Very solid start to what appears to be a great and long-running collaborative series. it lives up to its intent of serving more as a fictional episodic arc of stories ala a tv show rather than an anthology or story collection.

I'll be checking out additional sequels, as the characters grew on me (though the lack of equally fascinating antagonists is what caused the drop from 4 to 3 stars, though this is more likely due to it being the start of the series and the intro of the characters). ( )

Shadow unit is a made-up crime/horror television show written by various authors just for fun. I enjoyed some of the character building (while some of the characters were still unformed for me by the end of the season) and the adventures. The "season finale" went a bit too far into torture porn for my sensibilities. Not sure if I'll go any further. They've put the first two seasons formatted for ebooks - linked from http://shadowunit.org/

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Very solid start to what appears to be a great and long-running collaborative series. it lives up to its intent of serving more as a fictional episodic arc of stories ala a tv show rather than an anthology or story collection.

I'll be checking out additional sequels, as the characters grew on me (though the lack of equally fascinating antagonists is what caused the drop from 4 to 3 stars, though this is more likely due to it being the start of the series and the intro of the characters). ( )

Shared world collection of short stories, novellas and bios created by Emma Bull, about a team of US investigators who deal with anomalous crimes - those conducted by the rare people with special powers. The powers are always a bit odd, and usually represent some prior incident in the perpetrators lives. But they can be very strong, and that makes the them hard to apprehend. Good teamwork is essential, so it's fortunate that a good team has been established - an offshoot of the FBI's behavioural units. This is written in a style intended to mimic a TV series.As such there isn't that much in the way of details, but the characters do develop well over the instalments - this book contains the first four episodes of the first season. plus a few short bits and pieces.

I liked it. I only really picked it up becasue I was looking for War of the Oaks by Emma, but my ebook shop doesn't have that available, but did have this. Based on her writing I definitely do want t find Oaks, but I'll also read the rest fo this series (or at least the next couple) to see how it works out. It's set in 2002 and jumps forward in small steps.

The story opens with the introduction of the newest team member Daphnie Worth, ex-paramedic she joined the FBI after her colleagues were killed by an anomalous patient broke free of his restraints. She knows she's competent at her job, but still worries about joining a new team. It's an effective tactic to introduce the readers to the established team without being too clunky. How it will hold over the rest of the series remains to be seen. Some of the other stories and excerpt use other characters as the focus, written by the other authors, but all work well. I don't know if they're going to keep a character each, or share them around some. ( )

http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2014-12.html ( )