Shockball: A Stardoc Novel

Love the book, but it's missing the last 30 pages! Very disappointed that I'll have to buy it again elsewhere just to finish the story.

I LOVE S.L. Viehl. She also writes under several other names including Lynn Viehl and I love them all!She creates realistic worlds with an intriguing cast of characters who grow and develop throughout the series. I can't wait for Omega Games!

I have loved all the books in this series. I would compare this series with the Sector General books. This one has several twists that make it worth a read. Doctor Veil finds out more about her past, her parent, and her childhood friend. I must admit that I love any book that has doctors out treating aliens and zipping around to other planets. This book, for a large part takes place on Earth, but the things she finds out will answer lots of questions for the previous books. I am waiting to see what other twists and turns are in the next book!

I really enjoyed this one. I have all of her books and have enjoyed this one almost as much as her first. The other two were a little violent for me, but her characters draw a reader into the world that the author has created. I feel this writer is very gifted and will continue buying and keeping her books, but would request a little more bonding with husband, child, family, a little less violence. Our real world has enough of it, I really don't care to read alot of it. I use books to escape the real world and go into one that is full of fun, life, fantasy, magic and a bit of unreality thrown in. people do usually read book, watch movies,etc to escape the things they don't or can't deal with at the moment. books, movies, etc help people deal with the crazy world we live in and we are very thankful for people like this author who can help us with this goal.

A word of caution: Shockball is not a book that sits back calmly and allows you to read it. Shockball is a book that seizes you violently in its jaws, shakes you like a hyperactive terrier, and slams you against a wall several times before letting you go, leaving you confused, exhausted, exhilarated, and not quite sure what just happened to you save that it was really cool and you can't wait to do it again. Shockball is the fourth novel is S.L. Viehl's Stardoc series, and fans won't be disappointed. Cherijo's past finally catches up with her, and she and Reever are taken back to Terra, where things don't go quite as either Cherijo and Reever or Joseph Grey Veil planned. Viehl's combination of medical knowledge and imaginative extrapolation create a host of alien creatures so believable that you'd swear she'd operated on them herself. The majority of the action in Shockball takes place on xenophobic Terra, so there isn't as much xenobiology in this book, but Viehl still manages to fit in an entirely new alien species, complete with architecture and art forms, as well as giving us a disturbing look at what has happened to the human race.The appeal of the Stardoc books lies partly in the extensive worldbuilding and the medical believability, but I find that most of it is due to the characters populating the books. They are sometimes funny, sometimes annoying, and come complete with a host of strengths and weaknesses. The heroes aren't perfect. The villains aren't wholly despicable. In short, they're real. Sure, Cherijo is a genetic construct tooling around the far reaches of the galaxy, but she's real enough to be my neighbour down the hall (who I also wouldn't trust with a dermal probe when she's in a bad mood). It's very, very easy to get attached to these people.Which is when Viehl goes into maniac mode and puts them through hell so fast that you have no choice but to hang on for the ride and hope you make it through. She's an expert at distracting you with something bright and shiny so that you don't see the punch coming until you're flat on your back. Viehl isn't content to wrap everything up in a neat little package for the reader, so the Stardoc series consists of a number of deftly-woven threads which connect each book and may come back to haunt you at any time. No one is safe, nothing is sacred, and you never know what she's going to do next. I've laughed, cried, and screamed out loud reading these books, sometimes within the course of a single chapter. These books are fun. Roller-coaster, breathless, heart-pounding kind of fun. Just make sure you start reading early, because they'll keep you up long past your bedtime.

As they travel through space, Dr. Cherijo Grey Veil and her spouse, Perpetua ship Captain Duncan Reever are pleased over her pregnancy. However, her joy turns to sadness when she learns her cloned body's immunity system is killing the baby. Before she informs her husband she has a miscarriage. Cherijo knows she can never birth a child with anyone except perhaps her demented creator Joseph Grey Veil. While Cherijo recovers, a meteor shower disables the Perptua beyond repair. Transferring to their other ship Truman may mean that Cherijo's creator who gave her that spacecraft may be able to track them via some undetected device. Soon the duo is forced to go underground to live among half-breeds. Duncan has no choice but to participate in the local version of SHOCKBALL even as Cherijo now knows you can hide, but at some time you must fight especially when the cause is personal. SHOCKBALL, the fourth Stardoc tale, is an exhilarating science fiction space adventure. The zestful story line stays at warp speed even when introducing new readers to the lead characters. Cherijo is as fresh as ever as she undergoes new heartaches while her spouse has his own problems. Fans of futuristic outer space novels will want to take off with this tale and the three previous Stardoc books as all four stories take the audience where they rarely have been before.Harriet Klausner