Review::Shockball by S.L. Viehl

Shockball by S.L. Viehl

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Shockball(A Stardoc Novel)by S.L. Viehl

Shockball is the forth in the series and has the most reveals for the ongoing threads. There still seem to be some loose threads and I haven't gotten far enough through the series to say yes or no to the rest being solved. This novel deals with Cherijo's dysfunctional family and probably the reason she has such a strange way of handling her relationships.

In this one; while trying to stay away from her father Duncan and Cherijo end up using the ship that was gifted to them by her father and it, of course, turns out to be a trap. But this is not before Cherijo apparently loses their baby because her body's strange chemistry rejects it. She's made a decision as regards the future of children and tries, throughout the whole book, to keep it a secret from Duncan.

Duncan and Cherijo are brought to Earth where her father tells her his insidious and somewhat creepy incestous plan. Duncan's future is being used as an inducement. But there is a secret underworld (like way underground) movement that breaks into her father's lab and generously help Cherijo and Duncan escape. It comes at a price when they are trapped below the ground and Cherijo becomes doctor to a bunch of hybrid Shockball players; while Duncan is enlisted on the team and continues as the inducement for Cherijo to stay there as a prisoner doing what the leader of these people wants.

Cherijo finds out that there were more children in her family; though most of them were destroyed by her father, as failures. There might be one still alive.

Each of these novels has come out in a similar format. They are all approximately 150k words and almost four hundred pages. I would almost guess that the others in the series might come out the same because it's beginning to look like some sort of pattern.

This novel is a great place to read to get most of the answers to all the burning questions and even a bit more information than one might want, about some few other things. A lot gets resolved and finally leaves the main characters in a better place. Even if there are still some warm questions hanging in the wings.

SSF for fans of the Sci-Fi type and those that like Romance and perhaps a bit twisted family stories.

I'm taking a slight break from them for now; though I do have Blade Dancer, which takes place in the same universe. These are excellent books for someone with a voracious appetite for reading SFF.

J.L. Dobias




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