Psion Beta (Psion series #1) Paperback – March 10, 2012

Psion Beta has a solid and compelling beginning. Futuristic Sci-Fi is among my top 10 favorite genre's, and right out of the shoot, you are sucked into the story. After a while, the bickering and language started to get to me, but then there was a major turn in the story and the "plot thickened". You get to know the boy as "Brains" from the start. Sammy is 14, and has been living in an abandoned grocery store with a small band of other boys for several months. To wile away the time, they play war games - setting up teams and trying to take each other out. Sammy is a bit of a show off, and fiercely independent. It was his ingenuity that allowed him and his friends to escape the home for boys where they lived, or more realistically, were held as a sort of prison for children who were troublemakers or unwanted, called "The Grinder".As the story progresses, you learn that Sammy wasn't always a fugitive street brat. Until quite recently, he had lived as an only child of two loving parents in a nice home. Sammy's story is a sub plot that slowly unfolds through the book, and helps make sense of Sammy's attitude.On this day, Sammy was winning the game, until one of his buddies caught him off guard and Sammy fell from the ceiling. But as he fell, something strange happened, but no one seemed to believe him. The event is lost with the arrival of pizza ... stolen pizza. The boys were hungry, and the unguarded boxes had proved too much of a temptation ... of course this quickly leads to the police, or Shocks, finding their hide out.Sammy is the main character, and he is one you just want to shake some sense into ... quite often. He has a knack for getting onto the bad side of most people, but once he has decided to call you a friend, he is also deeply loyal. He doesn't trust easily, and he is super smart. While trying to escape the Shocks, Sammy does something that is unexpected, and earns him the notice of a special group of people - the elite.In the second chapter, Feet and Sammy hide out in a church, helped by an old man named Amos. While they are sleeping, they are discovered, and in spite of Sammy's best efforts, they are captured. But Sammy is not returned to the Grinder as expected - instead he arrives at a special school for a handful of teens that have a genetic anomaly that give them "super powers". Sammy is given a chance to go back to school, it turns out to be somewhat of a military school.Queue the gorgeous girl, unlikely side kick room mate, the father figure general in charge who has something to hide, and several hot heads of competition who hate being beat by a young upstart who doesn't know how to be a team player ... and you pretty much have the bulk of the second part of the story.There are many parts of this book that I really enjoyed, especially watching Sammy "grow up" and learn to love and trust again. There are several characters that are reasonably well developed for being an action adventure book. While the plot is the driving force, with enough surprises to keep the pages turning by themselves, especially in the beginning and ending thirds of the book. This part of the book is slightly less about plot, and more about setting the stage and developing a working relationship between some of the characters.On the other hand, there are many secrets revealed in this section. Sammy's background, and how he went from loving protected son to a wanted fugitive in a year. Who are these special force group and what do they do? The government is nothing like Sammy had been taught existed, and there are those who poses another genetic anomaly that turns them into something of a super zombie like fighter, they feel little to no pain, have nearly limitless reserves of power and strength, heightened senses, and incredibly fast reflexes. They also hunt in a pack. Everything that they are doing in the school and their war and fighting exercises, is to prepare them to fight these people.Sammy excels, and during the third part of the book, he is invited on a special mission that is suppose to be in and out fast without even a tiny bit of danger ... and then things go very wrong, and instead, the kids are fighting for their lives.While this is not my style of book, too much fighting and bloodshed and body parts, I found it very difficult to put down most of the time. It isn't a short book, at nearly 400 pages, but I found myself drawn in and loosing an hour or two without noticing on many occasions, and then I finished the book in a "stay up all night" stint after the 3rd day. If not for the violence, I would have really enjoyed it. I especially liked the way Sammy grew up during the story.The end leaves the story dangling, so I did pull up the second book, Psion Gamma, to read the previews and reviews and was somewhat disappointed in the direction it seemed to take there. A third book, Psion Delta, is currently being written.There are some formatting issues for the Kindle, as well as a few odd sounding turn of words and editing issues. For those who edit books while they read, this may be quite distracting. Many of the reviews commented that it was a similar story to "Ender Games", which I have not read.

Kiddo loves this one

I really enjoyed this new series. The book is about Sammy who is found to have Psion (psychic) powers. He starts out in the first chapters as a runaway child (14 years old) and is captured by the world government to help in the fight against people out to destroy peace. That wraps up the first few chapters. The main focus of the book is on Sammy attending school with other Psions, learning to get along with them as well as learn lessons and battle skills.The book is very "full speed ahead" and I wasn't bored by any slow pacing. And it wasn't so hectic that it annoyed me.... just a great story that kept me completely engaged (until I finished it at 2:30am this morning and am still tired from the late night!). I liked the characters and found them somewhat believeable. It did seem a bit like Sammy behaved more like a 16-year old rather than a 14 year old. But that is a fairly minor quibble. The grammar and editing are fine with no obvious typos or issues you sometimes get with independent authors. You do need to read the summary to figure out what is happening in the early chapters. I started reading the book without reading the summary (I had gotten it a while ago and just came across it and decided to read it). I was a bit lost in the first chapter as to what was going on (he is playing a "fight" game with his friends). I had to stop and read the book description to get a better sense of what was happening. Other than that, it is fairly straight-forward to understand this different/future version of Earth. The author doesn't bog you down in over-explanations but you don't feel lost either. From the context, you can figure out much of what things refer to (e.g. a "shocker" seems similar to a stun gun, "Shocks" are like the police and the "Grinder" sounds like a junvenile detention facility).One issue I had with the book was that it seemed that everything came too easy to Sammy once he got to the Psion facility. Sammy is almost a "Mary Sue" type of character where he lacks any types of flaws, always wins at everything and everything goes his way. I kept rooting for his little friend Brickert to kick some butt or have have something that he could beat Sammy at! The other minor issue with the book is that it ends with a BIG cliffhanger. You really do have to read the sequel to see what happens next. I always feel that this is a bit of a "trick" by the author to get you to buy the next book. A series can be a good series without the big cliffhanger (think of Harry Potter and how Voldemort was a common thread throughout each one but each book nicely resolved the issue at hand). I did enjoy the book enough to buy the sequel but the big cliffhanger ending does reduce the book rating a little bit for me.This book would be appropriate for adults or more mature teens. There is quite a bit of violence described in the book which may be too graphic for younger kids (for example, at one point, Sammy describes cutting off the finger of a bad guy to use the finger to activate the guy's gun). There are also a lot of descriptions of guns, battle situations, killing "holographic" enemies (but with realistic blood), etc.

Although I do not like serials and this ends on a cliff hanger, and would not have bought it had I realised it was a series. However I am glad I did. I don’t know if the author got his inspiration from Orson Scott Card’s book “Ender’s Game” but the first 80% follows a very similar plot although after this it takes a very different turn.Having read Ender’s game I kept knowing basically what was going to happen next and I will still buy the next in the serial, although I still do not like books that finish in the to be continued mode.I liked all of the characters and they worked well together the “games” did come over as very descriptive. At the end there is a sense of real danger.

Not to bad a start, there is nothing that will keep you reading all night but enjoyable enough to pass an hour away on an evening.

A really interesting and well written series of books.

Good series recommend to people who like Marvel and DC universes.

I don't know about you, but so often I feel let down when I buy a 'cheap' kindle book by an unknown author. Poor English, massive amounts of typos, massive plot holes, etc. Thankfully none of that is here.Set in the near(ish) future it's a World not as we know it, with twin dueling Governments fighting a hidden war via operatives. We get introduced to one of them, who, like the others, has powers through genetic anomalies.It's a well thought out vision of the future, and very well delivered. It focuses on life in training to be an operative, but you get enough glimpses of the outside world to know there is an over arching theme going on.Well written, believable characters, interesting concepts - I wouldn't hesitate in recommending this to anyone. I'm off to buy the 2nd book in the series now...