Hostile Takeover

By Susan Shwartz

Book Overview

Caroline Cassandra Williams is on the fast track and determined to stay there. A financial analyst in one of the mega-global corporates she's stayed one step ahead of her enemies to keep from losing her place as a valued salaryman - and two steps in front of those colleagues who would grind her down in a nanosecond to reach the next rung of economic freedom. Even though she's clawed her way out of the insulae, where working poor are warehoused, she keeps herself grimly focused with nightmares of losing her job. Or being frozen into a shipsicle and shipped to the Outer Rim as an expendable drudge. Or - worst case - going bankrupt and dying slowly as the authorities harvest her limbs and other body parts.When the multiplanetary company she works for sends CC to audit Vesta Colony to learn why assets keep hemorrhaging away, she knows this is her big chance to make the Ultimate Career Move. Assuming she gets the facts and pins the crooked trades and any other crimes she finds on someone or a bunch of someones she can turn in with a clear conscience, she can go home first class, collect her fiance and a fat bonus, then march down the aisle in a perfectly event-planned wedding into a prosperous-ever-after twin career track. She's already even planned vacations with their children-to-come at the theme parks on Easter Island, the cofferdams surrounding Disney World, and the Gobi Dinosaur Pavilions. If CC succeeds, she's set for the rest of her life.But Vesta turns out to be unlike anything CC has ever seen, and the deeper she delves, the more twisted things get until her life - not to mention her career - hangs in the balance. As plots expose more plots, CC finds herself confronting not just possible insider trading and fraud, but attempted murder. Who's at fault? She's got a colony of suspects, including old friends, old rivals and a dashing EarthServ pilot who knows a whole lot more about CC and her worlds than he's letting on and shows signs of being able to shake them - and her will-power - any time he wants.Someone among the analysts, traders, EarthServ, and retired diplomats CC meets is hatching a deadly merger with the potential not just to crash the Solar System's economy, but wipe out humankind. Will CC find out in time - or will the takeover she fears turn not just hostile, but deadly?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765304619
• ISBN13: 9780765304612
• Release Date: December 2004
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.2" x 5.4"

Customer Reviews

Hostile Takeover

I *LIKE* this book! I like reading books about people making or handling huge sums of money. (Ugly Americans by Ben Mezrich comes to mind.) I like books in which the protagonist wins against bad odds. Shwartz has created an interesting world in which one must move deftly through social/business situations in which missing the slightest nuance of speech, look, or body language can screw up one's permanent record, and it doesn't take much to lose big and have one's body sold for parts. The extrapolation of today's corporate culture saddled with today's liberal, politically-correct speech censorship carried to its extreme make an interesting venue in which to live and work. I did find this similar to Heinlein with a touch of EE Doc Smith's space opera. Schwartz made one short reference to CC's thought patterns which reminded me of both Horatio Hornblower pacing the ship's deck for hours and Van Gulik's Judge Dee angrily pacing the room while forming a plan of action: "... she'd always tried to imagine tricky situations and how she'd deal with them." I hope Schwartz brings CC back to show what the aliens have been teaching her since she and Marc went off with them.

Seriously Enjoyed it!

I don't get why others would dislike the protagonist. She's great. The universe is interesting and I am looking forward to more stories from it.

A Different Kind of Space Adventure!

Susan Shwartz's Hostile Takeover was an engrossing read. CC Williams was a different kind of character, and it was refreshing to read a space adventure with such a unique twist. In this novel, fledgling corporate auditor CC Williams is assigned to audit the business activities on the asteroid Vesta. The details about what it would really be liked to travel in space, and live on a micro-gravity asteroid showed a lot of research and thought, and gave this book a really fresh perspective. The plot was full of intrigue, and kept me guessing (which is hard!) and I applaud Ms. Shwartz for writing a hard s.f. novel with plenty of heart and excellent characterizations. I recommend this book to all who like a rousing adventure in space that has a really unique point of view of the future of space travel. -A.C. Crispin [...]