Review::The Sixth Movement by Shiva Winters ( Forgotten Children, Book Two )

The Sixth Movement by Shiva Winters

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The Sixth Movement by Shiva Winters

When Shiva Winters proclaims that she writes for entertainment she's not kidding. I've come to expect a number of things from her work and the highest on the list is the entertainment. This installment of Forgotten Children is no exception to the rules. There will be long sentences lots of world building and bunches of creative science along with somewhat realistic though rather super-humanly strong characters. If you're looking for strong female characters then look no further. Shiva(The character in the novel) and her adopted family have plenty to go around.

In the previous book we learned many of the dark secrets of Anslaw; and Shiva rediscovered herself and made her stand against an abuse that had gone on for too long. This resulted in her being interred at Anslaw and Aerisa. Free to live there, but not free to live among others except the other sixes. This has given her the time and opportunity to release more of her fellow 6's from their cryogenic containers and begin a slow process of integrating them. But now they need to further gain freedom by becoming less dependent on the government that is grudgingly taking care of their responsibilities to the soldiers they created.

One way Shiva and company can do this is to help track down the 5's who were sold off into the black market. But for Shiva; the only way to do this type of work, is on her terms. So the majority of the plot to this installment is the conflict between her with her family of 6's and the government. Some of those officials seem to earnestly want to help but many still want to use the 6's and gain some sort of return on their investment. Shiva will have to stand strong against any potential for abuse and she'll have to somehow learn to trust those who deserve the trust.

The reader is about to learn more about the abuse Shiva had to endure and the result; with some rather extensive explanations for some unknown passages under Anslaw. And as Shiva's intellect begins to kick in strong we see the building of the base from which the community of 6's will begin to gain their freedom. Yet each time Shiva needs to interface with the politicians and military it becomes a test of wills.

This installment includes some few strategic battles pitting 6's against 5's and those battles, for the most part, seem mostly one-sided, but since the real conflict here is between those who want to help and those who want to continue to abuse, it works out quite well as the plot goes and it creates a well paced Science Fiction Military Suspense Thriller.

As I mentioned the main players are beginning to look like super-humans with extra powers that give them the edge. But Shiva Winters does her usual excellent job of bring the human characteristics into each character with their flaws both major and minor and all displaying simple normal human traits. As with the previous novel there is a distinct Lesbian thread in the story but it does not overpower or dominate the story and is handled in a quite logical believable fashion.

As always with Shiva's writing I caution anyone who has a weakness when it come to grammar that there will be at least a few flaws in the fabric. Most are in the form of repeated words or missing words.

Like a good scotch whiskey Shiva Winter's prose can sometimes be an acquired taste so I recommend for the new reader to start with some of her earlier work. You will love it or hate it but if you read enough you should start craving it. I'm always happy to see when she releases one of her newer labels.

I had a chance to look at the ARC for her new steam-punk novel and, for those fans that love her current series already, it will be a great treat to add to your collection.

No pressure for you to get that one finished Shiva.

J.L. Dobias



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