Zero Sum Game
The Cas Russell series, Book 1
S. L. Huang
Tor
Fiction, Action/Humor/Sci-Fi/Thriller
Themes: Cross-Genre, Diversity, Girl Power, Heroes and Supervillains, Mind Powers, Urban Tales
***
Description
Some people are good at math. Some are great at it. And then there's Cas Russell, a woman to whom the whole world is a series of numbers and equations in constant flow around her, enabling her to perform seemingly-superhuman feats. Rather than use her gifts to make a killing in business or at a casino, she instead takes freelance jobs finding things that have been lost... even people. Tracking down Courtney, a wayward girl who got sucked into the clutches of a Colombian drug cartel, is just another day on the job to Cas. But something isn't adding up about this job. Why would drug lords and federal agencies alike take such a particular interest in an unnoteworthy, expendable mule? Why is there an ex-cop PI on her tail almost from the moment they escape the cartel compound, babbling nonsense about secret projects and assassinations and mind control? And who has decided the Cas herself is now a sufficient threat that her contacts are getting killed? Cas may not have many (or any) real friends, and her morals may be generously described as charcoal gray, but that just makes her a very, very bad enemy...
Review
With a snarky bad-ass heroine and action straight from the first page, Zero Sum Game starts on a strong note,
quickly establishing Cas and her abilities (as well as her not-quite-friend Rio, a psychopath who ironically is the only
person she trusts to have her back). It stayed strong through most of its length, until an ending that felt like a
betrayal and letdown of most everything that came before.
In the vein of many a mercenary or bounty hunter, Cas is not a white-hat good girl; the book opens after she's already
killed numerous people breaking into the drug lords' compound outside of Los Angeles, and it's not long before the body
count ticks higher during the escape with Courtney. She is, however, interesting, a compelling character with a nice,
quick-witted voice and an intriguing ability as she uses her beyond-prodigal grasp of mathematics to pick her way through
firefights without a scratch (using formulae to calculate the location of shooters via echos and vectors, figuring out
force and optimal angles of attack in a heartbeat, etc.). If it all stretches credulity a bit, well, it's basically a
superhero plot, and math as a superpower is less implausible than mutation from a radioactive spider bite or other
gimmicks. It isn't long before Cas realizes just how much more there is to this seemingly-routine rescue mission, but it
still takes some convincing before she realizes the truth about the threat: a secret society with an apparent mind
reader who can manipulate people with just a single conversation, driving them to spill secrets, betray friends and
family, even murder or commit suicide, all thinking it's their own idea. For a woman who has always been self-reliant,
who relies on her brain and her calculations, this is a horror beyond anything, the idea that she might not even be able
to trust her own memories or thoughts. Despite her lone-wolf instincts and inherently distrustful nature, she finds
herself picking up a small handful of new allies (who are familiar tropes, but decently done) even before she admits to
herself that this is a threat she cannot compute down to zero without help... and even then, victory may not be a sure
formula. Being around other people forces her to see herself as others see her - making her question her utter disregard
for humans, her casual willingness to resort to lethal force as though lives were just more numbers to impersonally
manipulate - but does not lead to an instant personality shift. She is who she is, for better or worse, but perhaps she
could become a slightly more ethical version of herself, especially when confronted with an enemy whose rationale and
methodology repel her, but which seem disturbingly familiar.
As mentioned, this is a fast-paced book with few lulls, punctuated by periodic snark. A few of the setbacks seemed
avoidable or foreseeable, but overall I was enjoying it... until the ending. Granted, this is just the first book in an
apparently trilogy, but the ending felt like it ripped away Cas's agency and invalidated most of what she and her
companions sacrificed. It was enough to knock a solid star off the rating, and make me uninterested in future adventures
with Cas. Why bother, when the equation just comes to zero in the end?