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Barbara Chepaitis

Author of The Fear Principle

15+ Works 228 Members 3 Reviews

About the Author

Barbara Chepaitis earned her doctorate in composition & teaches at a university in upstate New York, where she makes her home. She is the author of a futuristic suspense series, & enjoys cooking even more than she enjoys writing about it. (Bowker Author Biography)

Includes the names: B Chepaitis, B. A. Chepaitis

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Works by Barbara Chepaitis

Associated Works

Future Washington (2005) — Contributor — 35 copies

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Reviews

I didn't get far in this book and refused to finish it because the protagonist, Jaguar Addams, is such a damn BITCH! I don't usually use that word in my reviews. In fact, I don't think I ever have. However, in this case I think it's warranted.

Don't authors usually want readers to LIKE their protagonists? I would think so. They want them to empathize with them, sympathize with them, grow to care for them. I hated Jaguar Addams. She's a Trainer on a prison planetoid, where she interviews and interrogates prisoners using her psionic abilities, often having to resort, apparently, to physical violence for self defense. In the first chapter of this book, she approaches her male boss's office, a man who she has no romantic feelings for nor he for her, and she hears a female voice in the office. She opens the door without knocking and finds a female Federal agent in a chair across from his desk, conversing with him. And without any explanation and for no apparent reason, Jaguar moves to her boss's desk and sits on it directly in front of this female agent, blocking her view of Jaguar's boss. Um, wtf? Then she starts kicking this woman's chair repeatedly. What the hell is her problem? And her boss says nothing. The agent says nothing. They just put up with it. Jaguar makes some condescending comments and is rude. Then she reaches out and grabs this woman's clothes and starts man handling her, before this woman backs away from her. If it was me, I would have knocked the shit out of her. And she introduced herself as "Dr. Addams," so why would a self described highly educated professional behave in such a juvenile way? It's beyond stupid. It's beyond rude. She's just a total bitch. I read a few pages further, which showed total stupidity in the book's situation and in the characters and how they operate and decided to give up quickly. Part of the reason is I just quit reading a loser of a book that I actually invested 300 pages on, so I wasn't about to repeat that disaster on an obvious piece of crap like this. I don't know anything about this author, but I do know I'm not going to read anything else by her in the future. She sucks. This book is highly not recommended. It's horrible.… (more)
 
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scottcholstad | Sep 28, 2015 |
The Fear Principle is science fiction thriller with moderate to heavy expletives and violence.

After the "Killing Times", a time in human history where serial killing became an epidemic and barely a soul came out of the period unscathed, the government created a program of rehabilitation off-planet, by using the fears of the individual as a control technique. Some corporations, such as DIE, work in the shadows, creating super toys for the elite at the cost of everyone around them.

Dr. Jaguar Addams has empathic abilities which she uses with her prisoners on Planetoid Three, to confront their basic fears, she takes their fears into herself and uses them to heal her subjects. With smoke, mirrors, actors and empathic mind push, she can make anyone stand up to their real selves and face that which most makes us shudder. Most times she is successful and for this reason she is given one of her toughest assignments yet.

Clare Rilasco is an elite assassin, emotionless, hard and very driven. She has been captured and everyone wants a piece of her, some want the answers locked inside her brain and some don't wish for her to share what she knows. She is given to Jaguar to unlock, but Clare isn't without tricks of her own and soon the doctor becomes the student in a power struggle for the ultimate mind control.

Alex Dzarny is the director of the facilities on Planetoid Three, he is also an empath who uses his abilities to control the situations on the planet. He has a special spot for Jaguar and does all that he can to protect her.

Nick Lyola is an ex-lover of Jaguars, who saved her life when she was a child during the "Killing Times". He is a renegade empath and the abilities he is learning could cause him to lose himself forever, as we watch his personality change for the worst as the story progesses. He is jealous of Alex and Jag's "friendship" and will stop at nothing to control Jaguar and make her his again.

I liked the main plot, even though it was very slow paced and I quite enjoyed the empathic abilities of the characters. I enjoyed the mind games, the smoke and mirrors of the set up for the prisoners. I liked the character of Adrian and found him to be well written and was a nice surprise in the story, as well, I equally enjoyed Alex, Nick, Terrence and The Looker. I wasn't overly fond of neither Jaguar nor Clare, I found both of them to be confusing and quite similar in nature, meaning, their wasn't much distinction between their personalities, and you really had to pay attention to their dialogue or you'd miss who was saying what and had to back track your reading.

I didn't like the back story very much, it just wasn't believable, though I did like all the dead guy scenes, they were extremely well written and spooky to read. I wasn't impressed with having to read over half of the book for it to begin to get interesting, if I had borrowed from the library, I'm not sure if I would renew it to see how it had finished, however, after you get thru a large portion of the book, then things begin to come together and a bit more interest ensues. I, myself, wasn't overly fond of the read, the dialogue was disjointed in places and often got away from the writer, leaving a book that required more Planetoid Three and Killing Times back story to make it thoroughly interesting. Playing on your fears and connecting with them thru empathic abilities is a very neat idea but more examples could have been shared with the reader so that you can truly appreciate the Jaguar/Clare storyline.
… (more)
 
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MadMooseMama | May 18, 2011 |

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