Cold as Ice

This a science fiction mystery with no real villains not but a lot of suspects. It pits 3 master gamers against each other. The stakes include the development of Europa a moon of Jupiter, the way crimes committed during 1st interplanetary war, and the fate of 3 peculiar individuals.So have criticized this story for its slow pace and lack of action. Truly great mysteries have this quality. The name of the game here is to figure out how seemingly unrelated characters and events are related. Plodding nature of the book gives the reader a chance figure out the puzzle the author is presenting. I think Sheffield has done an excellent job of crafting a mystery with hard science roots with an interesting African American hero.

This was my first Sheffield book. And I'm hooked. The story and characters were awesome. A true hard sci-fi story (my favorite kind)! As I imagine where and how the human race will expand into our solar system, this book lines up with about 95% of my vision. I'll definitely be reading the sequel.

'Cold as Ice' is the first of three books. I enjoyed the premise, and It left me wanting to explore the characters and events moving onward into the follow on books, which are 'Ganymede Club' and 'Dark as Day'

This is certainly 'Hard SF', but the pacing is good, and the characterisation doesn't suffer, as it can with some 'Hard SF' titles.

Prior to this I had only read some of the Sheffield Juvenile SF in the 'Jupiter Series', but I will now be reading a great deal more.

4 Stars.

This book is in no way a classic, just a perfectly adequate genre fiction exercise.

It took me a while to finally start liking the characters as the author took their time introducing you to so many people and their lives but after I finally became interested in them, I enjoyed the story.

ZB5