Hostile Takeover

I *LIKE* this book! I like reading books about people making or handling huge sums of money. (Ugly Americans by Ben Mezrich comes to mind.) I like books in which the protagonist wins against bad odds. Shwartz has created an interesting world in which one must move deftly through social/business situations in which missing the slightest nuance of speech, look, or body language can screw up one's permanent record, and it doesn't take much to lose big and have one's body sold for parts. The extrapolation of today's corporate culture saddled with today's liberal, politically-correct speech censorship carried to its extreme make an interesting venue in which to live and work. I did find this similar to Heinlein with a touch of EE Doc Smith's space opera. Schwartz made one short reference to CC's thought patterns which reminded me of both Horatio Hornblower pacing the ship's deck for hours and Van Gulik's Judge Dee angrily pacing the room while forming a plan of action: "... she'd always tried to imagine tricky situations and how she'd deal with them." I hope Schwartz brings CC back to show what the aliens have been teaching her since she and Marc went off with them.

I don't get why others would dislike the protagonist. She's great. The universe is interesting and I am looking forward to more stories from it.

Susan Shwartz's Hostile Takeover was an engrossing read. CC Williams was a different kind of character, and it was refreshing to read a space adventure with such a unique twist. In this novel, fledgling corporate auditor CC Williams is assigned to audit the business activities on the asteroid Vesta. The details about what it would really be liked to travel in space, and live on a micro-gravity asteroid showed a lot of research and thought, and gave this book a really fresh perspective. The plot was full of intrigue, and kept me guessing (which is hard!) and I applaud Ms. Shwartz for writing a hard s.f. novel with plenty of heart and excellent characterizations. I recommend this book to all who like a rousing adventure in space that has a really unique point of view of the future of space travel. -A.C. Crispin [...]