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

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."

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.

Outstanding

great story can't wait for the next one to come out on audio. love the books, I'm ready for the next one. I read the book first then the audio is a great way to reread them.

an unexpected find

my daughter recommended this and I loved it. the plot moved along well and action was perfect.

Upbeat and fun contemporary science fiction story

I have read all of the Ell Donsaii stories with great enjoyment. This is the first of the series in audio format and hope that the rest are forthcoming. This story is very upbeat, like all of Laurence E. Dahners stories are. It makes for an light hearted escape, and admiration of such a good hearted character. Ell is such a good person and she's off the charts intelligent, brave, forgiving, kind and just the sort of person I hope is out there.

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

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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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.

Strong female lead but....

The prose is workmanlike but plodding. It’s hard to suspend disbelief without some smoother writing. And I happen to know that the min age for the service academies is a law and no exceptions can be made. I tried that once :-/

A short book that is fun but very predictable

To compare Ell to Honor Harrington is misleading at best and an insult at worst. The book reads a lot more like Missy the werecat. The lead is utterly dependant on their supernatural ability and scared to show it at the same time. Enemies are shown mercy to an extent that it endangered those who the heroine is trying to save. Then at the end everybody is happy and having a laugh like the ending of an american feel good tv-show.

All that said, I cannot say that I didn't enjoy the book, the beginning was interesting it just quickly moved on and any trauma from such a childhood was forgotten, but 6 hours doesn't give time for much depth.

If you like your heroine beautiful, clever and generally flawless, the bad guys bad and no worry that anyone you meet in the book will suffer harm then you have it here.

The performance of Shiromi Nassreen is perfect, she brings Ell to life well and also the other characters

some start

a great start to a book series, where's the rest of the ell donsaii story?