[womble]

TITLE: Infinity Squad
AUTHOR: Shuvom Ghose
GENRE: Sci Fi
PUBLISHED: 20/09/2012
RATING: ★★★★★
PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon £1.90, $2.99
MOBILISM LINK: Sample Sample
PAGE COUNT: 260
ISBN: ASIN: B009EW7IEQ

Description: "Second Lieutenant Jonah Forrest is finding out that having infinite lives doesn't make war any easier. Sure, downloading into a cloned body when you die is better than the alternative, but that doesn't make a Hell-Spider's claws hurt any less. Or his General's orders for suicide missions any more sane.

But when his First Lieutenant gets killed in action, really killed, and when a captured Hell-Spider offers a way to get 'kills' without taking on the enemy, Forrest and his Infinity Squad will have to decide how hard they are willing to work to take the easy way out. Especially when the General starts catching on to their schemes. And when their Hell-Spider prisoner starts suggesting more and more dangerous alternative missions. And when they start suspecting that not ALL of their consciousness is transferring into their new cloned bodies.

Infinity Squad: They're willing to die to free your planet from alien invaders. More than once if necessary."

Review: This is a fun, fast paced Sci Fi novel, full of edge to the seat action, plot twists and surprises, humour, it was hard to put down once I started reading and I’m desperately hoping there is a sequel to follow. It reminded me of Star ship Troopers and Star Gate, but took the idea much further, with the intriguing idea of infinite life, what could you do with a soldier that gets resurrected each time he dies, also horrifying in the wrong hands as the book later goes on to illustrate.

The characters of Infinity Squad are strong, cohesive, fun and easy to identify with, and have a novel non confrontational approach to this war.

They find interesting solutions to each problem they encounter, they come to realise what they were told originally is not necessarily true, and wonder who really is the enemy.

"They're forcing us to go there, to try and kill as many of you as we can- but I'm not going to do that. I just want to get in and out without seeing any of you. How can I do that?"

The spider looked at me for a second. "Your species is strange." Then the spiders in that direction started making a gap in the ring. I lined up our privates and had them aim at an innocent tree.

We fought that tree to a vicious stand-still for the next ten minutes, yelling, screaming and making other battle sounds that would have made any radio performer proud. When Jinx landed in the clearing again, I had Zazlu and Juan get on the helo and start arming the rocket launchers. Zazlu knew where to go. The privates stayed with me, kneeling in the shade of the tree line. The next part was tricky to coordinate, but luckily the implants worked over a long distance.

The squad take evermore extreme and outrageous action to stay ahead of the chaos and in their own bodies as alarming questions arise about the clones they use.

The alleged bad guys of this story the Hell Spiders were definitely judged by their appearance, the ultimate phobia for humans - giant insects, but are they really the enemy? The general in charge of the base does not seem to be making sane decisions and there is the whole military conspiracy theory thrown into the mix. He sends his teams on increasingly insane missions just to collect trophies, bent on conquering the new world, not considering other life forms are intelligent too

There is a hint of budding romance between Forrest and Dr. Shannon Murphy but it doesn’t dominate the story, the author leaves you with a surprising twist in the plot at the end of the book room for a sequel.

Infinity Squad had me laughing out loud at their exploits and I’ll read again as I wait for the next book, this author is now one of my new favourites, I give Infinity Squad five stars.

A free sample is available here and at Libboo, and available at Amazon for £1.90 GBP, 2.99 US

[hmorphone]

I would like to corroborate womble's excellent review and offer a few thoughts of my own.

This is a fun, fast paced Sci Fi novel, full of edge to the seat action, plot twists and surprises, humour, it was hard to put down once I started reading and I’m desperately hoping there is a sequel to follow

I almost agree completely, I'm a little less desperate

It reminded me of Star ship Troopers and Star Gate, but took the idea much further?"

I would say it reminds me more of a mix of Starship Troopers and Catch 22. Sci-fi "bug hunting" combined with the insanity of war. The insanity of war is one of the key themes of the book.

The squad take evermore extreme and outrageous action to stay ahead of the chaos and in their own bodies as alarming questions arise about the clones they use.

A perfect description of the unfolding action of the book...

There is a hint of budding romance between Forrest and Dr. Shannon Murphy but it doesn’t dominate the story

It was an adult story without being gratuitous, and it did have romance, it just wasn't a main theme. The author made great use of being able to allude to things at times, without having to spell them out for you, and being more graphic at other times. On a side note, you'll have trouble looking at bees quite the same way, ever again.

the author leaves you with a surprising twist in the plot at the end of the book room for a sequel.

I was unable to predict the book's ending (a good thing,) and I do have to say (to the author's credit) that it does remain relatively faithful to the plotline. I also agree that there's plenty of room for a sequel, but thankfully this book doesn't end on a cliffhanger. What makes this odd is that one of the few criticisms I have of the book is that there was something just a little "off" in the ending. The author did so many things right that I can't put my finger on what it was?

Infinity Squad had me laughing out loud at their exploits and I’ll read again as I wait for the next book, this author is now one of my new favourites, I give Infinity Squad five stars.

Criticisms aside, I continue to agree with most of womble's conclusions. Because it wasn't quite as polished as it could have been, and because of that "off" feeling I had at the end, I would temper my review more and give it four stars however... (but that's just me )