I Can Transform You in Minions Read and Review

Sep 03, 2019 bex rated it it was amazing

I Can Transform You is an excellent speculative fiction novella, leaning towards the science fiction side of the spectrum. Broaddus doesn’t waste time setting the stage and the reader is thrown straight into the action from the opening page.

As I’m learning tends to be common with Apex’s publications, this story is pretty dark. It’s also a grittier tale, but nothing excessive or beyond my personal limit.

Unfortunately, I didn’t connect well with the main character, Mac. This isn’t a weakness in th I Can Transform You is an excellent speculative fiction novella, leaning towards the science fiction side of the spectrum. Broaddus doesn’t waste time setting the stage and the reader is thrown straight into the action from the opening page.

As I’m learning tends to be common with Apex’s publications, this story is pretty dark. It’s also a grittier tale, but nothing excessive or beyond my personal limit.

Unfortunately, I didn’t connect well with the main character, Mac. This isn’t a weakness in the writing–the character had plenty of depth and nuance. It’s a matter of personal taste and we’re all going to have some we connect to more easily than others. Mac just wasn’t someone I clicked with easily.

I was more intrigued by the secondary character, Ade, and I’d love to see something else where Ade had the main role and I could get to know him better. But that’s wishful thinking on my part, although it’s very possible Broaddus has something else out there I’ve not read yet. Or maybe he’s got more of Ade in the works. (hint hint)

The story has a hint of mystery and a lot of twists and turns. It’s the kind of writing that keeps my mind engaged and alert putting everything together and doesn’t let it wander off, which is always a bonus when I’m reading for pain relief and distraction.

As an extra bonus, this volume also includes the original “Pimp My Airship” short from which the novel I previously reviewed (and loved) derived. As a writer myself, I found it fascinating to see how the characters had grown and changed from this earlier version to the full length one, and which pieces survived the revision more or less intact. I definitely prefer the full length version, but this is well worth the read as it stands.

Now comes the hard part. The rating. I end up around 4.5 stars, but I think this is more a reflection of the lingering high from having been blown away by the full length Pimp My Airship as well as the Do Not Go Quietly anthology. I don’t want everything I read to impact me as much as those two did–otherwise my head would expand like an overinflated balloon and I’d seriously get a headache from the high pressure of ideas and the bruising from banging the unwieldy brain on everything. But when those two are still stuck in my subconscious, it is hard not to draw comparisons within the genre. ...more

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Aug 12, 2013 Josh rated it really liked it

Shelves: sci-fi, kindle, read_2013, review_books, own, private_detective

Mac Peterson is a private detective in a futuristic world where alien towers dot the scarred landscape and corruption is rife throughout the major city servants. Addicted to Stim, a stimulant drug of choice, introduced to the populace as a way of stemming the growing tide of panic following the tower's appearance from beneath the surface, he polices where police fail to go, a victim of power and slave to his addition.

Mac's wife Kiersten, a member of the Security Forces, goes undercover to inves Mac Peterson is a private detective in a futuristic world where alien towers dot the scarred landscape and corruption is rife throughout the major city servants. Addicted to Stim, a stimulant drug of choice, introduced to the populace as a way of stemming the growing tide of panic following the tower's appearance from beneath the surface, he polices where police fail to go, a victim of power and slave to his addition.

Mac's wife Kiersten, a member of the Security Forces, goes undercover to investigate the Easton MS crew as well as another organisation called the Carmillion. Throughout the investigation she bonds with Harley Wilson, who shares the same fate as Kiersten, dead from an apparent suicide from atop one of the towers. However, Mac uncovers Kiersten's involvement in something which threatens the power brokers which could be the catalyst behind her death. corruption, cover-ups and old fashion brawling ensue bringing this future tale into the present.

Maurice Broaddus waxes lyrical throughout I CAN TRANSFORM YOU, not only in his depiction of the city dwellers predicament, and secret society lifestyle but also in enveloping the reader in the world he's so deftly crafted.

I CAN TRANSFORM YOU follows the tried and true formula typical within the hardboiled genre yet brings the added element of sci-fi noir. No one eludes the grime which seeps into their character by virtue of their predicament. There is an underlying hopelessness to Mac and Ade's investigative cause which not only exemplifies the noir feel but brings forth a sense of realism to the fantastical theme.

While a novella, I CAN TRANSFORM YOU packs as much in as a full length novel. Mac and Ade are well rounded and believable characters with backstory and personality. The plot itself spans in multiple directions and comes full circle beautifully. It's well written and wholly entertaining.

I CAN TRANSFORM YOU also includes the short story PIMP MY AIRSHIP which once again has a futuristic theme with a dose of racial tension and look at inner city gangs. It's a nice bonus that adds values to the second instalment in the Apex Voice's line.

This review also appears on my blog: http://justaguythatlikes2read.blogspo... ...more

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Nov 05, 2015 J.D. rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

I was given an electronic copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The title story, I CAN TRANSFORM YOU, has some interesting elements and connects with a theme we’re seeing more and more in science fiction, the sci-fi-oriented crime novel. For instance, “Lock in” by John Scalzi was a success last year.

The future world is described here with simple brushstrokes, here and there deftly added—it is of the William Gibson’s kind, with big corporations running the show. The I was given an electronic copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The title story, I CAN TRANSFORM YOU, has some interesting elements and connects with a theme we’re seeing more and more in science fiction, the sci-fi-oriented crime novel. For instance, “Lock in” by John Scalzi was a success last year.

The future world is described here with simple brushstrokes, here and there deftly added—it is of the William Gibson’s kind, with big corporations running the show. There’s a lot of our present here, maybe too much at times—references to General Patton, “Thug R’ Us” and “CSI that sh*#&t”, which I found odd.

The story of a failed cop seeking either revenge or redemption—or both—is so classic that I dealt with it like an archetype. The author, characteristically, creates a multiracial cast, which makes it more interesting, but then fails to have any significant female characters (even Jack Reacher has some female colleagues in the mix, not all of them love interests). The main character’s ex-lover doesn’t count (she’s after all dead, and also the crime’s victim).

Perhaps the aspect I’d liked the least in this novella is dialogue; at times, it seems as if the author went for a parody of the typical ‘cop talk’ and didn’t tell the reader. I mean dialogue like “You need to be careful. Grieving people are prone to rash decisions and poor impulses”, or “He didn’t have to think very long for the words that made him famous among the rank and file for a season—‘The law has a way of getting in the way of justice. Our true calling is the pursuit of justice no matter where it takes u. That’s what binds us together and make us family. And family is family’.” This is too corny even for TV’s “Blue Bloods”. Still, the novella’s central characters are vivid and one understands their plight; the ‘aliens’ (sorry to say) are not believable, and at the end one doubts they’re bright enough to conquer us—or to even reach our planet.

This is speculative work with a lot of promise, but it has been taken only to a middle ground. The story could have been made into a much longer work (explaining and deepening the plot) or even a series, if the villains would’ve interesting.

The book’s second story, PIMP MY AIRSHIP, is quite intense, set in an alternative US History work, with well-drawn characters (funny, complex) and wonderful descriptions. It creates a world (possibly in our time), with an extreme racism and barely-free African-Americans (there’s a dystopian separation between people of African descent and a majority—maybe—of white people, who had formed the Albion Empire). Apparently, North America’s Hispanics and Asians (a quickly growing chunk of the States’ current population) are nowhere to be found in this version of reality. This bi-racial dichotomy works for this story of rebellion against the so-called “machine” (aka, “the man”), but, in our complex, global multicultural world, they seem kind of absurd for any probable outcome of history, with or without a Civil War in the mix. I felt the idea was not exploited well, and the resort to violence is kind of predictable. There’s a lot of pompous, purple prose, which might have worked in dialogue (the characters are sort of wild) but sounds weird in the middle of the narration.

The stories in this offering suggest that the author hasn’t found yet a fertile ground for his very imaginative work, and that, unfortunately, neither the short story nor the novella seem to be it. Considering his voice and potential, I hope to see more of him in the future.
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Oct 03, 2016 Jorge Villarruel rated it did not like it

Cliché after cliché after cliché, "I can transform you" is your typical noir mystery with a dead woman and a brooding cop who (obviously) happens to be her ex-lover and the only one who can solve the murder. Nothing new here. Nothing.

And the second story in the book, "Pimp my airship", is even worse! Who edited this book? I don't think these two stories should be published unless under blackmail or something like that, because the stories are not just boring and commonplace, they are really bad ...more

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Aug 08, 2013 Jason Sizemore rated it it was amazing

Shelves: apex

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Aug 12, 2013 Sunny marked it as to-read

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