Quicker

An Ell Donsaii Story, Volume 1

By: Laurence E Dahners

Narrated by: Shiromi Nassreen

Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

Quicker is a near-future SciFi/Thriller whose young heroine, Ell Donsaii, is an intrepid athletic phenom who reminds one of David Weber's Honor Harrington. Like Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Ell is also a mathematical genius who, instead of counting sheep, works on her own theory of quantum mechanics to help her drift off to sleep. At once shy and concerned about her social skills, yet well loved by those around her, she finds herself at the center of a terrorist plot at the Olympics. The terrorists never contemplated trying to hold a hostage with the unbelievable quickness and athleticism of Ell Donsaii! A tradition of young, strong, brilliant, female heroines like Honor, Lisbeth, and Katniss Everdeen is continued.

©2011- Laurence Earl Dahners (P)2014 Laurence Earl Dahners

Awesome book

I really loved the concept of this mutation. I enjoyed the developing story of Elle and am looking forward to reading her adventure. Another thing is that I’m happy it was not a cliffhanger!!

Fantastic, amusing, impossible to put down!

This is going in my reread list.
Need I say more?
I’m not a fan of female heroines that are beautiful—the cleverest—tall—physically idilic. However, I’ll make an exception for Ell. She’s not good at everything and incredibly down to earth—ordinary in a nerdy, but individual way. That’s what makes this different from those stereotypical stories.
I’m already wondering how I can up my two credits a month for this series. What a find. I thought I loved Vaz and Tiona—holy smokes!
I read this novel in under a day, out on a Sunday drive—it’s the beginning of the month and there’s only. Another ten novels in this series. How will I get through them when I have work this week?
Hey, who needs to sleep?
You have to try this book!
Helena

Love the series, this book is fun but....

Like the title says, I love the series. It's emotionally satisfying, fun and interesting. I even love that the MC solves all problems handily, sometimes that's what you want in your fun.

The series improves as it progresses, for the most part (though #2 is a bit of a slog). Just as you'd expect for an author learning his audience and his craft. I would unreservedly recommend this book except.... One failing, and that's that the attempted sexual assault isn't fully dealt with. Many many other parts of the rest of the series (and even some in this book) express full understanding of women's challenges, so this is NOT an indicator that Mr. Dahners is deliberately perpetuating misogyny, but the issue could (and IMO should) have been more directly addressed. I believe he was paying so much attention to making his MC respond in a particular way, that he forgot that he's also responsible about what his book says about the crime itself. It could have been accomplished by using the police respondents, Phil's family, or even his own thoughts to show the severity of his chosen actions, preferably before he was presented as an accepted 'good guy.'

But ladies, don't let that deter you. The rest of the Donsaii saga is so incredibly satisfying, especially on that level, that this stumble should not be the basis upon which it is judged. She's fun, capable, intelligent and a great means through which to point out the weaknesses in our social constructs around gender without killing anyone's enjoyment.

Top-Shelf fodder here!

I love this Audiobook! Great main character and supporting others. Fast paced, wickedly funny at times. I have a new, favorite author/narrator. I just finished this one, after completion of this review, I'm buying book 2. I highly recommend this book, and I bet the rest of the books are just as good. Actually, I was given the ebook version in exchange for an honest review, which I am tendering now. I had read 3-4 chapters into the ebook and put that away and paid for the audio version. Yes, it's that good. Although, from here on out to #15, I'm going with the audio version. Now for the obligatory: "I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

review of volumes 1 - 7 (what's on Audible atm)

The Ell Donsaii stories are all about what happens if a person with super mental and physical abilities, who is also beautiful, graceful, thoughtful, kind, considerate and naive, were to exist. Not sure if these are marketed as young adult, but anything beyond kissing is followed by an ambiguous fade-to-black, so I'm thinking that they are. In each episode, Ell (and, later, her friends), come up with Earth-shaking ideas and implement them in ways that surprise just about everyone. There are bad guys that threaten Ell and her friends, but in the end, all is always well. (This is not much of a spoiler, since it becomes obvious pretty quickly that there will be happy endings.) The extrapolations the author makes lead to entertaining stories. Basically this is feel-good science fiction. Not heavy. Just something to cheer you up. Recommended on that basis.

Terrific

What a great start. Very excited about this series. Thought provoking and action packed. Narrator was great too.

Upbeat positive SciFi story

This is a kind of sweet coming of age story about a young woman with some special skills. The message, that humility, great skill and beauty can coexist in the same person. The characters, though not deeply developed are likeable when they’re supposed to be and not likeable when not. There are depictions of Arab terrorists that seem mostly free of stereotype and bias, but I’m an old white guy so a cannot speak to that authoritatively. Ditto for issues of gender and sexuality (although there are no characters that fall within these concerns). Anyway, a benign, easy way to spend a couple of hours.



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Sci-fi True to it premise

The story grabbed me by about chapter 2 or 3, and never let me go till the very end. I was uncertain during the prologues as to whether I would enjoy the book. I found the narrator to be a bit flat in her reading. however once the story grabbed me I totally lost track of the narrator and was immersed in the story.

Excellent!

Great story, can't wait for next one to be availabe in audio form. actually have them all in ebook.

Another addiction!

Dammit! I only listened this to pass time. Now I'm hooked like all these other bums! First it was Vaz, and now it's this one.