Kazuhiko, a former government agent, is roped into doing one last job for General Ko, one of the heads of the government. She tells him he must deliver a package, which he soon learns is actually a young girl named Sue. In the first two volumes of Clover, Kazuhiko does his best to take Sue to her destination despite opposition from multiple sources. He gradually learns who Sue is, why people don't want her going free, and how she's connected to him. The third volume of Clover is a flashback to the time when Sue and a beautiful singer named Ora first met, the beginnings of Sue's desire to leave her cage. The fourth volume of Clover is yet another flashback, even further back in time, to the days when Ran escaped his own cage and met Gingetsu, a friend of Kazuhiko's.

Clover's biggest strength was that it was very beautiful. It came across like an art experiment on CLAMP's part - lots of negative space, interesting things done with panel placement and usage, etc. And since this is one of those tragic CLAMP series, there are lots of beautiful people looking sad. A few of them get to be happy for a little bit, but it fades into bittersweetness at best.

Unfortunately, this series is style over clarity. Scenes felt disjointed and didn't always transition in ways I could easily follow. The first couple volumes technically had quite a bit of action in them, but it didn't always feel like action because of the way CLAMP drew things. It was weird, and I struggled to follow everything that was going on. The end of the amusement park portion was especially confusing, and instead of giving me more of that story, volumes 3 and 4 turned out to be flashbacks. The story never returned to its present.

One thing I didn't know until after I started reading was that this series was originally intended to be longer. I don't know why it was halted, but it was, which explains why, after two volumes of flashbacks, the story just...stopped. It was immensely frustrating.

The story had song lyrics repeated frequently throughout, at least two or three different songs. I did my best to pay attention to any lyrics the first time they showed up, but I generally found them difficult to read (in a fancy font, often white text on black backgrounds). Also, song lyrics are just disjointed text to me - I can't even vaguely imagine them put to music unless I've actually heard that music before. After a while, I just skimmed any lyrics that came up, which was probably not what CLAMP was aiming for.

I was left with so many questions. On the one hand, the government acted like Clover power was a simple matter of math (a two-leaf plus a three-leaf would equal five and therefore be too powerful to oppose). On the other hand, it was clear that some Clovers' powers wouldn't be a problem not matter how many of them got together, so it really wasn't just a matter of adding up the total number of leaves. And did people like General Ko technically count as Clovers? The world-building didn't make much sense to me.

All in all, this is one of those series that I'd probably only recommend to CLAMP completists or comics creators. As much as I liked the visuals, the story itself was more difficult to follow than it needed to be and didn't have a proper ending.

Additional Comments:

Supposedly each of the different levels of Clovers got a different tattoo, but the one character who was a one-leaf Clover had a four-leaf tattoo. Was that a mistake on CLAMP's part? It confused me.

Extras:

A few pages of full-color images at the beginning of each volume in the omnibus, as well as a full-color bonus gallery.

Rating Note:

I struggled with rating this. The story is probably more 1.5 stars - it's unfinished, will likely never be finished, and is structured oddly for something that stops at the point it does. The artwork, however, is lovely, more in the 4-star range (the clarity issues make me reluctant to rate it higher).

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Note: Even though this is Book 2, it works just fine as a stand alone.

This was a lot of fun. Set in a near future, G is an enhanced assassin. He’s got cyber enhancements, bio enhancements, perhaps even… uh… personal private enhancements. But he also has a limited shelf life. He was created to be used and then discarded (and his realization of all that is in Book 1 but is summarized for this book in bits and pieces). The International Refugee Society (IRS) is a front for a world-controlling power-hungry gang. They’ve been successful for many years but now things are falling apart and G has enemies coming at him from every corner and perhaps even from within his small circle of allies.

The action never ends for G and Marissa Sanchez (another shady character with hidden motives). Along the way, he picks up James (who he has to convince to come over to his side where they at least have paid vacations). There’s also the AI riding around in G’s head. She has a to-do list as well and not everything on there will jive with what G wants to accomplish.

One of the things I enjoy so much about any Phipps novel is that there is usually a reference to his other works tucked in to the tale. In this novel, the term ‘bioroid’ is used, which is a reference to this Lucifer’s Star series (which is great space opera stuff).  Then there’s the Supervillainy references as well (which is a great superhero/supervillain series). I love that it’s a TV show in G’s world. Ha!

The ladies are just as diverse and deadly as the men in this series, which is a thing I always love finding in spy & cyberpunk stories. One of the big baddies here is Persephone who has been running things from the shadows for some time. Coupled with Dr. Gordon and his black tech from the Karma Corp, G needs to bring his A game if he’s going to survive to the end of the book!

I was glad that we got to see Lucita Biondi again. She was key in Book 1 for bringing down the Carnivale and she’s still a player here, just not as big a part. Being transgender has brought her all kids of grief from her family, but she’s persevered. With a handgun.

The story also has plenty of references to other cyberpunk tales, including the classics. I loved this! I know I didn’t catch them all but it makes me want to go binge a bunch of cyberpunk and then come back to this series with that on my mind. Action and mayhem keep the plot moving forward even as G and others, like the AI, contemplate what it really means to be human.

All told, it’s a great sequel but it also stands well on it’s own. I was never bored with the tale and I like the few moments of seriousness. I look forward to seeing what Agent G does next. 5/5 stars.

The Narration: Jeffrey Kafer is always a treat to listen to and I love his voice for Agent G. It’s perfect. Also, Kafer’s delivery of the humor is so well timed! Kafer’s female character voices are feminine and each character has their own distinct voice. There are no tech issues with the recording. 5/5 stars.

(Original Review, 1985)




Isn't that just the thing? With the digital world, social media and the online life, comes an entirely new kind of creeping, monolithic conformity. When everywhere you go cookies are recording your choices, advertising companies can predict your needs and your boss is your friend on Facebook, you need to be careful about what you download on Kindle. Writers and publishers too are constrained by this social coercion and so we end up with a homogenised world. Writers are only allowed to be creative within strictly policed generic parameters.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

It took me a while to get into this book but I’m glad I stuck with it. I really enjoyed the characters and the main struggle. Glade Io is a pretty standard main character. She’s likable but a bit flawed in her absolute belief in the Authority. Still, I felt it was true to her character that she wouldn’t immediately believe those that oppose the Authority. It’s that struggle (Glade’s ability to parse the truth) that really drew me in.

The Ferrymen of Charon are your standard rebels or resistance. They just want to protect their families and have enough to live a decent life. Coopier inherited the leadership of the Ferrymen when his brother Loose died. The Ferrymen have come up with a plan to take out the Authority, but they need a Data Point and set about kidnapping a few (Glade and Sulia). This is where things finally got interesting for me. Glade’s 16 years of believing in the Authority are challenged by the Ferrymen (how they act & what they show her) and her world begins to crumble a bit.

Back at the Authority, Glade continues to train under Don, her long-term mentor. The story has set up a love triangle and love triangles are not my thing. It rarely works for me and it doesn’t work here. Despite that, I like Don and his own inner struggle – to trust Glade, hold true to the Authority, hate the Ferrymen.

The main premise of the tale is that specially trained people with a very specific personality (a little sociopathy, still maleable, highly intelligent, etc.) can work with specialized tech to read another person’s brainwaves and then snuff them out. Yep. Snuff out hundreds to thousands of people from afar. Planetwide but sometimes from other planets. I couldn’t help but shake my head at this. The writing could have made this a bit more believable but it was real loose and ridiculous.

Also there were small things that just didn’t ring true. The Authority monitors the Data Points during training… yet not during an actual culling? Some of the Data Points take up communicating silently through their tech and yet it’s not a common practice and is apparently unmonitored? Unlikely. Also, Glade is considered rather important and yet they don’t monitor all her movements all the time through her tech? It would be so simple to do…. So because of all these small things like this, I often felt the writing was lazy instead of giving us a story with solid, realistic rules.

On the other hand, the emotions of the characters and how some of them grow throughout the story kept me engaged. Even Sulia, who is a jerk, might have something more going on than just what we see on the surface. Because of the characters, I look forward to Book 2. 4/5 stars.

The Narration: Stacey Glemboski did a great job with this book. She had distinct voices for all the characters and her male voices were believable. I really liked her voice for Coopier’s little brother and for Sulia when she’s being nasty. There’s plenty of tense emotions in this story and Glemboski did a great job portraying them. There were no technical issues with this recording. 5/5 stars.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Ramona Finn. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.