Reviews

Shadow Unit 1 by Emma Bull

arktosaur's review

3.0

I gotta say, this really surprised me. At around the half-way point, I wasn't enjoying it. It felt awkward, and stilted, and uneven. The characters didn't feel like real people (let alone human beings and/or government agents), the banter felt forced, and the "miracle exception" felt silly.

But closer to the end, things started to gel. I started to enjoy it, started to look forward to reading it.

I love the concept of it. My complaints about the characters acting oddly (Worth's revelation of her sexual orientation felt particularly bad; I can't even imagine a high school girl coming out like that, let alone a grown FBI agent; Hafidha also felt like a caricature sometimes instead of a character) and some of the banter feeling forced still stand, but I'm more inclined to continue reading the series now than I was just a few days ago.

xdroot's review against another edition

2.0

Has potential but did not hold my attention. won't be coming back.

natalielorelei's review against another edition

I have no idea how to rate any of these, because I found Shadow Unit hypnotic and mainlined all of the episodes in the space of several weeks, but I also found them enragingly homophobic and racist, even though they were clearly trying to be the opposite. :/

eilatan's review against another edition

3.0

Readable and well-written, but you can definitely see the series' roots in both The X-Files and Criminal Minds.

brillig's review against another edition

5.0

Created as a kind of fan homage to X-Files and Criminal Minds, it's a great collection of fast-paced procedural stories, with some character development snippets mixed in. It would work well in any setting where random people start to manifest bizarre powers...and where most of these gifts turn their users homicidal.

tundragirl's review against another edition

2.0

I got this because I love Elizabeth Bear--I've never heard of the other authors. I know from reading Bear's blog that she is a fan of the show Criminal Minds, which I just don't get. I think it's a terrible, terrible show.

This book is essentially Criminal Minds fanfic, with the names and races of the main characters changed, and a little bit of the supernatural thrown in. If I want supernatural crime solving, I can think of plenty of other books and series that do it better and more originally. Bob Howard and Harry Dresden spring to mind immediately. I think I'll pass on the other installments (or I guess I should say "episodes").

tomasthanes's review against another edition

4.0

This book is a collection of short stories in the genre "supernatural federal law enforcement" (FBI, like the X-Files) by multiple authors. The main frustration is that the team has 8 people. That's a LOT of people to meet for the first time and keep track of. I was frustrated until I gave up trying to keep track of them and accepted not understanding the story quite as well as I wanted.

The authors of these stories *DID* have a VERY good handle on police procedures. They added to the depth of my knowledge in this area. Well done.