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    Zero Sum Game
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    Zero Sum Game
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    Zero Sum Game
    Ebook436 pages6 hours

    Zero Sum Game

    By S. L. Huang

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    ZERO SUM GAME Best of Lists:
    * Best Books of the Month at The Verge, Book Riot, Unbound Worlds, SYFY, & Kirkus
    * The Mary Sue Book Club Pick
    * Library Journal Best Debuts of Fall and Winter

    A blockbuster, near-future science fiction thriller, S.L. Huang's Zero Sum Game introduces a math-genius mercenary who finds herself being manipulated by someone possessing unimaginable power    …

    Cas Russell is good at math. Scary good. The vector calculus blazing through her head lets her smash through armed men twice her size and dodge every bullet in a gunfight, and she'll take any job for the right price.

    As far as Cas knows, she’s the only person around with a superpower...until she discovers someone with a power even more dangerous than her own. Someone who can reach directly into people’s minds and twist their brains into Moebius strips. Someone intent on becoming the world’s puppet master.

    Cas should run, like she usually does, but for once she's involved. There’s only one problem...
    She doesn’t know which of her thoughts are her own anymore.

    "Fresh and exciting... a great start to an exciting series--and an exciting career." --Boing Boing

    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateOct 2, 2018
    ISBN9781250180261
    Author

    S. L. Huang

    S. L. Huang is a Hollywood stunt performer, firearms expert, Nebula Award finalist, and Hugo Award winner with a math degree from MIT and credits in productions like “Battlestar Galactica” and “Top Shot.” The author of the fantasy novella Burning Roses as well as the Cas Russell novels including Zero Sum Game, Null Set, and Critical Point, Huang’s short fiction has also appeared in Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Nature, Tor.com, and more, including numerous best-of anthologies.

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    Reviews for Zero Sum Game

    4/5

    107 ratings14 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is an action packed and entertaining novel. The main character is a strong, talented woman who is very flawed but the reader roots for her anyway. In fact, all the characters are flawed but they're doing their best. The premises are a bit far-fetched but it's such a wild ride that once you suspend your disbelief, it's just a fun trip.
    • 3/5
      Dark urban conspiracy with telepathy and mindbending, over the top body count, rough cut moralizing. A young woman with something extra tangles with something(s) bigger and badder than she is, and she's pretty bad, in a competent way. Too over the top to be really scary.
    • 5/5
      Cas Russell is an extractor/assassin/weapons specialist. This woman has skills. She thinks and sees math, measuring distances and angles, using geometry and mathy type calculations to measure to the most precise degree. This makes her a total badass assassin: She never misses a target. A mercenary, anti-social, almost anti-hero, I found myself rooting for her despite her prickly nature, which is a tough balance for a writer. How do you create a character that’s not necessarily a “good” person and not turn off the reader? It’s a difficult balance, and one that SL Huang pulls off neatly in this intricately written, unique thriller.

      When Russell’s hired to perform an extraction, she becomes drawn into a mystery involving a mysterious organization that uses mind control (telepaths), and whose goal, basically, is world control.

      As Russell tells her story, the action is revealed to the reader as she figures things out. This is how a good story is told, and I appreciate that the author never dumbed things down for her audience.

      Russell’s character develops as the story does, and by the end, the reader knows there's more to find out about her and her long-hidden past. The other characters were compelling and well developed. I wanted to learn more about the enigmatic avenging angel Rio--the only human alive Cas trusts but “not her friend.” Rio’s opposite, private eye, Alfred, a streetwise but ethical man, questions Russell and becomes sort of a moral compass. He helps to bring out her humanity. Some of the most fascinating passages involved the characters and their interplay with each other as they discussed philosophy, morality, and situational ethics--a cool juxtaposition to them blasting their way out of situations.

      Well written and well paced, I look forward to the continuation of the story in Half Life.
    • 4/5
      Zero Sum Game by SL Huang could be an action novel with a kick-ass female hero (ala Lisbeth Salander but amoral). Then, surprise, some telepathy is thrown in and I started to notice that Cas Russell is rather exceptionally good at math and faster than anyone I could think of. Why, by gum, this is science fiction. It drew me into this world and has me very sad that Null Set won't be out until July. Though I just ordered the short story [A Neurological Study on the Effects of Canine Appeal on Psychopathy, or, RIO ADOPTS A PUPPY].
    • 4/5
      The heroine of this novel reminded me of Marvel's Jessica Jones only her super power is not strength but math skills. The nemesis for her and her associates is a secret group known as Pithica. who have an ends justify the means philosophy by killing lots of people the make the world a better place. The book starts like a ball of fire but I think it tails off at the end. It is still worth the effort to read and I feel Ms. Huang has a nice future. This genre of book needs a really vile villain but Dawna, (the point lady of Pithica) doesn't seem all that vile.
    • 3/5
      This is the book equivalent of a bad but reasonably entertaining action movie - there are some fun moments, but also a lot of eye-rolling moments, and don't think about anything too hard or it all falls apart, but it's decent mindless entertainment. Cas Russell is a freelance expert at retrieving things (like kidnapped people) and a math genius. Her math ability lets her do some really improbable things like calculate bullet trajectories in real time, and can also be really annoying because it just doesn't require advanced calculus to figure out that smashing your thumb will hurt, and the author beats you over the head with her math abilities on every page. She gets involved in a case that gets really complicated and ends up involving a secret organization that's trying to take over the world and she has a religious fanatic vigilante friend and..... yeah, just don't think about any of it too hard (like, ow does she have enough money to have apartments full of weapons and cash all over LA, and if she does have that much money, why is she doing this crummy/dangerous work?).
    • 4/5
      Zero Sum Game is an action packed, speculative fiction thriller. Cas Russell knows there’s something different about her abilities – she’s very good at math, to the point where she sees the mathematics that underlie the everyday world. Thanks to this sixth sense, Cas can pull off amazing physical feats by almost instantaneously calculating the trajectory of bullets or the necessary angles and forces to win in a fight.Cas Russell might have powers, but she’s more a super-powered anti-heroine than a straight out superhero. People hire her to retrieve items for them, often illegally, and she has no compunctions about killing people she sees as a threat. In Zero Sum Game, Cas is hired to retrieve a woman from a drug gang and soon finds herself in the middle of something bigger.Something I really liked about the book was that Cas actually goes through some character development. Usually the stone cold, badass anti-heroines don’t start questioning their willingness to kill people the way Cas ends up doing. Through the course of the book, you also see Cas come to make connections with other people and start trying to trust them. This growth, combined with her awesome mathematical based powers, makes Cas one of the better anti-heroines I’ve come across.I am really interested in finding out more about Cas’s background, since we only get hints in Zero Sum Game. Luckily, I got the feeling that future books will explore this more. Similarly, I’d like to know more about the existence of other powered people. Besides Cas’s math abilities, you don’t see any other science fiction elements until quite a ways into the novel. In all, I’d say the book owes more to the thriller genre than superhero tales.Another plus point for me is that this is a female lead story without a romance plot. While I think there could be romance in future books, there actually wasn’t any in this one.It’s a minor thing, but I would have liked to see Cas work with another woman. All her principal allies in this one are men, and the only other significant female characters are antagonists. Hopefully the next book will be different on this front.All in all, I found Zero Sum Game to be a fun, action packed read that I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a thriller for some light entertainment. I am keen to read the sequel.Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
    • 4/5
      She's a mercenary with an incredible aptitude for math. Her closest friend is a psychopath who follows God's code. She gets a message from him asking her to save an innocent. Two international secret societies later and things are spiraling out of control.

      Here's what makes this great.

      (a) The math. Like, looking at things and calculating all other kinds of things so she can dodge bullets, always hit her targets, and plan great escapes. Patterns, angles, ratios, other math words I don't know. It's way cooler than I'm describing it.

      (b) The writing, the plot, the suspense. I didn't figure out any of the tangled web at all. Okay, well, small things. But totally not any of the big things.

      (c) Pretty cool characters. Plus relationships and figuring out how to do friends.

      (d) A most excellent and scary villain; one who could tamper with your brain without your knowledge.

      (e) Twist!


    • 5/5
      SL Huang has a Twitter account. One day, SL Huang talked about her new book, Zero Sum Game. I said, "Hey, why don't I have that in my pile of books to read for review," and she said, "Well, fine, I'll put it in your inbox you complaining whiny person." Thus began a glorious literary friendship.Of course, that story isn't exactly what happened, but it's the version I'm sticking with for now. In truth, I came to Zero Sum Game with a lot of expectations: I wanted a fun, adventurous book with crisp, commercial writing, exciting characters, and a larger-than-life crazy-face plot. And that's exactly what I got. This is the kind of book I would turn to if I needed a break from life. It's the kind of book I can get lost into, like an action thriller that doesn't try to be artsy, but still has a lot of heart. This book is like Bourne Identity, but if Matt Damon were replaced by Michelle Yeoh (or JeeJa Yanin) and all of her extraordinary fighting skills were explained by her superhuman ability to almost instantaneously calculate the physics of the world.That's basically Cas Russell. She's a math wiz. Not just any math wiz, mind you. She can calculate algorithms and math things I couldn't explain to you if my life depended on it...and she can do it on the fly. She can figure out how much force she needs to break an arm or knock someone out cold or even to dodge a bullet. That makes her dangerous, but it also makes her extraordinarily good at her job. Cas finds things. But when she rescues a young woman from a drug cartel and flees back to L.A. to return the woman to her sister, things go so horribly wrong that even Cas couldn't have predicted it. Against a shadowy organization run by a psychic hell bent on rewriting the world, assassins, and brainwashed innocents, Cas must find a way to set things right so she can get back to her life of obscurity. If only there were an equation for that...Zero Sum Game is an enormously entertaining book. When I described Huang's prose as "crisp" and "commercial," I meant that in the positive sense. Rather than falling into the trap of "too little to describe too much," Huang's narrative employs the first person perspective to channel her characters without overwhelming the action-oriented, deeply-genre plot with what has sometimes falsely been described as "purple prose" (i.e., fluid, provocative prose of the sort found on the extreme end with Thomas Pynchon). Zero Sum Game captures the essence of Russell's character in her internal dilemmas without sacrificing detail or character, facilitating the natural development of the action-oriented sequences and the characters trapped within them. This makes for a book that is as gripping in its presentation as it is in its genre qualities. A space opera analogue might be Tobias S. Buckell, whose Xenowealth novels find that beautiful blend of action and science fictional exploration. Huang's novel is equally as engaging.Indeed, Huang's narrative voice captures something that I think would otherwise fail in third person: special abilities that are only visible within a character's head. Cas' unique math-based abilities only work if they can be portrayed realistically and with sufficient flare to escape what otherwise might read as ridiculous. Huang handles this primarily through Cas' sometimes smartass (OK, frequently smartass) attitude, which provides a certain depth to her abilities: they are old-hat to her, and so the narrative limits the need to explain everything through Cas' nonchalant view of mathematics (though, of course, the narrative does explain some things, as it must). This isn't to suggest that the approach is wholly effective. There are moments where I do think the narrative needs to provide more explanation, especially when chapters jump forward without addressing the sometimes crucial "how we got here" elements. What isn't important to Cas, generally speaking, isn't important for the narrative, it seems, which means sometimes the reader is forced to jump forward when a more measured "hand" may be more apt. But the strategy is overall a success, as I found Cas believable and sympathetic despite her seemingly anti-social view of the world.In that regard, one of the primary weaknesses in this book is its ending. Huang spends much of the book setting up the climax by slowly revealing details to Cas as she investigates Dawna, the aforementioned super psychic who has pulled the proverbial wool over Cas' eyes. In the process, we learn about her friendship with Rio, a known serial murderer who believes he is doing God's Will in Dexter-like fashion, Arthur, an ex-cop-turned-PI who finds Cas' methods questionable, but mostly goes along with it out of necessity, and Chester, a differently-abled computer nerd with an oddly charming personality. These characters form the bedrock of the narrative, which ultimately leads the reader to a city-wide disaster in Los Angeles, as Cas, Arthur, Rio, and Chester try to foil Dawna's plans. For me, the climax made sense, but the resolution seemed rushed, particularly as it raises a number of new questions about Cas and Rio's relationship; it also responds to an ethical dilemma with which the characters are forced to struggle: if stopping one group will lead to greater ramifications the globe over, is it worth it? Cas' response is a resounding "yes," on the grounds that Dawna and her people are making choices for everyone when she has no such moral authority. The attempts to rationalize the decision is an interesting, as it counters the oft-repeated Spock saying: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one." Here, Huang retreads with, "The knowledge of the many outweighs the needs of the same." I particularly liked that Huang decided to deal with this aspect, particularly since most narratives of this form tend to ignore the wider ramifications of actually defeating "the bad guys." However, while I imagine there will be more novels in this world, I think the Cas/Rio aspect would have functioned better if it had appeared much earlier in the novel, giving it time to germinate like a little literary weed. Indeed, given the scope of what happens in the novel, it is strange that so little of post-climax cleanup actually deals with the full ramifications for the world and for the characters; Cas does tell us about these things, but it seemed too clean to me.Regardless, the surrounding materials, from Cas' snarky "I'm better off alone" attitude to the nerdy Chester to the conflicted relationship between Cas and Rio, Cas and Arthur, and Arthur and Rio, fill out what is an excellent first novel. These are coupled with explosive action sequences -- one of which involves Cas jumping from a fire escape through metal bars into a 2nd story window (wee) -- snappy dialogue, and a whole lot of mayhem. Simply put, I think Zero Sum Game is one of the most entertaining books I have read in a long while. It's like a rush of adrenaline in word form. It is to literature what Bourne Identity is to action thrillers. (Obviously, I love that film.)If you're looking for an exciting thriller with a side of weird scifi "superpowers," this is most certainly the book for you. Go on...buy it.
    • 3/5
      This was a really fun sci-fi mystery/thriller, and I really enjoyed the world that S.L. Huang created with Cas and crew. Can't wait to read more!
    • 4/5
      I received this book through the publisher via Netgalley.I've read a lot of urban fantasies--somewhere over 130--and it's hard for me to get into a new series at this point. I feel like I've seen it all. While Zero Sum Game does utilize some familiar tropes, Huang twists them around in inventive, fun ways. Straight up, Cas Russell comes across as many urban fantasy heroines do: almost friendless, ruthless, profane, and good at killing, and in the course of the book, she does make some genuine friends and allies. However, Cas's power is pretty darn unique: MATH. She algorithms her way into being the ultimate killing machine. Her battles are especially fun because you never know how she's going to scrape through.And oh yeah, there are a lot of battles because Cas has caught the attention of some pretty bad folks. When people with kinda-sorta-superpowers clash, the action is fast and intense. Huang explores the greater Los Angeles area and creates some serious collateral damage in the process. I tend to be good at predicting endings, but I was genuinely surprised at where this book went.This is a very promising start to a new series, and I'm thankful I had the chance to read an early galley!
    • 5/5
      Pros: fast paced, protagonist is ‘good at math’, interesting characters Cons: When Cas Russell takes the job to ‘retrieve’ Courtney Polk from a drug cartel, she assumes it will be a simple job. Because she’s VERY good at math, able to calculate vectors on the fly, making her dangerous in a fight. But she didn’t expect her mentor Rio to be working for the cartel. And when the woman who hired her turns out to be more than she seemed, Cas discovers she’s become a target of a mysterious organization, one with people who also have super powers. This is a fast paced read that took me two days to get through. There are so many twists that it was hard to put down. It’s an interesting cast of characters, as none of them are really ‘nice’ people. They’ve each got their good and bad qualities. Cas is a morally grey individual, who has no problem killing but also has some lines she won’t cross. Despite being a psychopath I mostly liked Rio. There’s a Dexter feel to him, as a man who’s using his baser urges for what he perceives is good. Arthur Tresting balances Rio on Cas’s other side, being mostly moral, but willing to bend the law when necessary and pretending he doesn’t know about or see most of Cas’s casual crimes. I loved that Cas’s ‘superpower’ is that she’s just REALLY good at math. Like, so good she can do multiple calculations at once and so dodge bullets and make fancy trick kicks to take out opponents. The fight scenes are surprisingly entertaining. I thought the rabbit hole of secret organizations was handled well, as was all the self doubt brought on by Dawna’s influence. I really enjoyed the book.
    • 3/5
      Too action-thriller-violent for my ordinary tastes and the "I'm really good at math[s]" gimmick rapidly attains physical impossibility, and yet despite the grim-dark I liked the characters and the nuanced take on the dilemma facing them.
    • 5/5
      Zero Sum GameBy S.L. HuangWhat an exciting ride! A gal that does fast computations in her head is also a kick a$$ at getting bad guys, or those she thinks are bad guys. But some powerful players after her for her brain but not for her math skills.This is a fast paced, high action, mystery, with mind control psychics. Extremely believable. Loved it!