the fractured nature of the narrative wasn't terribly difficult to follow, however it was sometimes difficult to generate enthusiasm for the story. it is a fascinating world & a rather adventurous tale

The topic no longer interests me, and I will not be finishing the book.

This was completely different to anything I have read before, but I have been wanting to get into sci-fi for a while and after his maiden voyage i can say I enjoyed it. I am usually one for murder & crime, so it did take me a while to get used to it, however after I was settled in with it. I found there was a lot going on at times, but its worth persevering!!!

Fancy hanging out with a heroine who’s got a tendency to wish you dead, and teaming up with some underground hackers to save the world from having their brains taken over by a greedy corporation?

Thought so! And my first foray into Laura Lam’s books certainly delivers you that.

It’s an action packed ride that rushes you through a not-too-distant land of super-enhanced biotechnology and floating fortresses for the rich. Drugs keep crime in check (to the point of allowing people with potentially violent tendencies to become addicted to the drug ‘zeal’ and slowly wasting away) and the ever increasing reliance on media and interconnected devices means brain hacking is basically a reality.

Lam whisks you through at break-neck speed, pausing every now and then to let us get to know Carina, our disturbed heroine, through forays into her memories.

There’s a nice balance to the action between political and personal motivations, and the scenery (both landscape and people) along the way are all sorts of fun.

And it’s certainly fun… dark, with murderous tendencies, but damn fun. And not only is it fun, but there’s another book set in the same future already out – False Hearts. So I get through one book on my reading list, and another one immediately raises its head.

Favourite Line: It would be the last line, and that would be spoilericious.

Read if: You like a dose of darkness with your futuristic-political-action.

Read with: Half an eye on all those screens and networks you’re attached to.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Carina is a former neuroscientist with a drug problem, she constantly has urges to murder people and, to prevent that, she is destroying herself by taking Zeal, a drug allowing humans to enter a virtual reality where all their dreams are materialized. For Carina, Zeal is her only opportunity to kill people without actually murdering anyone and, in her Zeal space she can summon murderers and kill them slowly, just like she wants it….Until the day her Zeal space is hijacked by a vision of a girl being killed by one of her ex-colleague working at Sudice Inc, Carina’s former employer.

Sudice, a company making neurological implants allowing humans to be connected at all times, is now working on a new brain-mapping project that might not be as innocent as claimed, meaning that it might involve a few murders. Carina soon realizes that the vision was sent to her by Mark, a man who used to work for Sudice and who’s now missing after discovering incriminating information about the new project. Mark sent all the information he had through the vision he sent Carina but, to access them, she has to unlock some memories once taken away from her and that she doesn’t especially want to recall. In order to expose the project, she will have to work with the Trust, an organization of people who wants to stop Sudice and put an end to her Zeal addiction, all of that without murdering someone in the process, which might be harder than it seems.

Set in the same world as False Hearts, Lam’s previous novel, Shattered Minds is a dark science fiction thriller filled with evil companies, corruption and murders. It would make a terrific movie or TV shows, the world felt vivid and it was fascinating to see how the society worked in this dark future. The pacing of the story was very interesting as we constantly jumped between past and present as Carina unlocked her memories and it definitely kept the story moving. If you are a fan of stories with evil and corrupt companies, I think Shattered Minds will be a real treat for you. I enjoyed the story quite a bit as it was an interesting thriller with cool sci fi/cyberpunk elements and my only complain is that I wished the characters were a bit more complex. Since Carina was the main character, she was a bit more developped but some of the side characters felt a bit flat. However, I liked the fact that some of the chapters had different POVs and I especially appreciated the ones following the antagonist, it was really interesting to see her motivations and her reasoning.

It was my first Laura Lam book and now I am very intrigued by her other works, especially False Hearts since it is set in the same universe and I really enjoyed reading about this dystopian near future America, I don’t know if she will write other books in the same universe but if she does, I am definitely interested!

Recommended!

Unfortunately I had to quit reading this book at 50% as I was not enjoying it at all. I read the previous book in the series, False Hearts, which I wasn't a fan of, but I was assured that this latest instalment was a better read. For me that was not the case. I have read this author's earlier young adult books and really enjoyed them but her attempts at this supposedly more grown up genre have left me cold I am sorry to say. In view of the fact that I did not finish this book I have not left a review anywhere but here on NetGalley. I would like to thank the publishers for approving me for this title and wish I could be more positive about my reading experience.

Carina is trying to escape the horrors of her rewired brain after being experimented on against her will and without her knowledge. Carina’s brain, which was used to be calm and unfeeling is now filled with murderous intent, with every day a battle against the urge to kill those around her. The only thing that seems to help her? A drug called Zeal. Now an addict on the brink of death she is given one last chance to get back at those that destroyed her mind. Her former employers.

I decided to take a chance on something completely different with Shattered Minds. Laura Lam is a new author for me, but I couldn’t help but be intrigued by this cyberpunk thriller. Although the book didn’t immediately draw me in and it took a few chapters before I found myself invested, it was a chance I am glad I took. I enjoyed the world that Lam created, we wade into the gritty side of this almost Utopian society, where it seems as though you can get your brain and your body rewritten as easily as you change your hair colour.

With most books, it isn’t the story that will keep me hooked, although it helps; however, if there is a set of characters I love, despite the flimsiness of the plot, the chances are I will like it. Unusually with Shattered Minds I found the opposite. Although I liked the characters well enough, they weren’t that well realised and it seemed to only Carina whose personality went more than skin deep. For me, it was the story and the world that kept me reading. I wanted to know what was going to happen, what were the bad guys up to? Would they be able to stop them once they found out? Anything else, including the romance seemed a little peripheral.

However, the action was great and I loved the whole atmosphere, it felt like a conspiracy noir film set in a very near future. It was suitably dramatic and mysterious. I am really glad I gave this book a chance and I recommend it if you fancy something a little different. I am definitely planning on picking up any further books in this series.

Shattered Minds is set in the same world as False Hearts, with endless possibilities for body modification and indulging all your fantasies, and no crime. Sort of.

Naturally, both books give the lie to that, but especially this one, exploring the world of an addicted woman struggling with her urges to kill, and how she ends up exposing a company's lies for what they are -- and getting back her whole self, since it turns out it was that very company who programmed her and made her the way she is. It also features a group of hackers who are trying to get the word out, whose paths converge with hers.

I love the diversity of Lam's world -- Dax, who becomes a love interest, is trans and Native American; Raf has a boyfriend who's a cop... This isn't as warm a read as False Hearts -- lacking the love between the twin protagonists that drives that story -- but the characters made up for it, drawing me in and making me wonder how they would ever all fit together. Even Roz, the villain of the piece, is compelling in her way -- I have so many more questions about her and what drives her.

Basically, if you're looking for another thriller like False Hearts in a nearish-future sci-fi setting, Shattered Minds delivers, with more than a dash of the Firefly feel (circa Serenity, though; less funny and fuzzy than some of the episodes): disparate group of wanted criminals takes down a mind-hijacking superpower of their world.

[Review link live on 14th July 2017.]

Full disclosure: I did not read the first Pacifica novel.

Having said that, I do not think that this novel loses much if you haven't read the first book, and it can easily be read as a stand-alone. There is also provision made at the end of the book for another installment in the lives of Carina and her friends, promising that there will be at least 3 books in the Pacifica series.

The plot is a riff on a well-used SF trope. An evil Corporation/Government in a far-off future land, that used to be called the USA, is plotting to control the populace by using some form of furutistic tech. The unsuspecting populace is none the wiser and it is up to a diverse band of misfits/criminals/etc. to expose the Corporation to the people and foil the evil plot.

Okay, it has been said that there are no more original plots out there. Possibly. But there could at least be an exciting angle/retelling of a story. This one was cumbersome to read. It did not live up to its promise of a "female Dexter" main character. Yes Carina is clearly intelligent. Yes she has trouble with empathy/emotions/social connections. Yes she has a taste for blood and kills criminals - albeit only in her drug-induced dreams. But she is not remotely like Dexter. She is quite pathetic at times and certainly self-pitying in spades!

To instill a sense of a future earth, tech was forced into everynook and cranny. And we are reminded over and over and over and over of the same pieces of mundane tech. If I ever read the words "from the replicator" again, I am going to lose my mind. I'll admit that I am a reader who prefers the writer to "show not tell"; to hint at some things and let me paint my own picture. It makes me feel more engaged - less talked at.

I also found it very difficult to connect with the main characters. It was impossible for me to empathise with them. Carina's developing love interest felt robotic and forced. The focus is constantly shifting between characters and between past and present and doesn't stay with one aspect of a character long enough to really feel like you know them. I kept putting the book down or falling asleep while reading it. Even during the final 10% of the book and what should've been and action-packed climax.

It's safe to say that I did not enjoy reading this book. But there are many others who did enjoy it, going by all the 4 and 5 star reviews, so this is probably just not a good fit for me personally. Can't love them all unfortunately.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC copy. This is an honest review.

This book is a terrifying look at the possible future of our society.

Although the science in this book is fictional, it does not take a scientist to realize that if our society continues to embrace and worship technology, the total domination of average citizens is all too possible.

As to the book itself, it is well written with lots of fast-paced action and a plot that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

I love the fact that this book also has LGBTQ characters and that there is no controversy surrounding them. This part of the future told in this book is encouraging.

I enjoyed this book immensely and can't wait to read more by Laura Lam. 5 Stars are well and truly deserved.

Shattered Minds by Laura Lam

If you liked 2044 by Eric Lothke or 1984 by George Orwell, you will love Shattered Minds by Laura Lam! Pacifica is an example of science fiction technology in a “can’t stop reading even though I’m horrified” type of place. It’s easy to pick out the “good guys” who are outnumbered by the security Wasps, the villianous Sudice Inc. and the sinister, ambitious, and manipulative mentor Roz.

Carina is a rock star at Sudice Inc. but she senses she is broken. Although she does not know why, she craves violence and the thrill of bloody kills which leaves her feeling no emotion. In the Zeal enduced dreams, she enjoys creating fictional characters and killing them in intensely painful ways.

Her former colleague Mark, knows Roz is going to kill him for leaking information about Sudice, Inc. to The Trust and prepares to pass on what he knows to Carina in five encrypted brain uploads that only she can open. The memories include an image, a past memory, and an upload of information from Sudice that would kill most people by the sheer volume alone.
Mark wants Carina to join the four hackers who call themselves The Trust to take down the company before it’s too late.

The hackers don’t really trust Carina, but they need her information since Mark is dead and has been the leak who had gotten them as far as they are in their search for the truth. Transgender doctor Dax is one of them, a doctor who can help Carina fight the Zeal addiction that is killing her.

Technology innovations are rampant in the novel. Children go to school where monitors observe their daily brainloading of information. Flesh parlors offer physical upgrades so people who can afford the treatment may alter their appearance in whatever way they want and remain forever young. Hovercars transport citizens from one place to another. Sci Fi fans will be very at home here, but it’s way beyond Star Trek.

I thought much of this book was aimed at a YA audience, but the descriptive romance between Carina and Dax is definitely adult rated.

This novel would work well as a sci fi movie.

I received my copy of the book from net galley in return for an honest review.

Carina
Implant upgrades
Nanobots
vr and zealscape
Verichips
Mind control
Rewrite personalities
Criminal trials
SynMaps
And with all this we have, a futuristic world, a thriller with a great lead female protagonist and a hacking crew in her wings, a world shifting to the powers that be, a totalitarian control.
You may have enjoyed stories, scenes, characters, upon on the stage on the screen like Blade Runner, Westworld, Ophan Black and Manchurian Candidate and then you may just like this intriguing tale.
A visceral and captivating read with a memorable main character with a once was, and what had become, and what could be done to, and to save what's left in the realm of her fate hook in the narrative till the end in battle with a sinister organisation.                                                      This world is all layered out with careful crafted words and right sentences that made it a science fiction tale that moved with ease at the right pace.
The only disappointment is that i wanted more, more of Carina and her world, and will have to wait to the next in the series.

“V-Verve?” the girl asks, a thrum of fear going through her. Verve is a drug the San Francisco mob, the Ratel, created; it was all over the news feeds for weeks last year. It was meant to be like Zeal, but so much worse. Not a dream you woke up from, your frustrations spent cathartically. Instead you woke up hungry for violence. Pacifica promised they’d destroyed it. What will it do to her? Her limbs are heavy. She tries to move a finger. Nothing.

“Don’t worry, I’ll put it back where it belongs when we’re done.” The girl should feel fear, but there is nothing. Nothing. Until there is. The nanobots converge in her brain, digging deeper, down into the very core of her. The girl’s emotions switch on. She feels everything—the pain in her skull, in her brain, the full horror of what’s happening to her.

"Carina has a very specific type, here in the Zealscape. She kills criminals, perpetrators of terrible, fictional crimes. They are usually men, middle-aged, cocky in their assurance that they are getting away with their wrongdoings. She has killed women, for a bit of variety, often “angel of death” types. Never children or teenagers—which is why the vision of the girl was so damn jarring."

“Here in the Zealscape, she can lose herself in the hunt as much as she wants. Here, she hurts only herself, as more and more of her body wastes away, strapped in the Chair in the Zeal lounge.”

"The images still play in her mind as Carina totters on unsteady feet. The bee. The rose. The thorn. The blood. The eyes. And then the dead girl with the same mismatched eyes she saw in the dreamscape. Carina knows her Zealscape intimately. Every corner. Every seam. Every brick. She’s built it so carefully over the last six months."

"Bee. Rose. Thorn. Blood. Eyes, one green, one blue. What do they mean? Is it gibberish, some strange side effect from a virus let loose in the Zeal program subsystem? The part of her that was once a neuroprogrammer is curious, almost itches to find the problem and solve it, but that part is mostly swallowed up by Zeal apathy."

"It all centers around a group called the Trust. They seem to be a small team of hackers—a little annoyance to Sudice, to be swatted away. Most of their stunts have done little apart from leaking some information, quickly superseded. A few things they found were useful—hurt the company’s stocks, led to some awkward, somewhat embarrassing questions from the government or shareholders. Their last attack went awry and they were meant to have scattered, but recent information from the inside suggests the Trust have reformed. Names: Charlie, Rafael, Dax and Tam. The information still slams into Carina’s cortex, like endless fireworks."

"VeriChips can be cleared and wiped remotely, with a new personality added in, but that won’t change the serial number on the chip. She could still be tracked if someone was truly determined. So now she’ll have a new one, a VeriChip of a fake, virtual girl, every detail of her life constructed from the moment of her false birth. But the actual chip, with its serial number and make, probably belongs to a dead person."

"They arrive at the top level. Carina pauses at the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out over San Francisco Bay. “I missed this view,” she says. Roz never tires of it. Sudice’s building looks out over the Embarcadero, toward the bay, the Bay Bridge standing tall even though hardly any vehicles travel by land any more. Sailboats take advantage of the morning sunshine, the larger boats for tourists setting out to circle the now-condemned Alcatraz or sail under the bridges. Hovercars fly past, smooth as stingrays, light reflecting off their metal hulls. Skyscrapers rise from the sloping hills. By day, the bay is the same steel-gray it always is, but by the time they leave work, the view will be transformed. The buildings will be illuminated from within. The bay will glow green from the algae farms that give the city energy and a food supply. The entrances to the underground MUNI tunnels will shine the same emerald."

"Roz can’t help but feel a little nervous. It won’t be pleasant, but her team shouldn’t be doing anything unduly dangerous, at least to start. There’s only so much that can be learned from AI humanoids. No matter how lifelike you make them, they’re not flesh and bone. They can never be as intricate a biomachine as the real thing. Cloning was outlawed long ago, and although Roz tried, Sudice has not been granted special dispensation in this case. So she found the next best thing. Risk using real humans and the government gives its blessing, if the people are deemed unimportant enough. Typical."

 "The hovercar rises above the Los Angeles skyscrapers. It’s still full night, a few stubborn stars shining through the clouds. Below them, the world is a lit mosaic. She wonders which lights are grimy Zeal lounges. A few dozen in a city of millions. So many people below, living their lives, not knowing their very autonomy is at stake. Some of them might even welcome it. Ignorance is bliss."

Shattered Minds is a dark sci-fi. It's a future based story where people kind of lost their freewill somehow to the technology. The main character, Carina, is very interesting woman who was neurocientist, which means that she is very smart... and theres more... she has a urge to kill. Yes, that's it, Carina started to want kill people, and thus, she decided to quit everything to protect people from herself, so... because of this, Carina is a strong anti-heroine. Besides her, theres was a conspiracy related to her former company and her former colleagues, incluiding Dr. Roz, a really dislikable villain (I will not talk about her). So she and some people starts to investigate... and many things happen... so many dark secrets...
The only thing that I didn't like so much was the the third person narrative on the multiple povs. It was confusing at some moments, and I wondered if would be better if it was written in first person narrative...

Overall, it was a good read and I wish good luck to the author! :)

A fast-paced futuristic thriller which leaves you wondering about the true nature of memory for a long time. The setting is dark and twisted, a dystopian future with a malevolent corporation at the centre. The book explores themes as drug addiction, virtual reality, violence and crime, as well as the scientific and moral issues of altering the human brain.

I'm reading a lot of sci-fi at the moment. Not sure what that's about, cause historically I've not much liked the genre on account of there not being as much character driven drama as I tend to like. The main exception to this has so far been Rachel Bach's Paradox series and Amie Kaufman's Starbound series. I am truly excited to be able to add another series to that number.

Unlike the previous two, the Pacifica series is non-sequential and can be read in any order without there being problems with understanding. Laura Lam does well to introduce the world of her characters without it seeming same-ish, and also without leaving behind readers who haven't seen this series before.

Carina has an urge to kill that she mostly fulfils in an altered state she's helped into through an addictive substance called 'Zeal'. I've seen Carina described as a 'female Dexter', but I feel as though this comparison is both misleading and untrue. The only reason that Carina appears to act somewhere between a sociopath and a psychopath is that she had her mind and emotions invaded and altered when she was a teen and was struggling with the recent death of her mother.

An adult now, Carina comes to realise that the company she works for--the same company who altered her brain chemistry in fact--has a plan to basically brainwash the entire of the population of Pacifica. And she and a small rag tag team of renegades and hackers are the only ones who can do anything about it.

Another reason I find Carina quite different to the character of Dexter is that, throughout this whole novel, we find her fighting her urge to kill even the bad guys that she's sated herself on thus far. She doesn't know how to feel and is sorely out of practice, but in the midst of dealing with the substance abuse that might have even made her killing urges worse, she realises that she wants to change.

Special shout out goes to Dax who was basically amazing all the way through. I think there are two mentions that he is trans--one by Carina, and one by Dax himself looking at his own past--and he's a fully fleshed character and love interest to Carina who I found myself quite invested in. Also Raf and Kivon, the gay side couple who I only wished there'd been more time for cause it seemed like they'd be quite cute.

The first volume was a good surprise and I was more than happy to receive this second one in preview.

I think that the most important point in this book is the universe, it is futuristic and plays on very current matters such as freewill, the influence of companies on the government which results in conflicts of Interest and sometimes worse. I liked this resonance to our current world where technological advances and laws are not always fittings and where the protection of the user is not always assured. The author plays skillfully with what we know to create a universe that is frightening.

As for the characters, first a big bravo for the diverse representation (something already present in volume 1). We follow Carina who, following a bad scientific experiment, finds himself with violent impulses of murder. While she is in a simulation, she is going to receive encrypted informations and she become the center of a conspiracy. I think it was the strangest heroine, but the most touching I had seen. She will do everything to counter her impulses, and even if it puts her in danger, she clings to her human side and it is a daily struggle, she is a fighter on this point. We follow in parallel Dax who belongs to a rebel group, he seeks to do good, and even if it was more the fight of his sister, he is involved in the cause.

Overall, well, it's once again a successful reading, there is a good world building and the characters are interesting and endearing thanks to their flaws and errors. The rhythm is sustained and fluid, I plunge easily into the history and I ask for more. So at the end, a book to discover.

I am really loving Laura Lam's dark sci-fi novels set in a future filled with drugs that can transport you to a fantasy world, corporations dabbling in twisted and illegal experiments, and encrypted messages hidden away in a person's cerebral cortex.

It's so creative and nasty. This book is set in the same world as False Hearts, but it is a completely separate story with new characters, so it can easily be read as a standalone.

Carina, the main character, is an ex-neuroscientist who is plagued by the desperate urge to kill people. She wasn't always like this. She used to be part of a team of scientists in a huge corporation called Sudice, but her increased desire to kill drove her to drugs, and the vivid dreams of death and destruction they gave her. But the question remains: what made Carina change into someone who craves murder?

When an old colleague dies, Carina receives a bizarre stream of messages from the deceased in her drug-fuelled dreams - messages that have been encrypted into her brain so that only she can access them. Using this information and a small team of allies, Carina sets out to expose and destroy the company that ruined her life - Sudice.

The narrative jumps between different characters and between the past and present of the story. It took a little while to get used to, but when I did, I found it really effective. The mysteries of the past unfolded alongside the action and drama in the present, ensuring that the novel remained tense. I also liked that we got to see the perspective of the main antagonist, offering a complexity to her character and making her more than a mindless villain.

Lam has created a world full of atmosphere. It's part science-heavy cyberpunk with mind-blowing futuristic technology and part fast-paced thrill ride. I love the setting and the fascinating cast of characters, from the drug and death-addicted Carina, to a transgender hacker called Dax, to the ambitious and manipulative Roz. I only hope there's more.