-psychic may have messed with their minds so that they merely think this Hydra-like organization is actually doing good in the world. Then they decide, "Nah, burn it all down," and go from there. Except they have actual proof that Pythica is strangling drug cartels and crime syndicates!
I can imagine this story in the hands of a subtler, more imaginative writer would have offered up a decent "What would you do?" conundrum for readers, or at the very least been more ambiguous as to how the main characters responded. Even Philip K. Dick, who was not a great writer, managed to make this sort of concept thought-provoking, which is why his work has such staying power.
The only real uncertainty I was left with was why Huang didn't give us any answers -- or even any hints -- as to why Cas has this amazing calculation ability or why she has the protection of the world's most dangerous sociopath. We get fractured dream images which tell us nothing. Combine that with the deus ex machina ending where there's no resolution between Cas and the Psychic and I was left wanting some closure.
You know how at the end of Inception the final shot is one of the spinning top? At first glance that feels like a completely ambiguous ending which leaves the audience wondering if what we're seeing is real or imaginary. But when you stop to think about it, it's not vague at all; it is, in fact, complete misdirection. I would have enjoyed this type of ending just fine, but we're not given anything of substance to work with.
Even revealing that the people we thought were the good guys are actually the villains would have been preferable to the non-ending.
So, yeah, 2 stars. It misses the target. -
Cas Russell is an extractor/assassin/weapons specialist. This woman has skills. She thinks and sees math, measuring distances and angles, using geometry and mathy type calculations to measure to the most precise degree. This makes her a total badass assassin: She never misses a target. A mercenary, anti-social, almost anti-hero, I found myself rooting for her despite her prickly nature, which is a tough balance for a writer. How do you create a character that’s not necessarily a “good” person and not turn off the reader? It’s a difficult balance, and one that SL Huang pulls off neatly in this intricately written, unique thriller.
When Russell’s hired to perform an extraction, she becomes drawn into a mystery involving a mysterious organization that uses mind control (telepaths), and whose goal, basically, is world control.
As Russell tells her story, the action is revealed to the reader as she figures things out. This is how a good story is told, and I appreciate that the author never dumbed things down for her audience.
Russell’s character develops as the story does, and by the end, the reader knows there's more to find out about her and her long-hidden past. The other characters were compelling and well developed. I wanted to learn more about the enigmatic avenging angel Rio--the only human alive Cas trusts but “not her friend.” Rio’s opposite, private eye, Alfred, a streetwise but ethical man, questions Russell and becomes sort of a moral compass. He helps to bring out her humanity. Some of the most fascinating passages involved the characters and their interplay with each other as they discussed philosophy, morality, and situational ethics--a cool juxtaposition to them blasting their way out of situations.
Well written and well paced, I look forward to the continuation of the story in Half Life. -
My review at Journey to the BEST! Link here for a Q&A with the author:
https://journey2thebest.wordpress.com...
S.L. Huang’s ZERO SUM GAME might have the most alluring pitch I’ve ever read: Cas Russell, mathematical genius, fights crime and kicks ass with lightning-quick calculations that supplement her prodigious martial arts abilities. But she might have finally met her match in someone “who can reach directly into people’s minds and twist their brains into Moebius strips.” Cas’s power is being utterly logical; this opponent can warp the only axioms Cas takes to be true. Therefore, explosions.
I know Huang is a martial artist who’s worked as a Hollywood stuntwoman, and it shows. ZERO SUM GAME reads like a blockbuster film best devoured in a single sitting. The action scenes are fast-paced, cinematic, and awesome. The dialogue is quick and snappy, and the criminal tactics and cyber-warfare are just complicated and cool enough for me to suspend all disbelief. It’s Jack Reacher, Mission Impossible, and James Bond all mixed into one, but this time through a narrative voice that doesn’t spend time ogling over boobs or reducing women to sexy plot objects.
I immediately fell for for the three central characters. I LOVE murder boys so my obvious favorite was the bloody and mysterious Rio, a self-admitted utter psychopath who feeds off pain, but somehow abides entirely by the Bible through the fluke of his religious upbringing. He’s a hitman who “seeks out the people he judges deserve God’s vengeance,” in order to “introduce them to God.” He is utterly terrifying and help I’m in love. Arthur Tresting is his polar opposite–he’s the fundamentally good-hearted cop turned private investigator who’s willing to break the law in the service of his morals, but adamantly opposed to killing innocents. And Cas–wonderful, gritty, vulnerable, brilliant, stupid Cas–is a blend of the two. She’d like to believe she’s as cold and ruthlessly efficient as Rio, but her emotions get the best of her more often then she’d like to admit.
There’s nothing new about this combination. It’s a textbook trio, really, but Huang spins the trope to its greatest possible effect. I love how they banter; how they play off each other and push each other to the extremes. And I will never, ever not be down for a Murder Boy with Cool Backstory. Never.
If you always wished you could get a James Bond book with a female protagonist, or if you just really, really like math, this book is for you. I ate it up in two sittings and I’d do it again for the sequel. Huang does a great job outlining stakes and unanswered questions for future books–I’m desperately curious about Cas’s backstory, and I can’t wait for the next installment. -
This is a fast-paced thriller with lots of action and fighting and a diverse cast and secret organizations and subterfuge and general sneakiness and ass-kicking. Cas is cold and efficient, but with just enough humanity to keep her somewhat sympathetic. Her two companions bookend her nature quite well: Rio is basically a serial killer channeling his violence toward the bad guys, while PI Arthur is the heart and morality of the group. The conflict between them is very well done, particularly Arthur’s horror when he realizes who Cas’ friend is.
I’m also quite fond of computer guru Chester, a wheelchair-using geek who reminds me of Oracle. (With the caveat that I haven’t read Oracle in the comics; I’m just familiar with her character from talking to my fellow geeks.)
The overall conflict is perhaps familiar, but still engaging: a group with mental superpowers is manipulating the world to make it better, even if that means brainwashing and killing those who get in the way. It presents some good ethical dilemmas, since the antagonists have set things up in such a way that hurting them could actually help other villains.
The one problem I kept stumbling over was Cas’ powers. I can buy that she’s a math supergenius, but instinctively seeing and understanding the math of the world around you is one thing. Being able to apply that math to put every bullet exactly where you want, to hit a kid with a tennis ball after three ricochets, to weave a motorcycle through traffic at insane speeds, these things kept snapping my suspension of disbelief. The physical aspect is a whole other superpowered skillset, one that’s never mentioned.
On the other hand, her superpower is math. How cool is that?
We do get hints about Cas’ backstory toward the end, but we’ll have to wait until at least book two for the details. Overall, the ending wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped, but again, I suspect that’s because Huang is setting the groundwork for future books.
Nitpicks aside, I devoured this book, and I’m very much looking forward to the sequel, Half Life, which should be out in January. -
I honestly can't tell you how good this book is; it could be objectively terrible and I'd still love it, since it was apparently written to my exact specifications by an extremely willing and able party. Like. Wow, could this be any closer to precisely what I want from my fiction? Only if someone fell in love with a robot or built a spaceship out of spare parts, pretty much.
Our hero (ish) is Cas Russell, applied mathematical genius -- she's not finding her Erdos number or proving the Riemann hypothesis, she's using vector calculus to win gunfights. Which, fine, whatever. That's fun and excellently robotic, but not JUST FOR ME or anything. But she is also a
spacetoaster. This is a woman who would much rather kill people than have feelings about them, who can identify the physical symptoms of emotions without figuring out that she is even having a feeling (let alone what the feeling might actually be), who is completely apart from and weird to everyone around her. I love her unreservedly, and this character alone would be enough to make me love the novel.
But wait! There's more. Much of this novel covers Cas's attempts to build a team. And when the spacetoaster is the person who is trying the hardest to build a team, well, you've got trouble, my friends. I love that the characters working together feels necessary for most of the book but only actually possible in the last half. (It never really gets to probable, let alone functional, but they do get all their guns pointed in sort of the same direction eventually.) Yes! People who exist on the fringes and struggle with feelings and morals and ethics and whether or not they are even actually human SHOULD have trouble making a team, especially with somewhat more normal types.
And then there's the Ominous Background that you only get glimpses of in this novel, and the fact that the major enemy of this book is a , and the way most of the book is set in an instantly-recognizable Los Angeles, and and and. Just bonuses upon bonuses for me, all of this.
And then there's the cleverness of the writing itself. It's hard to explain this one without spoiling the book, but -- you know how sometimes you're reading and you KNOW the character is going to do a thing, even though they wouldn't, because the plot needs them to? In this story, either the character doesn't do the thing (because they wouldn't), or if they do the thing, that, in itself, is important and relevant. This book never lets its characters read ahead, and it never lets the plot control the characters. I love that.
Basically, I read this entire book with increasing wonderment. It wasn't even my birthday! And I don't know this author! But they apparently wrote a book for me anyway, and I think that's swell.
I love this book to bits. -
SL Huang has a Twitter account. One day, SL Huang talked about her new book, Zero Sum Game. I said, "Hey, why don't I have that in my pile of books to read for review," and she said, "Well, fine, I'll put it in your inbox you complaining whiny person." Thus began a glorious literary friendship.
Of course, that story isn't exactly what happened, but it's the version I'm sticking with for now. In truth, I came to Zero Sum Game with a lot of expectations: I wanted a fun, adventurous book with crisp, commercial writing, exciting characters, and a larger-than-life crazy-face plot. And that's exactly what I got. This is the kind of book I would turn to if I needed a break from life. It's the kind of book I can get lost into, like an action thriller that doesn't try to be artsy, but still has a lot of heart. This book is like Bourne Identity, but if Matt Damon were replaced by Michelle Yeoh (or JeeJa Yanin) and all of her extraordinary fighting skills were explained by her superhuman ability to almost instantaneously calculate the physics of the world.
That's basically Cas Russell. She's a math wiz. Not just any math wiz, mind you. She can calculate algorithms and math things I couldn't explain to you if my life depended on it...and she can do it on the fly. She can figure out how much force she needs to break an arm or knock someone out cold or even to dodge a bullet. That makes her dangerous, but it also makes her extraordinarily good at her job. Cas finds things. But when she rescues a young woman from a drug cartel and flees back to L.A. to return the woman to her sister, things go so horribly wrong that even Cas couldn't have predicted it. Against a shadowy organization run by a psychic hell bent on rewriting the world, assassins, and brainwashed innocents, Cas must find a way to set things right so she can get back to her life of obscurity. If only there were an equation for that...
Zero Sum Game is an enormously entertaining book. When I described Huang's prose as "crisp" and "commercial," I meant that in the positive sense. Rather than falling into the trap of "too little to describe too much," Huang's narrative employs the first person perspective to channel her characters without overwhelming the action-oriented, deeply-genre plot with what has sometimes falsely been described as "purple prose" (i.e., fluid, provocative prose of the sort found on the extreme end with Thomas Pynchon). Zero Sum Game captures the essence of Russell's character in her internal dilemmas without sacrificing detail or character, facilitating the natural development of the action-oriented sequences and the characters trapped within them. This makes for a book that is as gripping in its presentation as it is in its genre qualities. A space opera analogue might be Tobias S. Buckell, whose Xenowealth novels find that beautiful blend of action and science fictional exploration. Huang's novel is equally as engaging.
Indeed, Huang's narrative voice captures something that I think would otherwise fail in third person: special abilities that are only visible within a character's head. Cas' unique math-based abilities only work if they can be portrayed realistically and with sufficient flare to escape what otherwise might read as ridiculous. Huang handles this primarily through Cas' sometimes smartass (OK, frequently smartass) attitude, which provides a certain depth to her abilities: they are old-hat to her, and so the narrative limits the need to explain everything through Cas' nonchalant view of mathematics (though, of course, the narrative does explain some things, as it must). This isn't to suggest that the approach is wholly effective. There are moments where I do think the narrative needs to provide more explanation, especially when chapters jump forward without addressing the sometimes crucial "how we got here" elements. What isn't important to Cas, generally speaking, isn't important for the narrative, it seems, which means sometimes the reader is forced to jump forward when a more measured "hand" may be more apt. But the strategy is overall a success, as I found Cas believable and sympathetic despite her seemingly anti-social view of the world.
In that regard, one of the primary weaknesses in this book is its ending. Huang spends much of the book setting up the climax by slowly revealing details to Cas as she investigates Dawna, the aforementioned super psychic who has pulled the proverbial wool over Cas' eyes. In the process, we learn about her friendship with Rio, a known serial murderer who believes he is doing God's Will in Dexter-like fashion, Arthur, an ex-cop-turned-PI who finds Cas' methods questionable, but mostly goes along with it out of necessity, and Chester, a differently-abled computer nerd with an oddly charming personality. These characters form the bedrock of the narrative, which ultimately leads the reader to a city-wide disaster in Los Angeles, as Cas, Arthur, Rio, and Chester try to foil Dawna's plans. For me, the climax made sense, but the resolution seemed rushed, particularly as it raises a number of new questions about Cas and Rio's relationship; it also responds to an ethical dilemma with which the characters are forced to struggle: if stopping one group will lead to greater ramifications the globe over, is it worth it? Cas' response is a resounding "yes," on the grounds that Dawna and her people are making choices for everyone when she has no such moral authority. The attempts to rationalize the decision is an interesting, as it counters the oft-repeated Spock saying: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one." Here, Huang retreads with, "The knowledge of the many outweighs the needs of the same." I particularly liked that Huang decided to deal with this aspect, particularly since most narratives of this form tend to ignore the wider ramifications of actually defeating "the bad guys." However, while I imagine there will be more novels in this world, I think the Cas/Rio aspect would have functioned better if it had appeared much earlier in the novel, giving it time to germinate like a little literary weed. Indeed, given the scope of what happens in the novel, it is strange that so little of post-climax cleanup actually deals with the full ramifications for the world and for the characters; Cas does tell us about these things, but it seemed too clean to me.
Regardless, the surrounding materials, from Cas' snarky "I'm better off alone" attitude to the nerdy Chester to the conflicted relationship between Cas and Rio, Cas and Arthur, and Arthur and Rio, fill out what is an excellent first novel. These are coupled with explosive action sequences -- one of which involves Cas jumping from a fire escape through metal bars into a 2nd story window (wee) -- snappy dialogue, and a whole lot of mayhem. Simply put, I think Zero Sum Game is one of the most entertaining books I have read in a long while. It's like a rush of adrenaline in word form. It is to literature what Bourne Identity is to action thrillers. (Obviously, I love that film.)
If you're looking for an exciting thriller with a side of weird scifi "superpowers," this is most certainly the book for you. Go on...buy it. -
3.5 stars,
Metaphorosis ReviewsSummary: An item recovery specialist with an uncanny mathematical ability and frightening friends finds herself in over her head after rescuing a kidnapping victim.
Review:I’m not a big fan of urban fiction, or of thrillers. This is both, and it draws on a lot of familiar elements; there are a lot of Jason Bourne moments here. There are few surprises and even the broad nature of the secondary mystery is telegraphed quite early. And yet, it works. I found myself, if not riveted, at least following along attentively and with interest. The writing was smooth, the characters engaging and interesting (if not always consistent).Not all the handwaving at the book’s scientific premise works. The narrator’s ability often steps over the line into magic – this is an SF novel, but being good at math doesn’t mean you also know about physiology, etc. The character deploys differential equations at odd and seemingly unnecessary moments.Still, despite some weak points, I enjoyed the book. It’s a fun read, and even though we pretty much see where it will all go, I’d be interested to read the next volume.The entire series were originally self-published, but later picked up by Tor, which seems to have resulted in a resequencing and a new series name (Cas Russell instead of Russell’s Attic). Happily, the author has a thoughtful explanation on her website. This is a review of the original version of Zero Sum Game (but the cover shown is the new one).
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. -
3.5 stars
I have conflicting feelings about this book.
On the one hand, I absolutely LOVED the idea of math as a superpower. The author does a fabulous job of conveying that power, too, from the action-filled opening scene on through "quieter" scenes where she's spying on possible enemies and using ordinary objects to affect sound waves. Very, very cool.
I also love that she's operating on the shady side of the law. In some ways, she reminds me of Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Cas Russell works on retrieval--of things or people--and it doesn't matter to her if the person or thing is wanted by the police. She has a living to make, and if someone wants to pay her, she'll take the job. A very pragmatic young woman, Cas is.
And yet, the book did not win me over entirely. Once the action settled down, the story felt....flat. Cas didn't get any kind of backstory until the book was nearly over. And the backstory felt rushed and sketchy and a bit too convenient. Cas is also not someone given to introspection, and since we're in her point of view the whole time, that added to the feeling of flatness. The cast of secondary characters were also not quite as fleshed out as I would have liked. They felt more like placeholders, filling set roles in the plot, rather than people.
However, I do love the concept and I am interesting in seeing where the author takes this character and how she handles the backstory, so I will definitely want to check out the sequel. -
Zero Sum Game is a maelstrom of action and mayhem with a caustic dollop of impertinence.
Cas Russell is defined as a retrieval specialist, but she is really a tough as nails, shoot now and don't bother asking questions later, mathematical genius.
Whilst she is mostly a loner, she is pulled into a plot with such epic worldwide ramifications that even James Bond would be hailing MI6 for re-inforcements.
The character that really shines the brightest, or is it the dimmest, is the impenetrable badass, Rio with an Old Testament type zeal of smiting all and sundry. Let me break it down for you: If you see Cas, run, run away as fast as you can. If you see Rio, it's already too late.
So welcome to a world where certain people are born with preternatural talents that imbue them with unfathomable power. A world where justice can only be achieved through might. A world where we desperately need the likes of Cas and Rio to balance the scales and keep the powers in check.
If you are looking for an epic thriller with adrenaline fuelled action, plot twists and a strong female protoganist leading the charge, then look no further. -
Not being a mathematical genius, I strongly suspect this book contained a number of hidden gems which passed me by completely. The tight, fast paced writing meant that absolutely didn't matter - although I confess I have strongly encouraged suitably geeky friends to read it so they can tell me about them!
The book follows the unconventional Cas Russell as a seemingly innocuous retrieval exercise turns into something more sinister, and forces her to team up with people who are equally reluctant to work with her. The moral ambiguity in the book is a neat touch - Cas doesn't like being manipulated but isn't above a bit of manipulation herself when it suits her aims - and helps to hook the reader further into the story.
I was particularly intrigued by the undercurrent between Cas and her 'not a friend' Rio, which hints at more to come in the rest of the series. Like all good series, this is a book which gave me just enough that if the second one was out, I'd have bought it immediately, and I suggest you do the same with this one. -
It's fantastic to read a book where the female protagonist is smart, capable and brilliant in some STEM-related area. In Zero Sum Game, Cas lives numbers, math and related sciences. She can see angles, velocities, calculate algorithms while jumping off buildings - because her skills in mathematics mean that a career as a retrieval expert is an obvious choice. Cas can calculate the risk of every job, so of course it works!
Bonus points for: there being NO romantic sub-plot, a recognition of individual agency, personal relationships beyond the romantic, and the tie in, use and subversion of so many tropes, STEM references, and layered characterisations in a rapid moving plot. Notably, morality and ethics are intertwined throughout with decisions that need to be made and personal faith and moral codes are not derided, which is excellent to encounter and explore within a science/math-focussed adventure.
This is the first in a series, and I'll be reading book two as soon as it releases. -
DNF
Even I, non retriever knew NOT TO GIVE OUT INFORMATION FLIPPANTLY. For all the main character's professions of how good she is, and other characters reenforcing it.... Cas Russell stupidity to engage the plot was... dumb. I liked the premise, I thought Cas was okay, and frankly I wanted to read a book about Rio or the P.I. (the P.I. was the only reason I stuck around for as long as I did) but I still could not forgive the glaring plot device of stupidity that "got the book going." For all her badassery, Cas could not be redeemed. And I tried hard, y'all.
If you do choose to read this, go in with a heavy dose of suspended reality. It will probably make the book a hell lot more enjoyable than it was for me. -
Zero Sum Game is a novel with slick computer hackers, mathematical-enhanced fighting, and a rocking new character to follow on the hunt. Throw in some great original lines and you have a Marvel-esque action series worth following. Previously self-published and now with Tor, it should get the buzz it deserves.
Here's a link to my full review:
https://paulspicks.blog/2018/09/02/ze...
Here's link to all my reviews:
https://paulspicks.blog -
Pure. F*cking. Genius. There were laughs! There were feels! There was dysfunction on a massive level. The was adorkableness!!! And there was math, in a seamless, amazing way, there was math. And since I'm heading towards a geophysics degree, I have the very real and present need to make friends with math, and this was helpful.
-
The opening of what promises to be a fascinating series, it perhaps did too good a job of not answering questions and leaving us needing more books. The action, however, that was neatly executed, and the whole math thing was pretty cool, too. An author to watch and a clever licensing system too.
-
Awesome
Wow, I loved this book. The characters are fascinating, and it's a smart, twisty, and original story. I love the math, and after reading the blog, I think I'm in love with the author. After all, not everybody can go to Caltech. :) -
Title: Zero Sum Game
Author: S. L. Huang
Publication Date: Mar 2014
Genre: Sci-Fi Noir
Score: 2/5
DNF 23%. Didn’t grab me plus I didn’t like the MC’s weird world-weary persona, especially given her age. -
What a thrill, finding this book. I just loved it. If you are a fan of badass heroines with more sass and kick than a mule, then this is for you. Brilliant.
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Zero Sum Game – kind of speculative fiction as developed by S.L. Huang revolutionized, for me at least – how and why action works. We think we know how action movies have this mass appeal, yet why and how does the action suplly those thrills. What other kindsnof action are possible? How did action get so popular or how does it involve the reader/viewer? How does action makes us run and jump while lying in our favorite reading spot. When does something become ‘actionable’ and how does action with more and more frames/minute even get perceived. Having epileptic fits keeps us in tune with abstract flows or even let’s us enjoy non-dynamic decomposed movements, spatializing flux, embracing a schematic often too blurry (too fast) to describe as action? Can Cantorian set theory move us or the world around us? What could be the hidden motion laws be – and are these laws enough to animate the action packed novel?
Zero Sum Game made me rethink action in terms of math. My knowledge of math is totally rudimentary and previously it was difficult to even engage such a topic.
Let’s leave the math out for a bit – and focus on action. What of we subtract action? Sometimes action (even FTL one) is literally driving entire science-fictional domains (just think what would non-action space operas be like during – looong in transit journeys, hyperspace lockdowns?). At the other end the interior dream world is full of narkoleptic action commonplaces (just think about the incredible Sweet Dreams SF by Tricia Sullivan). Action drives us to read cover to cover, jumping over filler moments to the ones that feel like ‘action’. Reading about action makes u live at break-neck speeds (even if under lockdown), inhabit the fastness of the objects or consciousness of that world. As our world became more sedentary – action – was increasingly (and underhandedly) outside of this world – in other places, territories, planets. Set apart from the meditative and melancholic – action was adopted by modern authors and appreciated more and more by a growing and more diverse reading public, from the 19 c onward.
A readership that was learning to be activated by reading, binging avidly in the midst of both industrial squalor & bourgeois comfort during peaceful breaks. Peaceful breaks could allow other non productive forms of imaginary action. It was action banned to kids and particularly girls, but also a time to catch up to be in tune with the times. To change life’s pace and move to higher speeds (even light speeds in Einstein’s case), embrace machinic modernity on all levels especially the speculative one – that was both imaginative and entertaining.
Action was initially not so well-received inside the literary fiction forum. Action was conceptually performative in a bizarre way. It could be of many types. It could be the action of emotion playing on the hearts strings or the shifting conceptual play of historical ideas. You could have a chase, and also a struggle of ideas or a class struggle. Various voluntaristic modern philosophies responded by praising, highlighting action and exhorting the transformative power of action over the stale structures, the burdensome overly-theoretical. Action was opposed to melancholic meditative states (choose btw ‘vita contemplativa vs vita activa’) or pitted against intellectually rewarding (analysis) but action-dampening approaches. Action became not just a way to write but also a philosophical style as well. Passivity and fatigue became suddenly uncool, almost a giveaway of civilizational burnout. But action had to be justified and meritorious and was given right of passage only if linked with higher ideals, morals, as purveyor of other stylistic and refined aesthetic qualities. But action per and descriptive physical action in the universe was played down, considered just a vehicle, tied to plot, deemed too low brow or too general to have its own category. It has been said that most blockbuster movies nowadays are FX action movies and somehow slow cinema stands for art cinema as such (think Bela Tar, Tarkovsky etc). Action was always maligned and usually gets aligned to what Linda Williams (in 1991) has been describing as “body genres” in cinema: melodrama (especially – ‘the weepie’), pornography and horror. Something that’ll move, arouse, emote and push you off the chair.
19 century imaginative action was genderized and racialized since action seemed to be only the preserve of white ‘men of action’ (although there were so many important exceptions to the rule). High Imperialism was also propping up a certain notion of muscular Christianity or selling the boy literature with values of pluck & grit. In the early XX c ERB’s Tarzan was again an example of how pulp that could cut across audiences, even bring the promise of rejuvenated civilization by promoting a sort of neo-colonial rewilded white manhood reborn out of (hugely exploitative and exoticized) jungle life and strenuous physical training. This was done with disregard to the possibilities of making – Action and agency – available to others. Suffragette’s Action was deemed obnoxious by the patriarchal establishment, and women who were not chained to what was at the time characterized as feminine occupations, domesticity, the non-adventurous were ostracized, deemed dangerous and scandalous (even committed to the sanatorium in order to quiet down over excited women). Later on, in high art and XX c the bloody spectacles of Viennese actionism seemed again also seemed to place men at the center of the action. While at the same time -the visibility of such key counterculture & iconic performance art figures as Throbbing Gristle’s Cosey Fanni Tutti or Marina Abramovic in the 1970s changed all that. Action is connected with Action Comics. It is always at the forefront of what drives and sweeps us till the end of a movie or the end of a novel or of a comic. It offers us enough impetus to and change the world and bring enough renewable fuel to pull through. Enough action time to keep us munching through huge portions of adventure, SF, pulp, science fantasy, horror, heroic fantasy cultural products.
S.L. Huang introduced me to a new type of action – with a character that is a sort of mathematized mercenary (¡¿) able to abstract from the events themselves and make math seem & feel like like a becoming of sorts (anticipated by logicians such as Jean Cavaillès in his On Logic and the Theory of Science that nevertheless didn't limit math's becoming to minds or consciousness). An enhanced math nerd mercenary that is able from the first page on to calculate (what can be most non-action than strings of math formulas or physics equations?!) and articulate mathematically every move into a procedural. The implication is that without actuali reading math formulas we imagine each & every jump & dodge as being pre- calculated. Huang does and maintains this mathematical fiction on almost 300 pages.
Zero Sum Game does not print the impossible to follow geometries or diagrams of action (for me at least, one of the most un-mathematical minds on Goodreads i am sure), but spends time with mentioning trajectories, alluding to hidden graphs – the abstruse calculations that have probably driven Norbert Wiener to develop cybernetics in order to model fast moving real-world targets during WWII.
In this eminently readable book you change places with a character that is able to compute & combat enemies at the same time, save the day, dodge bullets. Not because everything is a matrix, not because everything is data or we are living inside a computer that we can hack, but because of some inherent computational capacity out there – a general compute-ability that permits some to see everything in terms of calculable distances, speeds & in order to optimize decisions & act at the same time(!!).
“Forces. Movements. Response times”- maybe it is the pure joy and fact of participating in this sixth sense of mathematical interplay that gives the near-future SF Zero Sum Game its impact. It is a sense in every way as revealing or more than the other 5 – and only speaks volumes about how other non-mind (non conscious, non cognitive) parts of us seem to calculate weight, trajectory and permit us to coordinate and not tumble at each step. At the same time what if we could multiply our quantify at will? S L Huang makes clear that such capacities come with a cost attached. Maybe it is exactly this – the surprising fact that we could equate sensory overload with invisible computational trauma. What is this computational trauma like? S.L. Huang takes you through the action via the possibility that there might be somebody out there that is able to suffer & take advantage (hopefully somebody from the good side of the force) of peeking into probabilities live, deciding on life & death choices during split-second windows. It is almost the real contingent world physics where algorithms act and manage to game the flash trading stock exchange system with a certain latency.
When considering the limits set by the speed of light & probabilistic math – these split decision of buying and trading are completly imperceptible or inaccesibile to us, already beyond any human action potentials of human traders on the trading floor. Science fiction makes liveable this inhuman math effects on the edge of life and death. One can live through the most harrowing calculus and still survive to tell the tale. I hope you’re convinced by now that all these weaponized math magnitutes, all these quantifications are never boring (never repetitive or pedantic).
Math is not restricted to a special region, far away in Plato’s world of transcendent perfect geometrical shapes (well it might be there as well) but immanent, evenly spread and unleashed all around. Everything is first person and everything allows access to this most impossible and dangerous of jobs (future jobs?). Cas Russell’s job is dangerous and involves various deadly agents and some pretty dangerous and delightfully (and scary) conspirative stuff (hint: world domination by Pithica). The main character is a walking talking biped math nerd that is more than just a calculator, since it’s a very involved, good and dependable person. She is not on top of the world but suffers under the effects of her enhanced capacities. What I like is that this post-human mind trip can be a showcase of mathematics unbound. Mathematics gets untethered from its cold beauty (of Bertrand Russells quip) and in the writing of S L Huang becomes quite searing, quite brutal, hellish number-crunching that hurts physically, leaving deadly bloody marks and scars everywhere. Math is paradoxically erupting almost like a telluric force, leaving algorythmic lava flows cooling down all around.
Mathematics in Zero Sum Game is lived phytagoreic seizure and embodied equations have a heaviness of their own. Completely underlying all reality there is this world of angles and swerves, that somehow escapes attention and gets ignored (otherwise it would drive us mad)at our own peril, like data streams mostly churned outside of our bodies. Blissfully here is one such vulnerable data analyst on our side, although this might be changing (importantly Cas Russell prefers retrieving inanimate objects more than people). If the most minute phenomena somehow do have their data imprint, if they are conscious and do not just enter our consciousness, they posses their mentat mediums but there’s never a clear border where the calculation settles. Calculations happen everywhere already, not just in minds. Minds seem to just tap into outcomes, not even able to follow blandly newtonian givens. After Zero Sum Game base reality ceases to somehow be base reality although most of the things and people around you still inhabit this placid world. These physics or these kinetic details do not clutter the novel and keep peppering it at the right moments that offer you a glimpse of what it is to feel the effects and act according to such a mathematically infected worldview.
Again I hope there’s not too many spoilers since the discovery of the actual material is most important. These are just a few thoughts about my honest puzzlement after reading such an incredible SF book. -
Zero Sum Game has some strong, subversive ideas, but weak characterisation and a slow-to-hook plot leaves it less than the sum of its parts.
Though it's new to print this year, Zero Sum Game was already on my radar in its previous, ebook only self-published incarnation, although it never made the leap from the ever-growing collection of Kindle Samples I keep around to inform potential purchases onto my actual TBR. This new version, published by Tor, has been revisited and polished up, and is now being released much more widely as part of the publisher's #Fearlesswomen initiative, bringing this unconventional superhero thriller to a bigger audience, and also to me.
Our protagonist Cas Russell is a mathematical genius, and a hired gun, but not in the way you'd expect. Far from being your average brains-over-brawn number crunching geek, providing support to a team from behind some giant, poorly lit computer display, her abilities let her calculate the trajectory of bullets, survive falls that should kill her and punch people much larger than her at just the right angle to drop them with minimum necessary force. Cas is extremely cagey about these abilities and keeps them very close to her chest, particularly as she lives in a world where she seems to be the only person who can do this kind of thing. However, after a routine extraction of a young woman from a Colombian drug cartel ends up leading her to an organisation led by someone with even more terrifying abilities, Cas ends up in the middle of a plot that's both more wide ranging and more relevant to her, personally, than she had realised.
The way Cas' abilities play out - and, almost as importantly, the way they don't - provides Zero Sum Game with its most unique and compelling facet. Our introduction to her capabilities is almost exclusively through her ability to manipulate real-world mechanics, giving her superhuman combat abilities and problem solving skills which allow her to, for example, move a series of random objects in an alley to manipulate the acoustics enough to hear a conversation happening in a distant room. This is all very cool stuff, and it absolutely sets the scene for Cas as an action hero subversion of the "maths geek" trope. In contrast, Cas' abilities to apply statistical analysis, while also developed in later chapters, take a long time to come to the fore, and importantly they never dominate the way the first-person narrative . Even when Cas does run the probabilities of what the people around her will do, it's embedded in interpersonal and emotional reactions to the situations she's in, and tends to come with a much lower rate of reward than her kickass physics-ninja skills. Cas is bad with people, but she's bad in a generally misanthropic way, not a "human emotions do not compute" way, and this makes for a more interesting character (especially for the purposes of first-person narration).
Full review at Nerds of a Feather:
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2018/09/... -
Totally awesome!I read this because Liz Bourke (
Sleeps with Monsters) recommended its sequel
Half Life, calling it "the better book, demonstrating a much firmer grasp of narrative and character", and I figured "fine", but I want to read the first book first….
Well, character/schmaracter I say... I loved these characters, and I loved the mathematics even more. Liz is a classical history type, so it's entirely possible that what she likes in these books is completely different from what turns my crank, but she hasn't steered me wrong very often.
Cas Russell is a math wiz, but perhaps not in the way that you might think. We all use mathematics (and its applied relative, physics) every day, but we use it intuitively. Cas consiciously understands all that mathematics. It's said that the great hitters of baseball can actually see the seams of the ball as it comes towards them. Cas can not only see the seams, but she can calculate the parabola of its trajectory, and exactly when to swing and how fast to impart the maximum energy to send the ball out of the park. Literally.
My math isn't good enough to be able to prove or contradict Cas's abilities but it's good enough for me to suspect that, rather than creating a Superman type superhero, Huang really has given Cas the ability to be the best that any human could be. She can't leap tall buildings in a single bound, but she can jump through second story windows if she can find the right lever. If Cas was playing baseball in the major leagues, every swing would not only be a home run, but nobody would ever find the ball in the stadium. Nobody like Cas Russell really exists (I hope!), but she doesn't seem as far fetched as Spiderman.
This story is action-packed, with lots of Boom!, and a strong female lead with a lot of flaws that she's beginning to realize she needs to work on. I'm looking forward to
Half Life -
Pros: fast paced, protagonist is ‘good at math’, interesting characters
Cons:
When Cas Russell takes the job to ‘retrieve’ Courtney Polk from a drug cartel, she assumes it will be a simple job. Because she’s VERY good at math, able to calculate vectors on the fly, making her dangerous in a fight. But she didn’t expect her mentor Rio to be working for the cartel. And when the woman who hired her turns out to be more than she seemed, Cas discovers she’s become a target of a mysterious organization, one with people who also have super powers.
This is a fast paced read that took me two days to get through. There are so many twists that it was hard to put down.
It’s an interesting cast of characters, as none of them are really ‘nice’ people. They’ve each got their good and bad qualities. Cas is a morally grey individual, who has no problem killing but also has some lines she won’t cross. Despite being a psychopath I mostly liked Rio. There’s a Dexter feel to him, as a man who’s using his baser urges for what he perceives is good. Arthur Tresting balances Rio on Cas’s other side, being mostly moral, but willing to bend the law when necessary and pretending he doesn’t know about or see most of Cas’s casual crimes.
I loved that Cas’s ‘superpower’ is that she’s just REALLY good at math. Like, so good she can do multiple calculations at once and so dodge bullets and make fancy trick kicks to take out opponents. The fight scenes are surprisingly entertaining.
I thought the rabbit hole of secret organizations was handled well, as was all the self doubt brought on by Dawna’s influence.
I really enjoyed the book. -
Superior adult thriller; imagine Jack Reacher but with a main character who's a young woman so good at mathematics that she's practically a superhero. Cas calculates the answer to problems so quickly that she can dodge bullets and beat up men much bigger than her. It's far-fetched but incredibly good fun, while the moral ambiguity we see (Cas upsets a potential ally who's horrified by some of her tactics, and starts to question her own behaviour) make it stand out in a crowded field. The villain, a 'psychic with a god complex' as described by the book's blurb, is a memorable one and this is one of the most exciting reads of the year for me. I've just bought sequel Half Life and can't wait to read.
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Really good thriller. I'd put it in the Bourne Identity column of the genre. Interesting lead and supporting characters and an extremely good and unique villain. One who believes she's doing what she's doing to make the world a better place. That actually applies to the heroine as well. Deeply flawed but struggling to do the right thing. She's a 'retriever' of people with unusual mathematical abilities, seeing the equations of kinetics, force vectors and gravitational acceleration play out around her like a built in Virtual Reality. The end sets up the next in the series with many threads to follow. Looking forward to seeing what impossible situations Cas Russell gets herself into next!
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Cas has numbers and equations constantly streaming through her brain, combining with physical training to turn her into a maths-powered ninja. I liked the idea of a mathematical genius saving the world... but this book is actually much better than that. For a start, even without the constant threat of shadowy figures influencing their thoughts, no-one really knows what the 'right' answer looks like. The dysfunctional team that Cas pulls together leads to a lot of brilliant moments. Action-packed, fast-paced, and full of nods to maths and computer science alike.
Full review on Strange Charm:
http://strangecharmbooks.co.uk/2014/1... -
Brainycat's 5 "B"s:
blood: 4
boobs: 0
bombs: 4
bondage: 2
blasphemy: 1
Stars: 3
Bechdel Test: Pass
Deggan's Rule: Pass
Gay Bechdel Test: Fail
Full review at booklikes. -
Wow! That was...different, very different from the stuff I normally read. I was intrigued by the concept of a super-math-genius, able to determine bullet trajectories (and avoid them), force vectors, obscure theorems, and all manner of mathematical heebie-jeebie. It seems a shame that she uses her powers as a hit woman/enforcer/finder-of-missing-persons, rather than - something useful? But I couldn't stop reading, even as the body count when up and up and UP and UP. So, I don't know - if technothrillers are your thing, and you don't mind stepping over lots and lots of bodies, you might enjoy this a lot.
