Nova

 (21 customer reviews)

First and foremost, the criticisms that people are listing here that the novel ended strangely are (unfortunately) spot on. The reason for this is that this novel was originally intended to be a prequel to the video game StarCraft: Ghost, which was also set to follow the protagonist, Nova. If anyone is to blame for the awkward ending, it is Blizzard rather than DeCandido -- if you read the beginning of the book, you will even notice that there is an apology included from Blizzard that was pasted in at the last minute.

I have always imagined that Ghosts would be tragic characters. They are overwhelmed at a young age by external emotions and thoughts that they cannot control or understand, typically to such a point that they must drug themselves with "inhibitors" that render them as little more than pharmeceutical slaves to the highest military bidder. This is a depressing existence, and I feel that the mood is perfectly captured in this novel. Nova is a great character,...Read more

Overall a good read and even better for anyone familiar with the Starcraft universe. The story wasn't what I expected, but it was engaging and kept me reading all the way through. DeCandido made the characters interesting enough for me to care about what happened. From a literary perspective however, it was a little disappointing with some distracting typos and moments of awkward dialogue. It doesn't have the storytelling power of official Blizzard lore, but overall, it's a fun quick read.

In short: great for Starcraft fans or scifi fans looking for something simple

The Good: Gets Nova's backstory across, use of UNN new feeds to tell you about the ongoing battle of the Zerg is unique

The Bad: The made up slang is lame, he sensors cuss words with "flick", not very sophisticated

The backstory of Nova is very interesting, and this book was to be the behind-the-scenes of her from the cancelled PS2 game. The book starts out at Nova's 15th birthday and leads up to the death of her family. She then runs from the rich area to the Gutter to live in alleys and she discovers she's a teep/teek or telepathic/telekinetic. What she has to grow through is pretty horrible, including her working for the drug lord Fagin, and the Wrangler who is sent to capture her for the Ghost program.

The story is very simple, and isn't very sophisticated, but it gets the job done and you can really feel bad for what Nova is going through. Knowing she's just a girl makes her seem more vulnerable, including the fact that she almost gets raped, and...Read more