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Rating: 
Summary: Breaking Strain (Venus Prime - Vol. 1)
Review: An excellent book and an easy read that combines a good mystery with a SF setting. I have read four of the six books in the series so far, and each has been excellent. The author combines great immagery and vocabulary and a great story line. With 6 books in the series, there is plenty to keep up the interest. Although it is a light read, this is a pure SF book. There are few ,if any, fantasy components.
Rating: 
Summary: "Breaking Strain" strains the interest
Review: I have to admit I bought this book by mistake, thinking it the work of Arthur C. Clarke. You see, Clarke's name is big and bold above the title, while the actual author's name is rather hidden.In any case, the story revolves around SPARTA, a.k.a. Linda, a.k.a. Ellen Troy, a genetically altered genius. Apparently, their are bad people who want to abuse poor SPARTA, so she must escape. The problem is, about a third of the way through the book, it briefly becomes about Nikos the shipper and his efforts to keep his father's shipping business alive. Then it's about Sondra Sylvester and her attempts to own an antique book. After that, it's about an accident in space and the crew of the "Star Queen." Finally, we get back to SPARTA. In short, this book meanders all over the solar system attempting to find a consistent plot. I realize this is only volume one of a six volume series, but try a little story cohesion. If the first novel struggles with a through line, how can you expect the series to hang together?
Rating:
Summary: If you are a GUY
Review: If you're a guy. You will love SPARTA/LINDA. She is a dream (conceived by male writers... I would love to get a female's opinion of this book). This is very good reading of the Asimov/detective/SF variety. An easy read that combines a good detective mystery with a futuristic setting. There are 6 books in the series, so there is plenty to follow. Although it is a light read, this is a pure SF book. There are few ,if any, fantasy components.
Rating:
Summary: Venus Prime series:
Review: Sparta is a young woman who grew up as Linda, was enrolled in a specieal program for the extremely intelligent, but was kidnapped and changed by the use of an advanced technology so that she has special and unusual skills and abilities. The mysterious cult that changed her cannot bend her will to their purpose; she escapes, assumes an alias, and rises, aided by her powers and a great deal of effort, to become a Space board investigator, wherein she solves crimes that may have been perpetrated by her abductors. Her abductors having blocked many of her memories before she was able to escape, she has to piece together her own history to get a sense of who she is, and piece together clues as to what the cult are about; she is aided in this by her friend Blake Redfield. After having gone through crises and adventures (each gripping adventure being covered by a volume of this series), she learns more of her history. This is crime-solving science fiction at its best, and having read the first 5 volumes I can hardly wait to read the 6th. Volumes of this Venus Prime series are:
1. Breaking Strain
2. Maelstrom
3. Hide & Seek
4. Medusa Encounter
5. Diamong Moon
6. The Shining Ones If you enjoyed Robert A. Heinlein's "Friday," you will like Sparta even better. In this reviewer's opinion, Asimov, Clarke (& Preuss in this series), Heinlein, and Kaplan are the best autors of this genre. These are well worth the re-rreading! -DM
Rating: 
Summary: A pulp version of The Long Kiss Goodnight
Review: What that drew me into buying Breaking Strain was the image on the front and so is an abject lesson in judging a book by its cover - this text pales in comparison to films such as Assassin and The Long Kiss Goodnight and reads instead like The Sixty Million Dollar Man. There is superfluous obsession with technical detail, such as the protagonist's cybernetic abilities. As we don't get to learn much about her before the action kicks in she remains a superficial character, and since we are privy to more than she is in her amnesiac state, she is a difficult character to relate to.
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