Taking a non-optional tour of duty aboard a satellite housing the world's most dangerous secrets with a year's supply of food, air, and water, but no communication back home, Charlie Hardie plots his escape using the secrets as leverage.
Charlie Hardie finds himself in a steel box, tubes and wires attached to his body, trapped inside a satellite parked in orbit 500 miles above the Earth. He's got a year's supply of food, air, water, and no communication back to Earth, and must complete his 12 months' duty or his wife and son will have an "accident." Someone all-too-familiar docks on the satellite, informs Hardie he's sitting in a veritable zero-G vault containing the world's most dangerous secrets, and forces a crash-landing in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Now Hardie must decide whether he's come face-to-face with the partner he needs to save his family-- or with his nemesis.
The last book in the trilogy starts with Hardie in space (because how else do you top a mysterious underground prison?) I had mixed feelings about this book. The more this trilogy continued, the more I grew frustrated by Hardie’s passivity and his constant idiotic decisions. I wanted him to take charge and finally do something right for a change, but this book sidelines him for a long time (most of the last third, in fact) and has someone else save the day in his place. This was a disappointing end to the trilogy. Fun & Games is by far the best of the three and I didn’t miss a lot by not reading the rest until now.
Point And Shoot is Swierczynski's third book in the Charlie "The man who couldn't be killed" Hardie trilogy. Here again, Hardie gets more than his fair share of abuse, including thrown around a space craft, burned on reentry, locked in the trunk of a coma car (again!) and other indignities. But many things are explained, usually satisfactorily, and he tries to settle down to a "normal" life. Or does he?
This book opens with Charlie Hardie in space, where he either was sent or was going to be sent at the end of the second book, [b:Hell and Gone|9583670|Hell and Gone|Duane Swierczynski|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344270038s/9583670.jpg|14470612] (I forget which). He gets an unusual visitor and things, as expected, only get weirder and weirder on the ground. The mission this time is to save his estranged wife and pissed off teenage son, Charlie Jr. from the Accident People, or, as they are better known as …
Point And Shoot is Swierczynski's third book in the Charlie "The man who couldn't be killed" Hardie trilogy. Here again, Hardie gets more than his fair share of abuse, including thrown around a space craft, burned on reentry, locked in the trunk of a coma car (again!) and other indignities. But many things are explained, usually satisfactorily, and he tries to settle down to a "normal" life. Or does he?
This book opens with Charlie Hardie in space, where he either was sent or was going to be sent at the end of the second book, [b:Hell and Gone|9583670|Hell and Gone|Duane Swierczynski|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344270038s/9583670.jpg|14470612] (I forget which). He gets an unusual visitor and things, as expected, only get weirder and weirder on the ground. The mission this time is to save his estranged wife and pissed off teenage son, Charlie Jr. from the Accident People, or, as they are better known as now, The Cabal.
He runs into a few old nemesises (nemisisi?), all who are just dying to take him out once and for all. But on the way across country, Hardie gets a few things explained to him, which clarify some interesting plot arcs from across the entire trilogy. He does some rescuing, gets rescued some and finally tries to settle down in some kind of witness protection plan. But...
I liked this one more than Hell And Gone, but a little less than [b:Fun & Games|9583669|Fun & Games|Duane Swierczynski|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1297867711s/9583669.jpg|14470611]. I did really like the story arc, which was way more believable than Hell And Gone. I also liked how Swierczynski explained some of the harder to believe bits of the Charlie Hardie story. A little too dependent on the ever present government conspiracy, but still fun and believable.
The writing was, as usual, sharp and humorous, like:
The Other Him gave a creepy look that bordered on pity. Oh, you poor baby. Which was surreal. Was that what Hardie looked like when he was trying to look sympathetic? No wonder everybody seemed to want to punch him in the face.
Can't wait to see what Swierczynski comes up with next.
